Author Topic: Wikipedia cleanup (Read 16434 times)

Dbacksfan12 · « **on:** March 11, 2006, 02:39:32 AM »

I know a handful of us (Travis Eberle, Chris Lambert, and Steve Gavazzi) offhand edit Wikipedia articles. Would it be worth it for some of us, as a group, to revise some of these articles, cleaning up grammar headaches, and inaccuracies (from whom I assume are many, many GSN posters)? Or, is it not worth the time, seeing as Wikipedia can be edited by many?

clemon79 · « **Reply #1 on:** March 11, 2006, 04:02:34 AM »

[quote name=\'Modor\' date=\'Mar 10 2006, 11:39 PM\']I know a handful of us (Travis Eberle, Chris Lambert, and Steve Gavazzi) offhand edit Wikipedia articles. Would it be worth it for some of us, as a group, to revise some of these articles, cleaning up grammar headaches, and inaccuracies (from whom I assume are many, many GSN posters)? Or, is it not worth the time, seeing as Wikipedia can be edited by many?

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I fix stuff on those rare times when I come across them, but there is no way I'm gonna watch every Wikipedia article on game shows for idiocy. I already see far too much of it here.

TLEberle · « **Reply #2 on:** March 11, 2006, 04:06:47 AM »

If I were actually looking up an article (usually to see if an article exists) and there's a grave error or hideous grammar, I'll fix it. But I've gotten to the point where I don't bother anymore. After seeing edit lists where the editor is a known numbskull, what's the point? They'll just 'fix' it again, back to where it was unreadable, clunky, misspelled, taken wholly from other websites, or worst of all, dead wrong.

When Wikipedia has a dedicated group of editors, and only they can make changes, I would inquire as to how I might join that group. So far, the wiki concept only proves that the internet is overfull with stupid people.

/but we knew that already.

clemon79 · « **Reply #3 on:** March 11, 2006, 04:37:13 AM »

[quote name=\'TLEberle\' date=\'Mar 11 2006, 01:06 AM\']When Wikipedia has a dedicated group of editors, and only they can make changes, I would inquire as to how I might join that group. So far, the wiki concept only proves that the internet is overfull with stupid people.
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Oh, that I disagree with. I think the Wikipedia concept absolutely works, and several studies I have read all seem to agree that Wikipedia is in a lot of cases just as accurate as a print encyclopedia, and almost always more current.

(To wit, there was stuff there about the upcoming CW network the day it happened. And it was all right, at least to the point of what everyone knew about it at the time. And I notice now the article has been updated to reflect the announcement last week that Charmed has been canned and won't be making the trip over.)

You'll never see an elite editorial group as you describe, because that simply isn't part of the social experiment.

I just think that there's no reason to form a sort of "posse" to crawl over Wiki articles looking for errors. It's just not worth the stress and headaches. I'll fix 'em as I find them, when I am 100% sure they need fixing.

vtown7 · « **Reply #4 on:** March 11, 2006, 09:09:37 AM »

I tried to edit something once. For some reason, in the TPIR article, "Pat Robertson" was in the place of "Bob Barker" in the article, and I started correcting it and then left it.

The next time I went back, there was a snarky email saying "Don't touch the article".

I don't bother anymore... maybe after I get 73 other things done I'll write one for Fun House. Maybe.

Ryan

JasonA1 · « **Reply #5 on:** March 11, 2006, 10:57:48 AM »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Dare - at this page, there's a bizarre rundown of cast from a version started in 2002 with MadTV stars as the assistants...and you get the idea. One editor is persisting a bunch of blatant lies such as "Rod Roddy announced the pilot of 'Finders Keepers"" and "Gary Kroeger did pilots for 'Make the Grade'" - even going so far as to add them to their individual pages.

-Jason

Chief-O · « **Reply #6 on:** March 11, 2006, 11:33:12 AM »

[quote name=\'JasonA1\' date=\'Mar 11 2006, 10:57 AM\']One editor is persisting a bunch of blatant lies such as "Rod Roddy announced the pilot of 'Finders Keepers"" and "Gary Kroeger did pilots for 'Make the Grade'"

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The Nick game show articles seem to be a hotbed of false info. Example: Someone thinks there was a local version of Make the Grade........or that Finders Keepers taped at Television City, or "Think Fast" taped at the SF Fox station........I've tried changing them, only for them to be changed back.

Don Howard · « **Reply #7 on:** March 11, 2006, 11:46:12 AM »

[quote name=\'Chief-O\' date=\'Mar 11 2006, 11:33 AM\']I've tried changing them, only for them to be changed back.

