Wikipedia is a valuable and informative site, and I can hardly imagine the internet without it. It absolutely, positively makes the world a batter place. And a worse place.
Wikipedia has tainted the web. It was developing into a source of variety, broadness, and fairness. Web 1.0 wasn't perfect, and it definitely needed some changes. But it didn't need a radical transformation. And Wikipedia has been a leader in the move towards an extreme, unbalanced internet.
When multiple web sites cover a topic, one presents it one way, and another presents it another. Source A might have a few points of emphasis, while source B might have a different set. One might misrepresent something, while another might not.
Individual sites have complete freedom.
No one's obligated to follow one organization's rules.
And Source A does not have the option of deleting something in Source B.
But as it is right now, multiple sources are often being replaced with just one: Wikipedia. People are making it their first and last choice. Wikipedia's take on a subject tends to dominate the internet; and the internet is on its way to dominating the world.
As one of many sources, Wikipedia is valuable; but as the only one, its shortcomings become the entire internet's shortcomings.
A consolidated source like Wikipedia is not the same as multiple independent sources. Wikipedia doesn't just add content--it also deletes it. Wikipedia is not always fair and balanced--and I don't think there's anything they can do in order to ensure that it will be. And Wikipedia is ultimately an encyclopedia--and there's no reason why encyclopedia entries should be so dominant.
Walk into a library, go through a few books on Native American religions, J. Pierpont Morgan, yoga, pez dispensers, computers, the Mumia Abu Jamal case, and the history of Coca Cola, and you'll find much more than mere extended encyclopedia entries, and something much different than the opinions on a typical internet forum or any op-ed piece on or offline.
Web 2.0 isn't an abundant source of library book content. And even the traditional media appears to be transitioning away from that type of content.
Our overuse of and over reliance on Wikipedia is partly to blame for all of this. Wikipedia is strictly an encyclopedia, and there ought to be a huge world outside of that--but little by little, that world seems to be narrowing. And too much of it consists of internet forum posts--which, though having plenty of value too, also have their limitations. Most of the content here consists of misinformation, assumptions, extreme of views, and intolerance.
And when people post content on sites they don't control--including Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Forums--they generally don't have much in the way of freedom. I've had to censor myself on many of those sites, I've had material deleted from many of them, I've been banned from a couple of them, and of course, I've always had to use their software.
A personal website, on the other hand, gives you more freedom than you can use. That should be one of the main advantages of the internet. Jay Leno, Dan Rather, and Barbara Walters have to meet certain demands of the FCC, their producers, their sponsors, their respective networks, etc. A random person with a website doesn't have to worry about any of that.
But his website probably isn't getting as much as many visitors ad it should, partly due to Wikipedia.
And to make matters worse, Wikipedia frequently takes content from other sources without properly mentioning and linking to them. The site lifts content from webpages, books, magazines, TV programs, etc,--and rather than going out of its way to mention a source and link to it within the entry, it merely includes the information in a small font Notes/References section at the bottom of each page.
Now, that might be what encyclopedias have done for centuries--but other encyclopedias don't maerely take content from other courses without their permission. The least Wikipedia could do is include external links within the main text. But no! Wikipedia reserves that space for internal links.
Are you kidding me!? Who's going to bother to click on a footnote and then click on an external link?!? I happen to do that quite a bit, but Jimmy Wales knows damn well that most people won't.
And Wikipedia is a non-profit organization! They're just being unfair for the sheer fun of it!
Oh--not to mention the fact that all of their links are no follow! In other words, links on the internet are normally followed by search engines like Google and Yahoo. When site A links to Site B, site B gets credit for it--something in the way of popularity points (often referred to as juice--or in the case of Google, PageRank. Please excuse me if I'm wrong about any of this. I don't know that much about the topic, and I don't feel like verifying anything with research. But I have the right to do that--due to the fact that I'm not on that piece of shit site Wikipedia. I can even change my font to Comic Sans. In fact, I'm going to do that ight now.) Search Engines then use those popularity points to determine Site B's search engine rankings.
If food.com/home contains a link to vegetables.com/tomatoes, vegetables.com/tomatoes will get popularity points from Google, and be more likely to show up towards the top of a Google search (for "tomatoes" or some topic covered on vegetables.com/tomatoes).
But Wikipedia instructs Google to ignore all of its external links--and if Wikipedia.com/tomatoes uses content from vegetables.com/tomatoes and links to that page, vegetables.com/tomatoes won't get any credit from Google.
Wikipedia basically steals content from other sites, benefits from it, and refuses to pass on any popularity points / juice / PageRank.
