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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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[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.
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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.
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[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.
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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 :)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Dare (http://\"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
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[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 (http://\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_the_Grade\") of Make the Grade........or that Finders Keepers taped at Television City (http://\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finders_Keepers#Studios\"), or "Think Fast" taped at the SF Fox station (http://\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Fast%21#Studios\")........I've tried changing them, only for them to be changed back.
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[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.
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[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...:P
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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.
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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.
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[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.)
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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.
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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.
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[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.
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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.
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")
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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
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[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.)
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[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.
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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.
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[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.
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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.
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[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.
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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.
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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.
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[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.
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[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.
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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.
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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.
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[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.)
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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 (http://\"http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Card_Sharks&diff=39232944&oldid=39109270\") is anonymous, but he/she has edited a lot of articles (http://\"http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=207.200.116.132\").
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 (http://\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_World_in_American_television_listings\"), of all places.
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[quote name=\'calliaume\' date=\'Mar 12 2006, 03:35 PM\']The person who made the claim Perry was offered Card Sharks '86 (http://\"http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Card_Sharks&diff=39232944&oldid=39109270\") is anonymous,
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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.
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[quote name=\'mcfly95\' date=\'Mar 17 2006, 04:15 PM\']someone should fix this page up when possible, it's horrible:
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Well, get to stepping! Nobody's stopping you.
(Really, it's appropriate. A horrible article for a horrible show.)
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Is it? The show wasn't exactly complicated...and for that matter, a piece of garbage show deserves a piece of garbage page. ;)
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Just another example: I just did a major cleanup on the Merv Griffin entry; here's the original (http://\"http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Merv_Griffin&diff=40678933&oldid=39163804\") (scroll down for full text). I don't think the Today Show claim is true, but since I can't verify it's not, it stays.
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Wikipedia suffers from the same problems as IMDB and this very board. There are too many damn fanbois armed with inaccurate fourth- and fifth-hand information and just plain supposition who fancy themselves "experts" on a given topic (game shows, for instance). I've chided more than one member of this board for representing outsider supposition as inside information. These fanbois generally lack basic writing skills and they've never heard of primary-source research, so you wind up with twisted facts and game descriptions which defy comprehension and readability.
Regarding a Wikipedia clean-up posse, we tried a game show fact cleanup project here a few months back. It went down in flames because it was not taken seriously by members and moderators alike.
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[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Mar 18 2006, 07:28 PM\']Regarding a Wikipedia clean-up posse, we tried a game show fact cleanup project here a few months back. It went down in flames because it was not taken seriously by members and moderators alike.
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I'm not sure I remember this. What do you mean?
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Mar 19 2006, 02:22 AM\'][quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Mar 18 2006, 07:28 PM\']Regarding a Wikipedia clean-up posse, we tried a game show fact cleanup project here a few months back. It went down in flames because it was not taken seriously by members and moderators alike.
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I'm not sure I remember this. What do you mean?
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I do. It was stickied on The Big Board for...what, about one day? To be honest, I still don't understand why it was taken down -- it seemed fine to me.
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[quote name=\'Steve Gavazzi\' date=\'Mar 19 2006, 12:47 AM\']I do. It was stickied on The Big Board for...what, about one day? To be honest, I still don't understand why it was taken down -- it seemed fine to me.
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Oh, I remember that now. I'm gonna guess that it wasn't taken seriously mainly because most of us know that these dumbasses aren't gonna smarten up no matter what you tell them or how many times you do it.
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The biggest problem I've seen, just like with IMDb and Jump The Shark, is that people think it's funny to post blatantly inaccurate info, i.e. with JTS, saying a show jumped with a bogus plotline. Just the other day, I saw a Stevie Wonder article that said he learned how to play various instruments, but the two "instruments" both referred to oral sex. Someone else changed it, but with Wikipedia's system, I wouldn't be surprised if the sexual comments were placed right back up.
It's just one of those things that is for the most part accurate, but some things obviously need to be taken with a grain of salt.
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I've racked up a couple thousand edits now on Wikipedia, most of them under my account name but a fair number (when I was just starting) anonymous. The pros and cons of Wikipedia have been argued over more than whether the poker shows are game shows.
