Re: The 15 biggest Wikipedia blunders

[chris () blask org]

--- On Mon, 8/31/09, David M Chess <chess () us ibm com> wrote:

> Calling these "blunders" is a bit misleading; they're pretty much all instances of vandalism.  And most instances of 
> vandalism are fixed very very quickly (within minutes or better).

True, I've fixed a few myself.  Usually some sort of political statement (i.e. "Dr. such and such murdered unborn 
children...").  The auto-correcting (and perhaps auto-vandalizing?) nature of Wiki is one of its most unique 
characteristics.

> It would be more interesting to see
> a list of untruths that persisted for (say) longer than a
> day.  And to see some analysis of which were successful vandalism and
> which were something else.  Otherwise, "Wikipedia has at
> various instants contained false statements!" really isn't all that
> interesting, and doesn't really tell us much...

I think it would take something of a concerted effort to perform such an analysis.  Only once have I gotten dragged 
into the midst of a wiki-editors' war, and what I learned is that there are some folks who put a lot of effort into 
bending the W to reflect their views.  Researchers would have to have at least as much free time to dedicate to the 
task to come up with a useful analysis, but it would certainly be valuable.

-chris


      

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