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So, hypothetically, I could saunter into Wiki World, declare that Don Howard was the host of Let's Play Post Office and if someone came along and subsituted the emcee's name with Don Morrow, I could go back and re-change it to me and the endless cycle could go on into infinity.

Chief-O · « **Reply #8 on:** March 11, 2006, 11:57:33 AM »

[quote name=\'Don Howard\' date=\'Mar 11 2006, 11:46 AM\']So, hypothetically, I could saunter into Wiki World, declare that Don Howard was the host of Let's Play Post Office and if someone came along and subsituted the emcee's name with Don Morrow, I could go back and re-change it to me and the endless cycle could go on into infinity.

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Sadly, that is possible-----one of Wikipedia's major downfalls. Just don't do it...

Robert Hutchinson · « **Reply #9 on:** March 11, 2006, 01:22:04 PM »

One of Wikipedia's biggest problems is indeed people posting bits of false information on niche subjects like game shows. If the person doing it is at all "established" as an editor, and anyone else who happens to notice it is not, it will almost certainly not get corrected for good without a letter signed by Mark Goodson, Bill Cullen, and God.

Really, if you're ever looking for a reason to get extremely misanthropic, check out most any "Vote for Deletion" or the like over there. I use Wikipedia constantly, but I laugh at any pretension that it trumps the foibles of anonymous people on the Internet.

Jimmy Owen · « **Reply #10 on:** March 11, 2006, 01:59:09 PM »

Wikipedia is like a wall of graffiti. You never know when someone will spray paint over your hard work. After all that trouble, the owner of the building may decide to tear it down.

clemon79 · « **Reply #11 on:** March 11, 2006, 02:29:19 PM »

[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' date=\'Mar 11 2006, 10:22 AM\']Really, if you're ever looking for a reason to get extremely misanthropic, check out most any "Vote for Deletion" or the like over there. I use Wikipedia constantly, but I laugh at any pretension that it trumps the foibles of anonymous people on the Internet.

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I am going to suggest that it's better for some topics than for others. I found some very good and interesting information when I was looking up stuff on the history of Australia and their television industry. There are, amazingly, some groups who do feel more of an ownership and pride in the information contained in Wiki than others.

That said, take a look at some of the people we've had come through here, the folks who posted on ATGS, who post on Golden Road, who post on the GSN site, and you'll likely agree with me that our niche interest is not one of those groups.

(Which is not to say that Wiki doesn't have some good game-show articles, or to discount the work of the clueful folks here who have made correct edits. But knowing there are idiots like Musicman and Adam Kleist out there does not make me want to scoop up their WikiCrap. It was annoying enough here.)

calliaume · « **Reply #12 on:** March 11, 2006, 03:57:44 PM »

I should point out that, while Wikipedia occasionally has accurate articles edited by idiots who put in inaccuracies, that's what also happens in the three-dimensional world. I was the proofreader/copyeditor on a pop culture book on the 1980s a few years back, and made a number of factual corrections, citing sources each time -- all of which were changed back by the author, insisting the sources were all wrong. So don't trust everything you read, either in printed form on on line, seems the lesson here.

On the other hand, here's an interesting notation under the Card Sharks entry:

Jim Perry was at one time considered as host for the 1986 revival of Card Sharks, and in fact was given permission by NBC to host it (which would have had Perry host three different game shows including Canada's Definition and both the daytime and nighttime versions of Sale of the Century), but Perry elected not to host.

This is one time I'd like to see a source. I find this sort of information highly suspect -- especially given Card Sharks and Sale ran against one another at the time.

comicus · « **Reply #13 on:** March 11, 2006, 04:40:52 PM »

Take whatever you read on Wikipedia with a grain of salt. But bear in mind that much of the vandalism that takes place over there is politically and ideologically motivated. An article about, say, Cindy Sheehan, or Ann Coulter, is much more subject to scurrilous, unwanted edits than articles about Celebrity Sweepstakes or Finders Keepers. I say if you're concerned enough, start your own Wiki.

clemon79 · « **Reply #14 on:** March 11, 2006, 05:21:35 PM »

[quote name=\'CountdownRound\' date=\'Mar 11 2006, 01:40 PM\']An article about, say, Cindy Sheehan, or Ann Coulter, is much more subject to scurrilous, unwanted edits than articles about Celebrity Sweepstakes or Finders Keepers. I say if you're concerned enough, start your own Wiki.

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That said, the last two articles I corrected were otherwise completely innocuous ones (one was about a rapper, I think, the other about Japanese baseball) that had some kind of parenthetical comment about their superiority.

Basically, if the subject of a Wikipedia article is something that can have "fans", then you can be sure that one of those fans is an idiot that will crap all over the article.