Posted on 10/03/2019 7:32:57 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj
Have Absolutely Had It With Wikipedia's Nonsense & Tyrannical Editors
As someone who has been on Wikipedia for over 12 years, I've attempted on countless occasions to try to make my own contributions to the website. Besides correcting minor errors, my one main specialty was bringing up-to-date information on individual locations, going state by state. Meticulously researching census records, maps, online resources, etc. to try to improve said pages. It's a time-consuming endeavor, but I figure if it's helpful to others, perhaps a kid working on a research project, it's worth it.
Not anymore.
I'm sick to death of the blowback from attempting to "dare" improve the pages of individual communities. It was bad enough several years ago working on the state of Alabama (yeah, working in alphabetical order) only to have one editor summarily delete my contributions despite said research. I later moved on to working on Alaska, which was woefully out-of-date, and had not so much as a single thank you, but a snarky editor/mod who deleted and then made light of my contributions.
Then came this week. I was working on Arizona, and was slammed with a swarm of editors deleting everything I put into the articles, never mind I cited exactly what/where/when and how my research was done. Just removed and warned. I blew up (mildly) at two mods and told them if they wished to be of help, to go over the work/research line by line and locate what kind of "references" would satisfy their appetites. The final straw was trying to locate something as simple as an incorporation date for a particular city. Try as I might, I could not find the date anywhere online. I actually dared email the city manager who promptly replied and provided a pdf copy of the resolution from the '80s. I told her I would put the info on Wikipedia. It was removed THREE times and I was attacked for putting up "unsourced material." The last time was today. I was researching villages that were no longer in existence and had the temerity to change their designation to "ghost towns" and everything swiftly deleted by these same bullies this evening.
Y'know, I have absolutely had it with these power-hungry editor thugs who seem hell-bent on wanting to keep the place free from updated facts and hide behind "references" excuses and claiming "no original research permitted !" The whole damn website is FULL of original research or references to original research. Without it, there'd be no website of facts.
I would love to do this research and pages for another website that doesn't attack/criticize and remove it at the drop of a hat (and mind you, THIS ISN'T POLITICAL !), but I cannot seem to find one. Conservapedia barely exists and I'd have to create a page for every locale (and probably HTML, etc., which I'm not very good with), which would take eons to do. I'm just simply baffled otherwise. But I'm not going to toil one more second for a website that regards my meaningful contributions as a nuisance. Eff Wikipedia.
They’re so proud of themselves, policing “original research.” Apparently a cardinal sin. I was going to repudiate this crap with examples of original research all over WP, but I didn’t want to jeopardize countless articles from people who actually give a damn about informing a reader about the facts.
I wrote this entire segment when I was doing extensive research on Alaska, but somehow managed to get it through despite it all being — you guessed it — MY “original research.” The only thing changed since I composed it in July 2018 was the title of the section...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dillingham,_Alaska#Placenames
This bit took me months of research to properly compile, assess, assimilate, synthesize and then write. But, hey, they just don’t seem to want quality research and they reminded me how I was pestering “busy and productive editors” with my Arizona edits.
Somewhere I have a cache of old Wikipedia pages about Earth Day.
As you go back in time, you can see stuff being airbrushed out, (e.g, Ira Einhorn, the list of dire predictions from the 70s which are now laughable)
I looked at the profile of the editor who was doing a lot of the sanitizing. They’re supposedly retired from it now, but they regularly attended Wikipedia conferences, where I suppose the company line was touted.
Invites for the meeting I looked into pointedly said it was a “friendly” meeting - sounded like an Orwellian warning not to be bringing any disagreements.
I have added very small amounts of content to technical/engineering pages. If the topic is obscure I can add content. If the topic is not obscure I have run into the same crap. The place is loaded with mean spirited over seers. The internet in general tends to pull the meanest part of our personalities out.
A lot of this stuff I was editing WAS obscure. For the past few weeks, I was working on Arizona starting with the “places” page in alpha order, and these were native villages. I was making a visual conclusion that many were no longer in existence and declaring them ghost towns (using three references to visually confirm this as so, topo and aerial maps from the past to present) and this was not good enough (never mind my Benson AZ edit I outlined further down in this thread). Deleting my edits were getting high-five circlejerks by these power-hungry idiots.
An enormous mistake on our side’s part was not coming up with our own controlled media/internet outlets. Instead, we’re at the mercy of the left across the board. Even the President has no right to operate his own account on Twitter as he sees fit. You think they’d have regulated Emperor Zero had he been a Twitter member during his regime ?
the unfavorable statement appears to have been a direct quote from Goldberg
why would you use wiki everyday?
It is inaccurate and leftist.
perhaps you could put all that energy to work here at fr coordinating political information on one of the cases at hand.
Or offer to research and organize for one of the conservative outlets or think tanks.
perhaps you could put all that energy to work here at fr coordinating political information on one of the cases at hand.
Or offer to research and organize for one of the conservative outlets or think tanks.
Give NOTHING to leftists.
Do not uphold their endeavors.
What cases are you referring to ? I mean, this is both a hobby and specialty of mine. I’m not sure how helpful it explicitly is for political research.
Years ago, I was reading about a famous female conservative. At the end of the last paragraph, it said she ate children, later it was deleted of course. Turns out she was anti-gay marriage so someone decided to tarnish her biography because of this stance.
I don’t trust them when it comes to biographies.
I quit giving to Wikipedia two years ago because of their out of control editors and move to demonize anything or anyone they view as anti PC.
It sounds like you have a meticulous brain and are a researcher, and perhaps a demographer.
There are organizations on the right who could use someone like you compiling and organizing data.
I dunno, maybe. Could be OCD. :-p I’ve been doing this type of research work for fun since I was a kid (when I should’ve been doing kid stuff). Frankly, I’m glad the internet and Wikipedia was NOT around when I was a kid. To have been a kid doing this research and trying to make contributions online and being outright abused and maligned by these cretinous power-hunger editor thugs deleting my work, I’d have been emotionally devastated. Who likes having their time wasted with this kind of crap ?
I’m reminded of an idiot teacher who disliked me (and vice versa) who one time tossed a paper of mine in the trash. I wanted to grab her by the throat and make her pick it up with her teeth and apologize to me in front of the whole class. Same reaction with these idiots.
I’d say it’s to be expected. Don’t let them piss you off, brother.
I’m WELL past pissed. Today is a BAD anniversary day for me personally, too, so it’s like piling-on. I really don’t need this $hit.
“How about devoting your skills to conservapedia?”
Is there such a thing? Regardless, go to Wikipedia for things like the properties of the electron. Stay away from articles that get into politics.
You have a skill and a gift. Yoiu would be appreciated.
“... Today is a BAD anniversary day ...”
Understood, brother.
But it’s also a good day for you as well; you’re alive, you’re breathing, you’re HERE, and there are people that appreciate that you are.
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