Wikipedia cleanup

[calliaume]

Just another example:  I just did a major cleanup on the Merv Griffin entry; here's the original (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.

[chris319]

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.

[clemon79]

[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?

[Steve Gavazzi]

[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.

[clemon79]

[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.

[BrandonFG]

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.

[CaseyAbell]

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.

[aaron sica]

[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.

[CaseyAbell]

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.

[CaseyAbell]

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.

[dzinkin]

[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. :-)

[CaseyAbell]

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.

[dzinkin]

[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.

[Ian Wallis]

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.

[Matt Ottinger]

[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.