h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Wikipedia (And while we're at it: Voldemort! Belgium! Work!) is a useful tool, but not an accurate resource. Anyone, registered or not, can make changes - its strength, and also its weakness. So why the people complaining don't simply change it and *then* complain (putting it into lockdown with their version of the facts on display) is beyond me.

If I understand correctly, new users can no longer edit a page and have their edits appear immediately. When a first-time editor submits an edit the changes are held until someone with more experience (or, at least, who has had more edits accepted) can approve it. There was a bit of an uproar when they intorduced this system, IIRC.

Traveller in Times following the link again
"It looked closed, there was a message about the legal suit
Could not even find the site using Google cache

Now it seems to be up again "

I haven't a clue how wikipedia works. I'm just surprised you can still find articles online (spiegel, Focus) stating the very things which made some court close wikipedia Germany - and those artivles are from three years ago even. So what is so important suddenly?
I think it is because Wikipedia is much more widely read than the magazines, and this Stasi man suddenly had to face negative publicity.

Anyone can still edit, but your IP is put on public display if you're not registered. As far as I know.

The problem with Wikipedia is that it describes itself as an encyclopedia but it is not and never can be. The problem is that everything in an encyclopedia is checked and verified by reputable sources whilst on Wikipedia practically nothing is; it's a self-policing system. If entries on the site followed the guidelines to a tee (nothing without a citation to a reputable source, no bias, facts only) it would be much better than it is but Wikipedia's editors contain innumerable people with agendas in their ranks and they can and do edit entries to throw things in a positive or negative light or to reflect their own beliefs.

It remains a very good resource with regard to anything people don't have an ideological stake in - things like films, books, music etc. But I'd steer clear if you were, for example, researching recent world history.

"The problem is that everything in an encyclopedia is checked and verified by reputable sources"

That's not actually relevant to the definition of an Encyclopaedia, which just means something like "A lot of information".

There was a radio programme a couple of weeks back about the man who wrote "The Childrens Encyclopaedia". There was no form of structured peer review - he just wrote from his own knowledge and aread of expertise, and revised as his knowledge of the subject changed. In that respect he was no more "reliable" than Wikipedia, if a little less prone to vandalism.

A team from one of the big US Universities decided to test Wikipedia against Britannica Online. They took 100(? Not sure of the exact number, but you get the idea) articles at random from each and did an exhaustive fact-check. Wikipedia turned out to be slightly more accurate and significantly more up-to-date than its "reputable" competitor.

"A team from one of the big US Universities decided to test Wikipedia against Britannica Online. They took 100(? Not sure of the exact number, but you get the idea) articles at random from each and did an exhaustive fact-check. Wikipedia turned out to be slightly more accurate and significantly more up-to-date than its "reputable" competitor."

Problem there is the "100 random articles" thing. Whilst, if you took a grab-bag of articles from Wikipedia I have no doubt they'd mostly be accurate, that accuracy is not consistent and (more importantly) it often becomes innaccurate on specific (often important) subjects which touch on peoples' ideological preoccupations. This is deliberate because net-savvy people know that wikipedia is often one of the first things people will go to when looking for information on a subject and by controlling that information they can propogate their own view or take on a subject. It is for this reason that wikipedia is untrustworthy; there's no real practical way to ensure its accuracy because it's so huge it's impossible to police.

I used to edit wikipedia and gave up for this very reason. I got sick of people who had no interest in encyclopedic entries on subjects and instead watched them and removed anything that they didn't care for (and sometimes not even pretending that they were doing anything else) Eventually, having defended the site against its critics for a long time, I decided that they were right after all. It's just not possible for it to ever be unbiased or truly accurate no matter how much it tries to be.

As I said, I still use it for anything people don't have an ideological or religious stake in (usually popular culture or areas of science that don't cross-swords with religious or political beliefs) because in those areas it's very good indeed but as a wide-ranging encyclopedia it simply doesn't work and never will.

It can be amusing, though. Look up thir article on automated tellers/cash machines - I had reason to link to it yesterday on the death of Reg Varney (if you see the article you'll see why) and was most amused to see that some wag had changed the name of the company who invented the machine from "De La Rue" to "Danny La Rue", complete with Wikipedia link.

Back on topic: http://techdirt.com/articles/20081117/0124142847.shtml

"I think you should be able to see somewhere which edits have been done and by whom, but I don't know where."

http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lutz_Heilmann&action=history

"The suspending is a different issue, though. To use a print parallel, it would be like Lord Archer banning the publication of Private Eye because of a perceived libel in it. I'd find it very hard to accept that."

This has already happened: back in the eighties, Tory politician Cecil Parkinson got an injunction forcing the recall of an entire issue of Private Eye because he dissaproved of the contents. Only a few lucky subscribers got editions, the rest were pulped. Of course, if a new Parkinson tried it today, the content he was trying to supress would be all over the Internet, with malice aforethought, in no seconds nothing...

It's certainly happened. I didn't mean to imply that it's something unthinkable - it has happened (and is happening) all over the world. I meant that I find it hard to stomach.

How much would it cost to have gone through this legal procedure? I assume it must be quite a few thousand. Isn't there (always) a greater issue that people with a bit of money can limit / control what is being said about them?

This seems like the next step along from the incident with Garry Flitcroft a few years back ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1901928.stm