Many of my edits went to the Henry James article and the related articles on his works. All those articles are on my watchlist, so I've reverted some vandalism on them. Crude vandalism gets reverted out pretty quickly, anyway, by people watching the Recent Changes list. It's the more subtle grafitti on articles which aren't on anybody's watchlist that can cause the real pain (see Siegenthaler).
My funniest Wikipedia episode was hauling the James article through the "featured article" process. I had one objector who wanted 10,000+ words on The Portrait of a Lady alone. I tried to explain that I was writing an encyclopedia article, not a book. The article finally made it through to FA status.
If you see an article on Wikipedia that you think is garbage, just rewrite it and put in on your watchlist. If any destructive changes are made later, they'll show up on the watchlist and you can correct them quickly. You'll need an account for a watchlist, but that's no big deal.
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[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Mar 20 2006, 11:03 AM\']
If you see an article on Wikipedia that you think is garbage, just rewrite it and put in on your watchlist. If any destructive changes are made later, they'll show up on the watchlist and you can correct them quickly. You'll need an account for a watchlist, but that's no big deal.
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I've cleaned up some articles I've come across, and have seen some other ones that I need to clean up, but don't have the facts with. There has been one I've fixed but it never got broke again - it had to do with the old CBS soap "Love of Life". Someone who wrote about the soap before me stated that it was taken off the air for re-tooling for awhile, which (as verified by my old TV Guides) wasn't true. I deleted all references to that and it was never put back.
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I've cleaned up some articles I've come across, and have seen some other ones that I need to clean up, but don't have the facts with.
Yep, that's the real trouble with Wikipedia, much more important than the occasional rumpus about inaccuracy. I mentioned the James article, which - if I say so myself - now makes the Britannica treatment of the novelist look...less than comprehensive, especially with all of Wikipedia's related articles on his books.
But then I look at the Wikipedia article on Joseph Conrad, and it's an embarrassment. I'd like to clean it up but I hardly know anything about Conrad except what I can remember from reading a few of his books maybe thirty years ago. Which ain't much. The Jane Austen article is a little better but could still use a lot of help. I know more about her. Maybe I'll brush up on some criticism and biography and try some rewriting.
That's what really bugs me about Wikipedia: the uneven coverage. Bulbasaur gets a featured article. Conrad gets a, well, not so featured article. The encyclopedia needs somebody knowledgable about Conrad to take the lead in cleaning up the article. But the Wikipedia contributor population - as the encyclopedia itself notes - is a lot more likely to include a Pokemon expert with some time to kill.
By the way, I just looked over my edit list, and I really haven't done much on game shows. A few sentences on Lingo, DoND and GSN. Major shows like Jeopardy already have comprehensive articles, and I don't know enough about lesser shows to do much.
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I'm not the swiftest, so even with the gentleman's photo in front of my face, it didn't dawn on me. But maybe the best Wikipedia game show project would be writing up the Bill Cullen article to a better standard. The current article isn't a disgrace, at least as far as I can tell. But if any article on game shows deserves featured article treatment - which is not easy, I have to say - it's this one.
The history of the article isn't encouraging, with a particularly stupid vandalism war. But lately things seem to have gone more smoothly. A lot more could be done, though, by people who really know the subject.
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[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Mar 20 2006, 03:11 PM\']The history of the article isn't encouraging, with a particularly stupid vandalism war.
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And anyone who was visiting ATGS around that time knows which particularly stupid individual caused the particularly stupid vandalism war. :-)
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And the war died down and the article is currently respectable. Administrators will block user names or IP addresses that feed in lots of vandalism. That's hardly a perfect system but, as the history of the Cullen article shows, it's far from imperfect. There has been only one vandalism edit since 2004, and that was reverted out quickly. The last edit on the article pushed it more towards NPOV (neutral point of view - a very big Wikipedia thing).
I don't mean to sound like a Wikipedia cheerleader, but the Cullen article actually shows the system working pretty well. Attempted sabotage was squelched, and the article has now reached some stability. As for accuracy, it seems pretty factual to me, but I'm no Cullen expert. The article could easily be written up to a much higher standard, though. Just for the fun of it, I've put the article on my watchlist, in case any more clowns come by. But somebody must already be watching pretty closely, judging from the speediness of the last revert.
Wikipedia is not just a grafitti wall with no precautions at all. The administrators and ordinary editors eliminate a ton of vandalism every day. For factual disputes between editors, there are mediators, and if all else fails, an arbitration committee. Does the system always work? No way. Lots of stuff slips by that shouldn't. But it actually works better than it has any right to.