And what's their horseshit excuse? They do it to prevent others from abusing the system. They don't want site owners to promote their own sites by posting Wikipedia links to them.
Granted, Wikipedia's no follow policy does in fact benefit Wikipedia--but that just shows Wikipedia's lack of ethics. Wikipedia only cares about Wikipedia--even if it means more or less stealing content and refusing to send visitors to it, give it popularity points, etc.
Jimmy Wales--go f--k yourself! You're a European piece of shit! Google should start its own Wiki and put your company out of business.
And guess what, Jimmy? You can't edit this page. It's on rodneyohebsion.com. You might have the Master Key down at wikipedia.org--but around here, you're at the top of our most wanted list.
Wikipedia is for communist pieces of garbage.
Jimmy Wales and all other Europeans are lowlife bastards.
I am going to talk about Wikipedia. I like Wikipedia a lot--so let's get that straight right now. But there are some things I don't like about it.
I was at Wikipedia's article for "carpal tunnel syndrome" a few weeks ago, and I came across this intro at the top:
Carpal tunnel syndrome is idiopathic median neuropathy at the carpal tunnel.
Now, both "idiopathic" and "carpal tunnel" are in the form links to other Wikipedia pages. But still. If I'm not familiar with carpal tunnel syndrome, I have no clue what "Carpal tunnel syndrome is idiopathic median neuropathy at the carpal tunnel" means. Who are they writing this for? People who already know everything about carpal tunnel syndrome? If I knew everything about carpal tunnel syndrome, why would I go to its Wikipedia page?
So far the article is a waste of bandwidth. I'm kind of tempted to put up a Wikipedia competitor right now.
Anyways, the article continues:
The pathophysiology is not completely understood but can be considered compression of the median nerve traveling through the carpal tunnel.
"Pathophysiology" isn't even in the form of a link. According to Wikipedia, tt's just something that I know. I don't even have to look it up. Of course I know what pathophysiology is.
Why would I know that? I'll bet even Ken Jennings doesn't know what that is. He wouldn't buzz in after reading that. He wouldn't bet big if the category were Pathophysiology.
Imagine Ken Jennings reading a Wikipedia page and not getting the pathophysiology part. I'll have to call him up and see if he knows what that is. If he doesn't, then honestly, someone needs to be waterboarded. How about we waterboard Wikipedia?
Anyways, "The pathophysiology is not completely understood but can be considered compression of the median nerve traveling through the carpal tunnel." That kind of makes a little sense. The first part sentence got this article off to an insane start. I'm not too upset about this one. I'm still not 100 percent sure what it's saying, but some nerve is being compressed traveling through the carpal tunnel. And carpal tunnel is in the form of a link, unlike pathophysiology.
The risk factors for CTS are primarily genetic rather than environmental.
Really? Okay, so that is pretty informative. I guess it's not some sort of repetitive motion injury, like most of us think it is.
The rest of the article is pretty informative. I don't like beginning though.
So I like Wikipedia, but I hate it, too.
Am I done here? Yeah--I guess I'm done.
No--actually, I'm not done. I was done a second ago, but I should probably thank everyone involved with Wikipedia for this. I really appreciate it. I use it a lot. I do have some beef with them, but I still want to thank everyone. Even Jimmy Wales. Although I'm pretty sure I hate Jimmy Wales for some reason. I'll have to look into that.
But thank you Wikipedia. And not just the organization. As a matter of fact, I think I want to thank everyone but the organization. Because the organization doesn't do shit. They're just using existing software, and funding the site with donations. Big deal. And by the way, Wikipedia has a liberal bias. So I'm pissed off about that. But I'm still grateful. Am I? Maybe I'm not grateful anymore. No--I am. I like Wikipedia. Thank you. But get rid of the liberal bias. And do some other shit. Thank you.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (that needs your donations, you wikifreeloading son of a bitch!)
! This article has multiple issues.
- It cries any time someone mentions belts
- It’s a commitment-phobe
- It washes its hands exactly 99 times a day
- It thinks Napoleon is trying to assassinate it
- Tagged since October 3300 BC
This article is about You. For the Chinese Emperor, see Yu . For the letter, see U For the chocolate flavored drink, see Yoo Hoo. For the grape flavored drink, see Grape Drink. For a good time, call 581-32??. For The Shawshank Redemption, press 4. And for God’s sake, please see a Psychiatrist as soon as possible.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much you piss me off. Why? I think you know why. And if you don’t, then you piss me off even more.
^ I don’t need any. Everyone knows you’re a jerk.
Asshole Hall of Fame – You
Categories: Assholes | People who make me want to vomit emotionally | People I’d like to sue |