Wikipedia, biased, incompetent volunteers, and taken over by business

Wikipedia doesn't follow its own rules on what is good content. There is much information about what is notable and what isn't and really it's a load of rubbish due to some people volunteering in subjects they know nothing about: most things to do with people. So you get the vacuous response where whether a person is a notable expert is reduced down to whether they were even on Ricky Lake or Oprah. It would help if people would but out of subjects they know nothing about. But it is more suspicious than that, if anyone has ever wrote a book on occultism with llewellyn publishing they automatically seem to get a wikipedia page in the subjects of new age/occult in which they specialize in.

This makes me wonder: Has wikipedia been taken over with volunteers from certain companies to control the content? Also there is a definite american biase and it seems that anyone who has ever achieved anything, had anything published in the USA will get into wikipedia easily. It makes me wonder is wikipedia any good as a encyclopedia anymore: yes it is free but is it at all correct or reliable? Surely they should be some mechanism to remove the idiots from wikipedia: those that work all the time for wikipedia working in subjects they know nothing about.
But in the end has wiipedia been taken over by corperations anyway after all?

The problem is that people think because it is free that they cannot complain. It has been taken over by stupid jobsworths.

Its like DCMA. Companies have people working solely on that. You need your name out there to make money.

Have you ever looked for a specific anything online and there's not one? Really what are the odds of not even one?!

Some of my favorite authors have crappy webpages because the publisher does. One of my favorite authors had volunteers create her a game and a webpage. There's more to marketing than FB.

I agree but the huge quantity of really crappy people that apparently fulfill their criteria based on nothing at all. It seems that actually if your mate is a volunteer you are in. But has anyone noticed the incredible american bias in wikipedia?

So what person's Wiki entry are you upset about? Also, the data there is more than just people...

a reply to: roadgravel

Just choose a wikipedia entry about any living person and there is a 50:50 chance on whether they should be there. Does no one find it offensive that a publishing company like Llewellyn publishing can take over the occult author pages on wikipedia and not let any other authors in. How can an author with one book and nothing else get into wiki because of the publishing company. It has become a very unreliable bigoted source of information.

a reply to: werewolf99

Wth are you using wiki for?! There has to be better sources. I use it for spelling, definitions Idt there can be an American bias on those can there?

a reply to: werewolf99

I would agree with that. It should not be controlled along business lines and interest. If there is level of worked required for being published there, it should apply to all.

Things that are affected by current corporation operation should be suspect for truthfulness as well.

Wikipedia is now became about a few stupid unemployable administrators having something to do. I would say to all wikipedia administrators: "Get a real job, in burger king and stop F##king up everything you d#ck".

a reply to: werewolf99

I wonder if a person/business was to make a certain size 'donation' if they might get special 'editing' and a loyal admin.

a reply to: werewolf99

Nearly every time I hear a complaint about Wikipedia, it's from a person with a rather fringe viewpoint and they are upset it is not supported by what's considered a rather authoritative source. Everything on Wikipedia is sourced and people are free to check out the individual sources.

Another complaint I hear is from people who try to submit sub-par content and are angry about not fulfilling the requirements. Those people are often (ironically) the same people who complain about the low standards and "how any random person can change the content".

I'm not saying you are one of those people but it's just normally what I hear. Wikipedia is free and supported by volunteers. That means there may be some temporarily inaccurate information but, like I said, everything has a source that is annotated at the bottom. If anything looks questionable, just look at the source content and go from there.

Personally, I think Wikipedia is one of the best things to happen to human society. It's amazing and taken for granted.

a reply to: Cuervo

Well said. I've found it quite reliable and when nonsense gets posted it doesn't last long.

a reply to: Cuervo

The bottom of the pages usually has the best information. Wikipedia is written for as a brief overview. That's why I prefer it for definitions and such

a reply to: werewolf99

How is it youre just realizing this? Uncontolled (barely) "user submitted" material, real, fake, slanted, biased etc. Like YouTube.
What?

originally posted by: Iamthatbish
a reply to: Cuervo

The bottom of the pages usually has the best information. Wikipedia is written for as a brief overview. That's why I prefer it for definitions and such

The most entertaining pages at Wikipedia are often the articles talk pages. The editors fight like dogs sometimes, all very passive-aggressive, and this sometimes happens on the most trivial points (a persons birthday, etc.). Bring popcorn.

a reply to: werewolf99

Most Wikipedia pages can be measured by their bibliographies. Much like Ats, the facts are encouraged to be accompnaied with coroborating sources. Articles are also tagged according to their quality, informing browsers of missing information or flawed data and requesting cleanup by users. There was a point at which the site took a proactive stance by shutting down the register function because too many people were making accounts and mucking stuff up. In short, Wikipedia is a professional agency that does take measures to ensure that the sitr remains the best free encyclopedia on the net. I've never had any problems with it.

a reply to: Cuervo

Absolutely. The global good outweighs the questionable content. After all, it is people who write everything, therefor , there will always be bias, no matter where it resides.

I have tried to update the wiki site for fibromyalgia and every change we made was rejected.
en.wikipedia.org...

This is even though research has shown that between 45 to 60% of people DXed with fibromyalgia realy have small fiber polyneuropathy.

www.painresearchforum.org...

Even the National Institutes of Health agree that some people DXed with fibromyalgia really have SFPN.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

We believe the insurance industry is behind the not allowing the part about small fiber polyneuropathy being added because there are no lab or other good tests for fibromyalgia.
but small fiber polyneuropathy can be tested for with a simple skin biopsy that is not done by most doctors to exclude nerve damage like small fiber polyneuropathy when DXing the pain problem.

This allows the insurance industry to deny claims for for people with fibro by claiming they are faking the pain or its all in there head and not real.

a reply to: werewolf99

You know you can create a Wikipedia account and write pages yourself, right? If they're good and accurate they get published to the site.

OP, are you going to post evidence of this happening? Any links or articles? I'd certainly like to believe you, but I have a rule where I don't believe anything written in a forum (especially this one) until I see corroborating evidence also posted.