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[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Mar 20 2006, 03:49 PM\']That's hardly a perfect system but, as the history of the Cullen article shows, it's far from imperfect.
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Uh... isn't it either perfect or imperfect by definition? ;-) (Sorry, I'm just having that kind of day.)
I consider Wikipedia to be a good starting point for research. It's precisely because of crap like the edit wars that I would never, ever cite it as a definitive source on anything.
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Someone who wrote about the soap before me stated that it was taken off the air for re-tooling for awhile, which (as verified by my old TV Guides) wasn't true.
They're handy to have, aren't they Aaron? I've corrected some info on aired and unaired pilots on wikipedia, but have never really gotten around to correcting any game show info. Yet!
I consider Wikipedia to be a good starting point for research. It's precisely because of crap like the edit wars that I would never, ever cite it as a definitive source on anything.
Agreed on that. Even researching some of my favorite music stars on there, they have info about all these promo singles that were released for certain artists that I never heard on the air. Being a Billboard reader, I really wonder where some of this info is coming from.
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[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Mar 20 2006, 03:49 PM\']I don't mean to sound like a Wikipedia cheerleader, but the Cullen article actually shows the system working pretty well. Attempted sabotage was squelched, and the article has now reached some stability. As for accuracy, it seems pretty factual to me, but I'm no Cullen expert. [/quote]
I am.
The Wiki article is more or less factually sound. To say he was a "pilot" during WWII is simplistic and misleading, since he didn't serve in the military. Also, it seems odd for there to be a reference to one track and field match he called for NBC, but no mention of the five years he spent as the WRCA/WNBC radio morning host.
But that's nit-picking, which is why I haven't bothered revising it. As an encyclopedia entry, it's certainly sufficient. Thing is, I can see lots of other people who feel passionately about a single topic who would turn a similar listing into a term paper. And while you say the article has "reached some stability", I don't see what prevents sabotage in the future, beyond the saboteur having just gotten bored with doing it.
Meanwhile, I would modestly suggest that an improved Cullen article may not be the best choice for the group as a whole to pursue, since there's already a pretty comprehensive and sabotage-proof website in place about him. Two, in fact.
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Um, meant to say "far from awful." You get the drift. And as no less than Jimbo Wales (a.k.a the Wikipedia God-King) has said, no encyclopedia should ever be cited for research. Especially, say, an article on Jimbo Wales that Jimbo himself edited...to much amusement.
There were (and are) two terrific James sites - and many others that are of some value - before I got the article through the FA grinder. The thing is, it was fun to rewrite the article up to demanding standards. Even if I had to footnote that James preferred writing fiction to studying law, which is like having to footnote in which direction the sun is known to set. Actually, there are a number of places where careful footwork was required in the phrasing before I ever got to the article. You can read all about it on the discussion page.
In one of the sillier NPOV disputes ever, an administrator didn't like my saying that one of James' autobiographical books was a "charming memoir." So the "charming" had to go. Only time I ever had to change something for NPOV. I don't edit the Ann Coulter or Al Franken articles, though.
Of course, there's nothing to prevent future vandalism on any article. But there are some safeguards in place to get rid of it, and there's always a chance that the article will be improved, as has happened with the James article and, for that matter, the Cullen article.
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[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Mar 20 2006, 02:00 PM\']In one of the sillier NPOV disputes ever, an administrator didn't like my saying that one of James' autobiographical books was a "charming memoir." So the "charming" had to go.
[/quote]
Why is that silly? Neutral is neutral, and that isn't. Is it a minor point? Sure. But if you gloss over it, someone tries to push a slightly-less-minor opinion, and so forth. If you're gonna be neutral, be neutral across the board.
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The biggest problem I've seen, just like with IMDb and Jump The Shark, is that people think it's funny to post blatantly inaccurate info, i.e. with JTS, saying a show jumped with a bogus plotline.
Yeah, most people don't remember the ep of Who's the Boss where Jonathan got caught touching himself, or the Mr. Rogers ep where Mr. McFeely took a wrong turn and got mugged by the Zoom kids.
