Wikipedia cleanup

[ChuckNet]

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.

They look fine as of this posting...I also added that MtG factoid about the taped opening shot and no live audience during the 1st season.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[beatlefreak84]

What I've found interesting, particularly, is Wikipedia will even admit its own shortcomings (most of them, at least) when discussing why it's a great site to use.  It seems that, the more scientific something is, the less likely it will be for the article to be incorrect; I've found the math articles to be very useful, for example.

That said, yeah; once I read the premise for the site, I immediately thought of somebody getting the "I'm right; you're wrong" attitude, and, as a result, an article will always be wrong.  On the other hand, though, unless the person "correcting" the article has no life outside of keeping his/her name on the article, I don't see the inaccuracies staying up forever.  Then again, people have been obsessed over stranger things....

Out of curiosity, has anyone here ever authored a Wiki article?  If you have, have you ever had someone very adamantly try to "correct" your article, and you always have to go back and fix it?  I could definitely see that getting annoying in a hurry....

ObGameShows:  A lot of game shows gave away a set of encyclopedias as a consolation prize...

Anthony

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'beatlefreak84\' date=\'Mar 11 2006, 02:36 PM\']Out of curiosity, has anyone here ever authored a Wiki article?  If you have, have you ever had someone very adamantly try to "correct" your article, and you always have to go back and fix it?
[/quote]
This is the reason you will never see me write an article on Wikipedia that contains information that anyone might THINK about correcting.

Two things would help Wikipedia, but I understand why they will never happen:

1) If you wanna make an edit, you should have to have an account. And they need to verify those accounts for, well, accountability. But, again, that isn't a part of the social experiment.

2) There should be a dispute system, so if you DO still get some asshat "incorrecting" your article, you can get some kind of mediation involved to make them cut it the hell out. But I can see where THAT would create a massive headache, along with the social experiment implications. Hell, we have enough problems keeping that down here.

(And, as I have said, Wikipedia's already pretty good, for the most part. But this is what is standing between where they are now and taking the mantle of being THE world-class irrefutable, citable research source. But that may not be their goal, either. I can see them being more interested in proving the social point, and that's perfectly fine too.)

[Don Howard]

[quote name=\'calliaume\' date=\'Mar 11 2006, 03:57 PM\']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.

[snapback]112499[/snapback]

[/quote]
The only consideration I could see him getting would be for the Fall 1986 syndicated premiere. Since the word wasn't granted soon enough as to whether or not the off-network $ale of the Century would be granted another season, the Goodson company snatched up Bill Rafferty so they could get an official announcement and production started.

[Steve Gavazzi]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Mar 11 2006, 05:53 PM\']Two things would help Wikipedia, but I understand why they will never happen:

1) If you wanna make an edit, you should have to have an account. And they need to verify those accounts for, well, accountability. But, again, that isn't a part of the social experiment.

2) There should be a dispute system, so if you DO still get some asshat "incorrecting" your article, you can get some kind of mediation involved to make them cut it the hell out. But I can see where THAT would create a massive headache, along with the social experiment implications. Hell, we have enough problems keeping that down here.

[snapback]112507[/snapback]

[/quote]

Actually, from what I've seen, they do have the second of those two items.  It seems to take a lot of back and forth to get to the point where someone decides it's necessary, but it is there.

[Jimmy Owen]

[quote name=\'Don Howard\' date=\'Mar 11 2006, 06:17 PM\'][quote name=\'calliaume\' date=\'Mar 11 2006, 03:57 PM\']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.

[snapback]112499[/snapback]

[/quote]
The only consideration I could see him getting would be for the Fall 1986 syndicated premiere. Since the word wasn't granted soon enough as to whether or not the off-network $ale of the Century would be granted another season, the Goodson company snatched up Bill Rafferty so they could get an official announcement and production started.

[snapback]112508[/snapback]

[/quote]

Trade ads for Rafferty's version (with his picture) were out in early 86 for the NATPE convention and $ale was angling for a third season pickup at the same time, so Jim was not available.  

