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Post 0

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 2:20pmSanction this postReply
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I've found Wikipedia to be an excellent resource.  We should recruit Mr. Wales for discussions on this website...

Post 1

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 2:34pmSanction this postReply
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There's one aspect of the Wikipedia that I've never understood. If anyone can edit it, then isn't it likely to be full of largely incorrect information? I can't see what the value of such a concept is.



Post 2

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 2:50pmSanction this postReply
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Mark,

I've helped work on a few Wikipedia articles - yes a few trolls and/or nutters do cause trouble from time to time, but the vast majority of contributors take it seriously and the system allows us to revert any article to a previous version, effectively deleting the unwanted changes. I did get into the workings of the system a little when I did the SOLO Objectipedia entry here on Jimmy Wales if you'd like to take a look at that :-)

MH


Post 3

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 3:16pmSanction this postReply
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Wikipedia is the best encyclopedia online. Thanks to spontaneous order.

Of course, a centrally managed encyclopedia is not the same as a State, but we can learn quite a bit about the world from the wonderful and wonderfully anarchistic nature of Wikipedia.

Post 4

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 3:37pmSanction this postReply
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Matthew,
I didn't see in Mark's post any reference to trolls and nutters ... I interpret him to be asking how one can rely on the accuracy and cogency of articles that are produced, in many cases by people of unknown or potentially dubious qualifications. What helps to ensure (as the free market does, for example) that quality over time will be improved rather than simply changed?

Question for Joe: How has it 'changed the way the internet works'? That's rather a broad claim for an on-line encyclopedia, no matter how different its methods may be.

(Edited by Jeff Perren on 6/01, 3:43pm)


Post 5

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 4:06pmSanction this postReply
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Jeff and Mark,

Sorry for any misinterpretation on my part. My reference to trolls and nutters was to people deliberately editing articles to add inaccurate information.

At the end of the day, how do you know that any given encyclopedia is accurate? My sense is that Wikipeida articles are generally reliable because most of the people who care enough about a particular subject to contribute to an article tend to know a fair bit about that particular subject. You will often find that Wikipedia articles actually have links to external articles and list sources of further information, so it's not all that difficult to verify anything dubious.

MH


Post 6

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 4:06pmSanction this postReply
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Having worked in the internet industry for over 8 years, I've seen the phrase "change the way [X] works" countless times - it's rarely the case. Wikipedia is cool, but not paradigm altering, in my opinion. Like other posters, I have trouble accepting the accuracy of articles on Wikipedia. Maybe over time I'll grow more confident, but the times I've used it I treat like any other blog - just one person's opinion.
(Edited by Jordan Zimmerman on 6/01, 4:07pm)


Post 7

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 4:13pmSanction this postReply
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I've looked up some controversial stuff in Wikipedia, and they seem to do a fairer job than the standard encyclopedias.

Post 8

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 4:44pmSanction this postReply
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Matthew,
I find the idea behind it intriguing and am optimistic for its future, but remain skeptical for now. (I've noticed a tendency on SOLO to link to it as some sort of authoritative source, which it most definitely is not.)

'At the end of the day', you have to use your own judgement based on experience and other sources, but other sources (such Encyclopedia Brittanica and others) :
a) have been in business a very long time -- bogus information would tend to be weeded out (Note: tend to, no guarantees)
b) are (usually) written by experts in the field who gained their expert status by acquisition of degrees, years of research experience, publications in peer reviewed journals, significant awards (Nobel prizes and such), etc.

I wish Wiki well, but am in 'wait and see' mode.

(Edited by Jeff Perren on 6/01, 4:47pm)


Post 9

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 4:48pmSanction this postReply
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Do you question the accuracy of Wikipedia?  Select a specific topic that you know in depth, and look it up on there.  Tell us if you think the Wikipedia entry is accurate or not.  I've personally found it to be reliable. 

Post 10

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 5:45pmSanction this postReply
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I've checked some stuff, and it looked good. Of course, there is no guarantee.

I read an interesting write-up on it once, where it profiled a specific set of material that was contributed by someone who, though a so-called "amateur," was nonetheless a de facto expert on this one (I think) artist. The material is supposedly quite authoritative.

Jeff - I understand your POV and it has merit. But I think the flip side is that there are probably thousands (? just a guess) of people who could probably qualify for a PhD in various subjects, and they are willing to contribute their knowledge on that subject. I wouldn't be surprised if a good percentage of the articles are actually contributed by PhD's who are still early in their career.