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")
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[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'Mar 20 2006, 03:38 PM\']Yeah, most people don't remember the ep of Who's the Boss where Jonathan got caught touching himself
[/quote]
Wow. Every fantasy I've ever had about Alyssa Milano just went careening out the window. Thanks for that, Chuck. 'Preciate it. :)
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[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'Mar 20 2006, 05:38 PM\']
The biggest problem I've seen, just like with IMDb and Jump The Shark, is that people think it's funny to post blatantly inaccurate info, i.e. with JTS, saying a show jumped with a bogus plotline.
Yeah, most people don't remember the ep of Who's the Boss where Jonathan got caught touching himself, or the Mr. Rogers ep where Mr. McFeely took a wrong turn and got mugged by the Zoom kids.
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")
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[/quote]
Was Jonathan looking at Tony when he did that?
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[quote name=\'sshuffield70\' date=\'Mar 20 2006, 11:36 PM\'][quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'Mar 20 2006, 05:38 PM\']
The biggest problem I've seen, just like with IMDb and Jump The Shark, is that people think it's funny to post blatantly inaccurate info, i.e. with JTS, saying a show jumped with a bogus plotline.
Yeah, most people don't remember the ep of Who's the Boss where Jonathan got caught touching himself, or the Mr. Rogers ep where Mr. McFeely took a wrong turn and got mugged by the Zoom kids.
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")
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Was Jonathan looking at Tony when he did that?
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LINE.
OF.
THE.
DAY.
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Hey, I dropped the "charming." It really was no big deal. Or even a subatomic particle-sized deal. I just brought it up because I mentioned NPOV and wanted to give the only example I've been personally involved in.
By the way, I went back and checked the time frame for the only incidence of vandalism on the Cullen article since 2004. The vandalism edit survived for a half-hour on January 25, 2006 before it got reverted out. The article really is an example of Wikipedia getting it right. The last edit did push the article more towards NPOV, but that's what an encyclopedia should do.
I still think the article has potential for featured article status. Yes, technically any article has that potential, but the Cullen article has already made a decent start. Right now it's about where the James article was a year ago. If I have some time over the next few months, I might try researching and writing the article up to a higher level and pushing it through the featured article process.
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[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Mar 21 2006, 09:09 AM\']I still think the article has potential for featured article status. Yes, technically any article has that potential, but the Cullen article has already made a decent start. Right now it's about where the James article was a year ago. If I have some time over the next few months, I might try researching and writing the article up to a higher level and pushing it through the featured article process.[/quote]
Again, I'm not exactly sure how much "researching" you'll need to do. There are already several references that couldn't have come from anywhere but my website, where there's already an extensive biography and pretty much any other information you'd need.
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Matt, no doubt your site will be a prime source. But there are always some other goodies out there. A Google book search turned up a tome on the old radio show Monitor with some good analysis of why Bill was such an engaging personality, along with some really nice Cullen quotes. And I've stumbled across a few other interesting bits and pieces, like a story where Cullen "blasts off on 1,001 things."
It'll take a while, but I'll try to get the article into FA shape.
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[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Mar 22 2006, 08:04 AM\']Matt, no doubt your site will be a prime source. But there are always some other goodies out there. [/quote]
Do tell.
[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Mar 22 2006, 08:04 AM\']A Google book search turned up a tome on the old radio show Monitor with some good analysis of why Bill was such an engaging personality, along with some really nice Cullen quotes. [/quote]
That would be Monitor: The Last Great Radio Show (iUniverse 2002) by Dennis Hart, a friend of mine who interviewed me for his book. If you owned the book rather than browsed a page or two on Google, you'd see my name in the acknowledgements.
[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Mar 22 2006, 08:04 AM\']And I've stumbled across a few other interesting bits and pieces, like a story where Cullen "blasts off on 1,001 things."[/quote]
And THAT would be the November, 1958 issue of TV Radio Mirror with Bill on the cover. Among the subjects on which he "blasts off" are Ed Sullivan (likes), cocktail parties (doesn't like), extroverts (doesn't like) and poker (likes, but only high-stakes). He also congratulates Barry-Enright on the success of Twenty-One!
[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Mar 22 2006, 08:04 AM\']It'll take a while, but I'll try to get the article into FA shape.[/quote]
Knock yourself out, but don't begin to think you're going to discover any information that Adam Nedeff and I don't already have, and the only reason such information doesn't appear on our sites is because we've already don't the work that you feel you need to do by determining the best, most accurate and most relevant information and providing it in an easily accessible form. I'm just trying to save you from needlessly duplicative efforts, especially when there are so many other deserving game show legends whose entries could benefit from your research.
