Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

The story about someone posting false information about John Seigenthaler has really gotten WAY overblown. Well that story and it appears many other unfounded claims about Wikipedia.

First off even though the guy that changed the Siegenthaler entry recently confessed that does not mean Wikipedia needs to be fixed. (and that guy, lying about the "gag" site part or not, should not be in any trouble whatsoever).

That notion that Wikipedia is "broken" and is now having all these "problems" is what bothers me.

It is not broken and it does not have any serious problems. There is nothing that needs to be "fixed".

Wikipedia is a WIKI. Anyone can edit it. Thats sort of the point (though yes they want it to be as accurate as possible and are striving to "lock" certain articles that reach a consensus and now require users to login to create a new page - all said its still a wiki).

Wikipedia is a fantastic idea and an TREMENDOUSLY VALUABLE resource. The problem is it is being used by people that do on understand shared information in the Internet context. The current "issues" are no different than someone creating a "sucks" site, or someone creating a false page on myspace, or so on. Wikipedia gets more traffic than either of those would but that does not make it a different scenario. Yes Wikipedia can affect information that some people get (and so can other sources online) but that information itself is not the "problem".

The problem is people.

The problem is that the world is full of assclowns (and insecure assclowns to boot). For example I have heard some people call this Daniel Brandt guy a complete dumbass and or an assclown - I cannot corroborate that as I do not know much about him. From online articles it seems Daniel was upset, just as Siegenthaler was, that his Wikipedia page was not to his liking. (Daniel has a Google watch page too, because his page rank was not high enough for him, that apparently means Google is conspiring against him - some have said that he creates some really shitty websites no one wants to visit and that might have something to do with his Google issues also - but again I am not really familiar with his sites so I cannot corroborate that.)

The problem is not Wikipedia, or the likes, but people who use Wikipedia and either do not understand that it is not the final word on anything and or do not understand that they too can change it (in most cases, pretty much in all legitimate cases). If you use Wikipedia as the end all of information about any subject then you are stupid. Use it as a general reference and starting point and then validate that with other information from non pseudonym wiki sources.

People who take an article written by "anonymous" on a public network (Internet) to be authoritative are the problem, not the public network, not the anonymous author (or for that matter named author), not the site where the author put any content. On the web, as in any public forum, you have to discern.

This whole thing is out of control. Its great that Wikipedia strives to even TRY to maintain any accuracy and that Wikipedia has a certain amount of credibility, but at the same time it is full of disclaimers and is by definition a conglomerate of content from many sources (content that is not validated other than by the contributors). Take it for what it is and you will be fine - use it as a starting point or a guide.

And if you are so thin skinned that one article proclaiming something you dont like (especially when it is obviously false) is written about you that you have to sue and otherwise disparage Wikipedia in general, then you are the one with the "problems" to "fix", not Wikipedia.