There was a golden moment in New York City, though, that you could see Jim Perry on $ale and Card Sharks at the same time.  In NYC in the summer of 83 you could see Jim hosting $ale at 10:30am on WNBC and repeats of Jim's Card Sharks on WABC. (The ones with the "This program is no longer in production..." super over the contestant and survey calls.) Two out of three O&Os were airing Jim Perry at 10:30, over on WCBS it was Bill Cullen and Child's Play.

[Robert Hutchinson]

[quote name=\'beatlefreak84\' date=\'Mar 11 2006, 05:36 PM\']Out of curiosity, has anyone here ever authored a Wiki article?  If you have, have you ever had someone very adamantly try to "correct" your article, and you always have to go back and fix it?  I could definitely see that getting annoying in a hurry...[/quote]

Not me, but to bring up an example in another "niche community" (webcomics), there was a big mess with someone going through and nominating articles for deletion by the handfuls, using very flawed justifications. Someone read a discussion about it elsewhere, popped over to Wikipedia--and discovered that several articles he had put a decent amount of time into writing and editing were completely gone. There was no way for him to know about their deletion when it happened, short of monitoring their continued existence every few days.

That sucked, I think.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' date=\'Mar 11 2006, 05:07 PM\']there was a big mess with someone going through and nominating articles for deletion by the handfuls, using very flawed justifications.
[/quote]
I'm curious...what were some of the justifications, do you remember?

Someone read a discussion about it elsewhere, popped over to Wikipedia--and discovered that several articles he had put a decent amount of time into writing and editing were completely gone.

Not that one should have to, but this seems like a good story to underline the importance of keeping a local copy of your article, for easy reposting if something like this should happen.

[DrBear]

Basically, Wikipedia has to decide what it wants to be. Does it want to be a reliable source, a social experiment or a forum for argument?

If the first, it has to:
1. require account-owners only can correct articles, not just anybody. If somebody sees something wrong, they should care enough to at least sign up before correcting it.

2. Require sources on EVERYTHING. I've done a bit of editing there, and have been corrected in what I posted by people who could claim sources. Memory is NOT infallible.

[Matt Ottinger]

As Wikipedia gets bigger and bigger, I become more and more astonished that it works as well as it does.  With millions of internet users, it seems like there ought to be hundreds if not thousands of people who would take every opportunity to screw around with Wiki not for any political motivation, and not even to mistakenly correct good articles but just to screw around with Wiki, deliberately posting preposterously false information just for the "fun" of it.  Surely those people are out there, and it's ahrd to believe there are an equal number of altruistic people who go around looking for articles to correct.

[Robert Hutchinson]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Mar 11 2006, 08:45 PM\']I'm curious...what were some of the justifications, do you remember?[/quote]

Two that I remember: relatively low Alexa rankings, and relatively low Google hit counts on the comics' names. Of course, Alexa rankings often make no sense, and Google hit counts are often misleading. By no means was one of the justifications "the community doesn't seem to consider this comic influential or important"--the deleter was almost proud of her ignorance of the overall subject. (I think it was a her.)

[calliaume]

There is a way to track down who's putting in (mis)information -- go to the "history" tab at the top of each article, and click on it.  All the edits are listed there, along with who made them.

The person who made the claim Perry was offered Card Sharks '86 is anonymous, but he/she has edited a lot of articles.

I put in some edits on articles before I got a user ID, which I now use.  (I also confess to linking to my own web site on occasion, although several other people have linked to it as well -- most notably Another World, of all places.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'calliaume\' date=\'Mar 12 2006, 03:35 PM\']The person who made the claim Perry was offered Card Sharks '86 is anonymous,
[/quote]
Well, social experiment or not, it surprises me that editors are allowed to be anonymous.  Not that requiring a real ID would mean much, since anyone can make up something with a Yahoo account, but it seems as though the Wiki ideal would be that people take responsibility for what they write, so they shouldn't be able to hide behind a Wiki curtain of anonymity.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'mcfly95\' date=\'Mar 17 2006, 04:15 PM\']someone should fix this page up when possible, it's horrible:
[/quote]
Well, get to stepping! Nobody's stopping you.

(Really, it's appropriate. A horrible article for a horrible show.)

[TLEberle]

Is it? The show wasn't exactly complicated...and for that matter, a piece of garbage show deserves a piece of garbage page.