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Your concern's premature, anyway, because I'm first going to write an article on Rebecca Goldstein, a novelist and biographer. I'm reading her book on Kurt Gödel, which is kind of interesting even if a little dry. She's got a web site and there's other stuff on the web to use. Then I really would like to try to improve the Jane Austen article, which isn't as bad as the Joseph Conrad article but could use some help. Then I might get to the Bill Cullen article. If you think other game show hosts deserve attention first, well, you're welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia.
And don't worry, I don't knock myself out over any Wikipedia article. I'm not getting paid for this.
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If anything, Wikipedia isn't really designed to be anything but superficial. If I were to put up a Wiki on Kurt Godel, wouldn't it be better to just direct people to Rebecca Goldstein's book, rather than rewrite her work on Wiki?
Links to Matt's and Adam's sites are all anyone needs to find out about Bill Cullen
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[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Mar 23 2006, 09:00 AM\']If anything, Wikipedia isn't really designed to be anything but superficial.
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Yeah, but people use it to check their research. (I'm using it now to check a few facts for a book I'm copyediting, although I use other sources as well.)
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[quote name=\'calliaume\' date=\'Mar 23 2006, 10:04 AM\'][quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Mar 23 2006, 09:00 AM\']If anything, Wikipedia isn't really designed to be anything but superficial.
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Yeah, but people use it to check their research. (I'm using it now to check a few facts for a book I'm copyediting, although I use other sources as well.)
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I've seen recent news stories quote Wikipedia. I've considered writing articles about some of my interests outside of Game Shows and wonder if it would be worth the trouble..
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[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Mar 23 2006, 09:00 AM\']If I were to put up a Wiki on Kurt Godel, wouldn't it be better to just direct people to Rebecca Goldstein's book, rather than rewrite her work on Wiki?[/quote]
If by "put up a Wiki" you mean "put up a Wikipedia article", I don't see how. Is Goldstein's book online? Hyperlinked? Available for instant editing in response to errors or developing events? If the last three are in fact the case, is the book formatted like an encyclopedia article?
Wikipedia does have its uses, honest. It's a quick place to look for certain facts: I can pretty much count on finding Bill Cullen's full legal name right at the top of his article in about two seconds (and there it is). I checked a couple of my Jeopardy! answers recently on Wikipedia, also very quickly. (Mary, Queen of Scots and Mary Stuart are one and the same, and "Yao" is Yao Ming's family name and thus acceptable as an answer. If anyone was curious.) And linking to a bunch of specialized sites would completely ruin my favorite Wikipedia activity: opening every article link I come across that catches my eye, until I have an unholy tree of information in my browser tabs.
Of course, all of this assumes the ideal about Wikipedia. Poor and/or missing information hampers all of this. Still the most amusing example of this I've yet heard: the battle over Ken Jennings' middle name in his article, fought between (apparently) the most obstinate person in the world, and Ken Jennings' father.
(My God, I just used three colons.)
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[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' date=\'Mar 23 2006, 03:17 PM\'](My God, I just used three colons.)[/quote]
Careful, five is the limit. After that we have to start charging you. It's a bandwidth thing.
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[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' date=\'Mar 23 2006, 12:17 PM\'](My God, I just used three colons.)
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Musta been the gazpacho. :)
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[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' date=\'Mar 23 2006, 03:17 PM\'](My God, I just used three colons.)[/quote]
Someone has colon problems.
/gazpacho anyone?
(Edit: Damn Lemon...)
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/gazpacho anyone?
(Edit: Damn Lemon...)
I know...he eats gazpacho a lot, doesn't he? :)
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Musta been the gazpacho. :)
Go back to Russia! :-D
Chuck Donegan (The Simpsons-Referencing "Chuckie Baby")
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Mar 23 2006, 04:09 PM\']Musta been the gazpacho. :)
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[/quote][quote name=\'hmtriplecrown\' date=\'Mar 23 2006, 04:12 PM\']/gazpacho anyone?[snapback]113928[/snapback]
[/quote]If great minds think alike, how do we explain this? [ducking]