Arch of Triumph, wikipedia quotes itself Options

[xinjeisan]

This is pretty minor but Wikipedia has been quoted on a Wikipedia article for about seven months now.

"His novel "Arch of Triumph", first published in 1945 in English translation, and published in German as "Arc de Triomphe" in 1946, was another instant best-seller and reached worldwide sales of nearly five million."- Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=376198442

[Silver seren]

And yet you fixed it yourself?

[Peter Damian]

And yet you fixed it yourself?

The paradox of Sisyphus again. Point to any problem with a Wikipedia article, and it will get fixed, and some idiot will say 'Wikipedia works - anyone can edit'.

Similarly, you can contact a member of Parliament, or a Senator or whatever, pointing out that someone has been left in dire poverty by some absurd bureaucratic decision, or fault in the system, or failure to give proper health treatment.

The MP will probably fix it quite soon if you complain enough. Then the MP can say 'the system works'. But of course the system doesn't work. There are still thousands or millions of other people who have insufficient benefits, are screwed up by bureaucracy, and so on.

This is why we have a separate secret forum for documenting and cataloguing problems with Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia Review is not a supplement to the ordinary Wikipedia process of spotting and fixing articles. It ought to be a catalogue of what is broken about the whole system.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Sun 6th March 2011, 11:34am

[MZMcBride]

This is why we have a separate secret forum for documenting and cataloguing problems with Wikipedia articles.

Tell me more.

[melloden]

This is why we have a separate secret forum for documenting and cataloguing problems with Wikipedia articles.

Tell me more.

You did know about this before, right, Max? I'm pretty sure Silver here hasn't been invited into the WR cabal for a reason.

[Silver seren]

I already knew about the secret forum though. You guys have mentioned it before.

[Somey]

I already knew about The secret forum though. You guys have mentioned it before.

We prefer to think of it as our "special" forum.

Xinjeisan only has 30 posts, but he seems like a good guy and I wish he would post more, so that someday he could join us in the "special" forum and point things like this out there - in the hopes that we can get a better idea about just how long some of these revisions can stay in place if allowed to do so without being exposed. Like Mr. Damian suggests above, for every one of these that's found, there are probably several others that are never found. Of course, most of the articles involved are likely to be inconsequential, and the WP'ers are usually good about not trying to hide these things by removing revision histories...

Still, anything that points out the invalidity of the "mistakes get corrected within 5 minutes" claim is worth posting, IMO.

[xinjeisan]

Thanks Somey for the kind words. I don't know if I need to spend more time than I do on wikipedia stuff. I seem to focus on these small things.

Like for example what to do with these two articles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Disturbance_Theatre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Disturbance_Theater

A lot of the artists connected to this group that have pages on wikipedia are problematic but I just came across this. They are two POV, poorly written articles about the same group. Its probably just notable enough to not be deleted but not notable enough for anyone to spend enough time fixing the articles -- I just spent too much time fixing up this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha_C%C3%A1rdenas -- which is why I found out about these two articles above.

Its easy to fix a minor article on a novel but what to do about this? If I'm not motivated, who is going to be? Then it will just sit there forever...

Maybe I should try to get enough posts to get into the secret board.

[thekohser]

Like for example what to do with these two articles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Disturbance_Theatre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Disturbance_Theater

Wow, that's just classic Wikipedia idiocy.

There's a similar, but not as ludicrous division between:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_research
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_research

I was starting to address some of the problematic aspects of these articles, but because I used the edit summary to assert my love for Wikipedia with all my soul, and pledge allegiance to the ArbCom, I was banned (again) from Wikipedia.

Wikipediots who populate the ArbCom, you see, would rather have bad encyclopedia content generated by boring and quietly obedient automatons, than good encyclopedia content generated by spirited and creative thinkers.

[Gruntled]

Wikipediots who populate the ArbCom, you see, would rather have bad encyclopedia content generated by boring and quietly obedient automatons, than good encyclopedia content generated by spirited and creative thinkers.

That's a bit like the staff here, really. They'd rather have bad WP criticism, or even totally off-topic waffle, generated by boring and quietly obedient automatons, than good WP criticism generated by spirited and creative thinkers. But then, no doubt at least two of the staff are ArbCom members or are their twins!

[Milton Roe]

I was starting to address some of the problematic aspects of these articles, but because I used the edit summary to assert my love for Wikipedia with all my soul, and pledge allegiance to the ArbCom, I was banned (again) from Wikipedia.

That was because they could tell you were being sarcastic. I don't know how they could tell (probably they needed outside or mechanical assistance), but they managed it.