Time will tell, but one argument that is put forth is that because it is dynamic and self-correcting, it could prove to be more accurate than traditional dead tree tomes.

Post 11

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - 7:44pmSanction this postReply
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Wikipedia's model works well on most topics. I suppose this is because people with correct information will be more likely to correct a sloppily written mistaken entry than for sloppy people to go out of their way to un-correct factual info. The problem isn't so much sloppiness and errors, but real intentional disagreement between factions.

There have, for example, been pissing contests on terms where fans/critics or just people with disparate definitions would keep changing or deleting the material each other posted. Looking at it now, the Objectivists appear to have fought back as the 'Objectivist philosophy' entry has at times been dominated by negative critiques, but is now more balanced. In another area, it looks like the left-anarchists have now completely kicked out the market anarchists from 'anarchism'. These may be quite different in another week or month.


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Post 12

Monday, July 7, 2008 - 1:49pmSanction this postReply
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It's changed the way the internet works, and companies around the world are adopting similar mechanisms for their own use.
I'd actually call that an understatement.  The mass of information, its accuracy, the ease of access and the fact that it's available to nearly every corner of globe means it would be better described as an exponential leap forward for access to knowledge.  I believe that with every child acquiring a laptop (not far into the future) it will have a major impact on education.

I was initially very sceptical and had my own rather dour estimates as to how slowly it would grow, how incomplete it would be, and how inaccurate it would be - "Why is anyone going to waste their time doing this?" 

I was just plain wrong and massively so - except about the accuracy where there is controversy.

Here are some of the statistics  I pulled from their home page:
Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference Web sites, attracting at least 684 million visitors yearly by 2008. There are more than 75,000 active contributors working on more than 10,000,000 articles in more than 250 languages. As of today, there are 2,445,184 articles in English; every day hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world make tens of thousands of edits and create thousands of new articles to enhance the knowledge held by the Wikipedia encyclopedia.
And from their statistics sections:
At a rate of six hundred words a minute, twenty four hours a day, a person could read nearly twenty seven million words in a month. In the month of July 2006, Wikipedia grew by over thirty million words. In other words, a sleepless fast reader could never catch up with Wikipedia's new content. Reading the current incarnation at that rate would take over two years, and by the time they were done, so much would have changed with the parts they had already read that they would have to start over.
The English Wikipedia alone has over 1 billion words, over 25 times as many as the next largest English-language encyclopedia, Encyclopędia Britannica, and more than the enormous 119-volume Spanish-language Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana.
Aaron mentions "...pissing contests on terms where fans/critics or just people with disparate definitions would keep changing or deleting the material each other posted."  And that is certainly the case.  The severe bias that exists in areas of controversy is Wikipedia's major flaw. 

I've grown to love Wikipedia and it is a permanant link in the top of my browser.  But any, and I mean any subject that can generate controversy, that could even remotely support opposing factions will sometimes have awful information or be in a state of chaos.  I always scan through the information on the discussion page for any article (click the "Discussion" tab at the top of an article).

For example, a long time back I found an article on "All Property is Theft" - I added a small criticism section at the bottom quoting from Branden's paper on the fallacy of the stolen concept.  An edit war broke out between me and the Proudhon fans, and those who are antagonistic towards either Objectivism or Branden or to nearly any form of property rights.  Finally a compromise was reached where they left the criticism section in, but added a paragraph of their own under the quote from Branden (saying why they didn't agree).  It has been many months since that was all 'resolved'.

I went back a few minutes ago, and the article has evolved and the criticism section removed.  And on the "Discussion" page someone explicitly stated that there shouldn't be any Objectivist point-of-view in the article.  (I put it back in - it is never ending).

Always check the "Discussion" page (click the tab marked "Discussion" up near the top) - you can quickly scan the disagreements/comments and see if they represent major differences in position - or minor editing differences and it gives you a feel for the quality of the people at work on that article and their views.

-------- If you want a quick look at this particular page as an example, the links are below ----------------

The article (in whatever its current state) is here.  On the Discussion page, you can see the little war on the criticism section if you scroll towards the bottom.  And every single change to an article is kept in a database and can be accessed via the "History" tab (make sure you are on the "Article" itself, before you click "History" unless you want to look at the history of the discussion page).


Post 13

Monday, July 7, 2008 - 5:56pmSanction this postReply
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Put Your Hand Out The Window.

