Wikipedia is always improving, and quickly Options

[thekohser]

Just a sticky thread where we might post problems or errors in articles that would'a / should'a / could'a been fixed, but haven't.

You'd think after more than 26 months and about 3,800 page views, somebody would have noticed "Woody Wodpecker".

[lilburne]

Quality sourcing.

[EricBarbour]

a) I have hundreds of examples of this. And they are only a tiny sample. And I am not going to post them in a public area.
Because if those thousands of Jimbo-throne-sniffers can't find stupid and obvious typos, they should not be running that place.
(Congrats, Greg......)

b) Alley to Bali is a typical WP article about a cartoon, book, TV show, movie or other pop-culture flotsam.
Short, rather useless, and very badly written. There are hundreds of thousands more like this one.

c) As usual, the illustration may be a copyright violation. And no one cares--until a lawsuit is filed.

d) Sharka Blue. (nsfw)

This post has been edited by EricBarbour: Sun 31st July 2011, 12:20am

[EricBarbour]

You want something to mull over? I will give you one. Just one.

Deborah Winters (T-H-L-K-D). Sinclairindex (T-C-L-K-R-D) . Figure it out.

[thekohser]

Over 3,000 page views, and nobody bothered to question the unusual lede on the biography of one of America's most famous CEOs. Fifteen days? Jimbo, is this another example of the "quick" fixes of vandalism you're so often touting?

[carbuncle]

Over 3,000 page views, and nobody bothered to question the unusual lede on the biography of one of America's most famous CEOs. Fifteen days? Jimbo, is this another example of the "quick" fixes of vandalism you're so often touting?

To be fair, vandalism to BLPs is often caught much faster than 15 days. Take this edit to Leif Garrett, which was caught after only 7 days. Oh, I would have fixed it myself, but Garrett has ties to Scientology...

[Detective]

Over 3,000 page views, and nobody bothered to question the unusual lede on the biography of one of America's most famous CEOs.

But what if it's true? We woudn't want to omit important true information from the lede!

And everyone will be delighted to see that a brand new user has swooped in to remove the spurious apostrophe.

[thekohser]

I have to give credit where it's due. There's an article on Wikipedia about an African musical instrument, and in the article it mentions:

A banjo is not a person.

Nothing could be more true, and ever shall it be. Thank you, Wikipedia.

[Michaeldsuarez]

I have to give credit where it's due. There's an article on Wikipedia about an African musical instrument, and in the article it mentions:

A banjo is not a person.

Nothing could be more true, and ever shall it be. Thank you, Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...ldid=189844125

No one bothered to fix whatever that anon was trying to say since March 2008. I'm not a language expert, so I'm not sure how to go about fixing it either.

This post has been edited by Michaeldsuarez: Wed 24th August 2011, 6:32pm

[thekohser]

I'm not a language expert, so I'm not sure how to go about fixing it either.

I'm not sure 216.12.16.132 is a language expert, either.

[EricBarbour]

I have to give credit where it's due. There's an article on Wikipedia about an African musical instrument, and in the article it mentions:

A banjo is not a person.

Nothing could be more true, and ever shall it be. Thank you, Wikipedia.

A week later, and it still sits unrepaired.

Thanks, Wikipedia! So, let me get this straight: If an anonymous flake posts drivel on your "encyclopedia",
it can sit there for THREE YEARS unmolested.
But if Greg Kohs points out said drivel, you will deliberately leave it unrepaired. Why is that?

[Silver seren]

Fixed. When in doubt, remove it. Didn't seem to have anything to do with the Akonting instrument anyways.

[The Joy]

Fixed. When in doubt, remove it. Didn't seem to have anything to do with the Akonting instrument anyways.

You could have added a "citation needed" tag to it.

I do wonder if some Wikipedians would actually try to find "Reliable Sources" that adhere to NPOV to prove that a banjo is, indeed, not a person?

[Silver seren]

I rarely, if ever, bother with a citation needed tag. Either i'll be able to find a reference myself and I then add it, or i'm able to find nothing, so I just remove the statement altogether.

[Kelly Martin]

Fixed. When in doubt, remove it. Didn't seem to have anything to do with the Akonting instrument anyways.

It's a comment about linguistics. It appears that the word has structural gender corresponding to a personal gender, which is anomalous as a banjo is, well, not a person. It's rather like the anomalous way "Mädchen" is grammatically neuter; much has been written about the acceptability of using feminine pronouns in backreference to women made neuter by this quirk of German's grammar.

[Silver seren]

Fixed. When in doubt, remove it. Didn't seem to have anything to do with the Akonting instrument anyways.

It's a comment about linguistics. It appears that the word has structural gender corresponding to a personal gender, which is anomalous as a banjo is, well, not a person. It's rather like the anomalous way "Mädchen" is grammatically neuter; much has been written about the acceptability of using feminine pronouns in backreference to women made neuter by this quirk of German's grammar.

I understood that, but it didn't seem to have any place in that article, even if it was about the linguistical variations of the word Akonting.

[thekohser]

I have to give credit where it's due. There's an article on Wikipedia about an African musical instrument, and in the article it mentions:

A banjo is not a person.

Nothing could be more true, and ever shall it be. Thank you, Wikipedia.

A week later, and it still sits unrepaired.

How do you get a "week" later, Eric? Today's the 24th.

When in doubt, remove it.

Like Jimbo's claim to be "founder" of Wikipedia, because he installed some freeware on a server, at the request of one of his employees?

[EricBarbour]

How do you get a "week" later, Eric? Today's the 24th.

Sorry, doing 3 things at once.

I meant to say......3 years and several months.

This post has been edited by EricBarbour: Thu 25th August 2011, 9:04am

[culeaker]

Thekohser: You know, we aren't all bloody fools on Wikipedia. Some of us have a pretty shrewd suspicion which accounts are doing the sort of paid advertising you claim to be doing. But WP:AGF we usually leave those accounts alone if they appear superficially to behave themselves.

Now, if one of those accounts were to fix errors in articles rather than parade those errors here and get others to fix them, that account would get brownie points, and people would be even more inclined to invoke WP:AGF.

I do hope you take this advice in the spirit it was given.

[Zoloft]

Thekohser: You know, we aren't all bloody fools on Wikipedia. Some of us have a pretty shrewd suspicion which accounts are doing the sort of paid advertising you claim to be doing. But WP:AGF we usually leave those accounts alone if they appear superficially to behave themselves.

Now, if one of those accounts were to fix errors in articles rather than parade those errors here and get others to fix them, that account would get brownie points, and people would be even more inclined to invoke WP:AGF.

I do hope you take this advice in the spirit it was given.

That spirit being:
"That's a nice car you have; it'd be a pity if anything happened to it. Got a bit o' cash on you?"