Wikipedia is a great resource. As with google and youtube, once you have it, it is hard to imagine living without it in some form. I understand how annoying the edit issue can be. You simply have to walk away. You can not convince everyone, and it is not your duty to do so. The important question is, is there an article on the stolen concept ?

The way to address the authority of the site is to use it as a memory prompt and a source for further research. If you know something about the subject, using the site to help recall things to mind is wonderful. Once you have read an article you can research it further all you want until you are satisfied of the validity of the information you have.

This is no different from usual operating procedure. If I hear something on TV or read it in a newspaper editorial I can always check other sources of information. On wikipedia this is actually easier to do, since the hyperlinks are often just there. Of course, as Crichton demonstrates in State of Fear you can always fake up graphs and statistics and put up a webpage trail to "document" whatever you like. Then the question becomes one of coherence. Does what you are reading mesh with the rest of your experience? Does the trail lead in a robust outward-branching structure, or in a self-swallowing circle? Everything is contextual and everything is finite. The level of certainty you need depends upon the use to which you are going to put the information. If I want to know the weather, I put my hand out the window.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 7/07, 11:27pm)


Post 14

Monday, July 7, 2008 - 9:40pmSanction this postReply
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Ted, excellent points:
  • Particularly the paragraph on Wikipedia as a memory prompt - it's often my starting point, but rarely my last stop. 
  • I learned the hard way to walk away from the edit wars - too much time down the drain. 
To answer your question, there is no article on the Stolen Concept by itself.  There should be.  But there is an article on Objectivist Epistemology and it has a few sentences on the stolen concept.  And, a little over a year ago I stumbled across an article titled "Self-refuting Ideas" and added a section on the stolen concept.  (There was a fairly brief edit war, some Proudhon fans insisted on adding some 'clarifications' and apart from that it's remained largely unchanged.)

There is this cartoon of a guy typing away in front of computer.  You see the voice-bubble where his wife asks, "Aren't you coming to bed?"  He says, "I can't.  This is really important."  She asks, "What is?"  He answers, "Someone on the Internet is wrong!"


Post 15

Monday, July 7, 2008 - 11:37pmSanction this postReply
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I have done some spelling and grammar edits before. (Who will edit back in a misspelling?) On following your link I saw that "Objectivists define the fallacy of the stolen concept which consists of the act of..." should be edited to "Objectivists define the fallacy of the stolen concept as the act of..." but my IP address is blocked! I haven't ever done an edit from my home account. I am glad to see the mention there, and I did see the article on Objectivist Epistemology. That one needs a lot of work...

You made some good points, Steve, which is why I sanctioned you and posted afterwards.

Post 16

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 - 2:42amSanction this postReply
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Ted,

Thank you for the kind words and the sanction. 

About your being IP address being blocked:  There are times when so many small but malicious edits come from a group of related IP addresses (like high school or college computer labs) that they filter against a range or block of IP addresses - not just individual ones.  And it often has that unintended consequence.  At least that's my feeble understanding of hardware and network issues as they might apply here.  If you register and try under that Log-in ID, instead of as an anonymous user or any Log-in ID you used elsewhere it might get you past a group-IP block. 

Otherwise you need to let a Wikipedia admin know that you need your home IP address unblocked.

I would go in and make the grammar change myself (it's much cleaner language) but often my act of editing, even if just correcting a spelling error, will wake up those that came to see me as the evil Rand-roid who has to be taught a lesson.  (Users can keep 'alerts' attached to any article (or user) so they will be notified of edits.  I put both articles on my 'watch' list.  I'll wait till someone makes an improper change to that section, and then I can revert their change and edit in your new language.  (This is in the Self Refuting Idea article which I haven't touched since the end of the edit wars.  The Property is Theft article the wording doesn't require that change.)


Post 17

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 - 7:33amSanction this postReply
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There is this cartoon of a guy typing away in front of computer.  You see the voice-bubble where his wife asks, "Aren't you coming to bed?"  He says, "I can't.  This is really important."  She asks, "What is?"  He answers, "Someone on the Internet is wrong!"



Heh heh - good one.........;-)


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Post 18

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 - 10:32amSanction this postReply
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Post 19

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 - 12:40pmSanction this postReply
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I have been blocked because an abusive user used my IP. Of course, I use the largest broadband provider in NYC...

I can't sign in under my original username - guess inactive too long - and can't register a new username since my IP is blocked...

Step away...

(Edited by Ted Keer on 7/08, 2:43pm)


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