• After a half-decade, massive Wikipedia hoax finally exposed
    57 replies, posted
I guess online sources are sources which have been made on the internet and not things which have been uploaded to it for the most part
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amisk_Lake[/url] [img]http://i.imgur.com/Jn5wv.png[/img] On June 18th 2010 I decided to fix this page. 31 edits by other people have been made since, one to fix "excessive vandalism" after someone else fixed the page further by adding a picture of Gabe Newell to it. The infobox, however, has yet to be changed. Wikipedia is useless when it comes to things people don't care about. (Try to leave the page alone if you can, I want to come back in a decade and find it still unchanged)
[QUOTE=proch;39094418]That must be so embarrasing for Wikipedia. Also proves that not everything you read on wikipedia is 100% true. It makes my guts boil when someone disagrees with a freaking doctor about ways of medicine because he red on Wikipedia that xyz.[/QUOTE] that's tricky territory though cause doctors can often be wrong or more often just aren't knowledgeable about everything
Wikipedia of Leaves
This reminded me to check the Rene Descartes wiki article. Sadly, "Give her the dick" is no longer one of his notable quotes
For a while, Zyzz was listed as the 2012 Mr. Olympia on the wikipedia page.
[QUOTE=Lazor;39095046][citation needed][/QUOTE] You are only allowed to write a history dissertation with heavy reference to Historian's books, no internet. Internet references aren't accepted in formal pieces of work like that at least.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;39095167]Online periodicals and journals are not "online sources", like wikipedia would be.[/QUOTE] To be honest, it's not as much a problem with online sources as unsourced sources. Most of my professors would not even allow me to use actual encyclopedias. Instead I would have to use the sources those encyclopedia cite - in the same way I could potentially use wikipedia.
I remember one time when a thread in the TF2 forum, forget which one, started to edit the 'Hats' page and put in quotes and references to TF2. Like, I think the Panama hat's description was changed to mention about being polite and efficient.
sterling work comrade
[QUOTE=Teddybeer;39096359][url]http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Bicholim_conflict[/url][/QUOTE] knowing the background it reads like a really meta "What If" thread from alternatehistory.com
[QUOTE=DinoJesus;39095132]Because a small handful of articles being false out of four million articles is a good reason to ignore quality sources. Books are found to be false all the time, but we don't see anyone restricting those now do we.[/QUOTE] Many professors and teachers don't allow Wikipedia as a source, and it's not because the stodgy older generation can't handle today's technology. It's that information that is more and more steps removed from the source is inherently less accurate and less useful, and using it anyways is just lazy. If you can find a well-documented, relevant Wikipedia page, you can easily look up its citations and take the information directly rather than using the Wikipedia summary of the information. If it's not well-documented and cited, it's not trustworthy information, so why use it to begin with? On top of that, many Wikipedia articles are poorly written and often do not properly reflect conflicting viewpoints or disagreements, which exist in every field. Many as well cite seemingly legitimate sources that ultimately trace back to popular misconceptions or erroneous beliefs, and getting these articles corrected by providing proper sources is a futile effort since authoritative oversight is reduced to a democratic process, and three mediocre secondary sources beat one primary one through force of numbers. Wikipedia's great when you want to do a fact check, general research on your own terms, or even to find relevant sources on a particular topic. As a scholarly resource in of itself, though, it's a very poor choice, and vandalism is just one of the reasons.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amisk_Lake[/url] I'm sorry Zeke but I had to.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;39095298][url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amisk_Lake[/url] [img]http://i.imgur.com/Jn5wv.png[/img] On June 18th 2010 I decided to fix this page. 31 edits by other people have been made since, one to fix "excessive vandalism" after someone else fixed the page further by adding a picture of Gabe Newell to it. The infobox, however, has yet to be changed. Wikipedia is useless when it comes to things people don't care about. (Try to leave the page alone if you can, I want to come back in a decade and find it still unchanged)[/QUOTE] [quote=Wikipedia]Folklore There are many folk tales told by the residents who live on the perimeter of the lake that a large, silvery serpent lives in its waters. [b]Many of the residents call it "Zeke".[/b] Records of the serpent date back to the year 1812.[/quote] Lol
[QUOTE=King Tiger;39097894]Lol[/QUOTE] There was no folklore section when I started.
I still remember going through many of the WWII articles and finding some of them filled with things like "Hitler started WWII in order to amass enough military strength (through conquest) to assault the impenetrable city of Googletron USA", and much more hidden throughout legitimate information. It was fixed the next day if I recall, so I'm still unsure as to whether it was there for a while or I got lucky and found the articles the day the changes were added. Laughed pretty good reading it all.
You know, thinking on it, what if there was a Wikipedia-like site that documented a sort of alternate history, with stuff like this, and it did it completely seriously? Kinda like the SCP site on the surface? I think it'd be neat as all hell.
[QUOTE=proch;39094418]That must be so embarrasing for Wikipedia. Also proves that not everything you read on wikipedia is 100% true. It makes my guts boil when someone disagrees with a freaking doctor about ways of medicine because he red on Wikipedia that xyz.[/QUOTE] Except for the fact that Wikipedia has been shown by Nature to be of almost the exact same level of accuracy as the Encyclopedia Britannica, so odds are most of what you read on Wikipedia will be true, and if you're unsure, check the sources and make sure that they're also trusted. I've been prescribed medicine for illnesses that I never even bought because I feel it's stupid to be told I have a virus only to then be prescribed antibiotics instead of antivirals (and even then I might not take antivirals for a virus because your immune system needs to be able to fight shit off on its own - medicine should really be a last case solution, not your first line of defence for illness). That wasn't related to Wikipedia, but I just thought I'd throw that out there on the note of medicine and doctors.
[QUOTE=TheFishyG;39100651]You know, thinking on it, what if there was a Wikipedia-like site that documented a sort of alternate history, with stuff like this, and it did it completely seriously? Kinda like the SCP site on the surface? I think it'd be neat as all hell.[/QUOTE] Conservapedia.
[QUOTE=sltungle;39101900]Except for the fact that Wikipedia has been shown by Nature to be of almost the exact same level of accuracy as the Encyclopedia Britannica, so odds are most of what you read on Wikipedia will be true, and if you're unsure, check the sources and make sure that they're also trusted.[/QUOTE] I wouldn't trust Encyclopedia Britannica as my sole source for anything, either. And I sure as hell wouldn't use knowledge gleaned from Encyclopedia Britannica to tell me doctor that I know better than them.
[QUOTE=sltungle;39101900]Except for the fact that Wikipedia has been shown by Nature to be of almost the exact same level of accuracy as the Encyclopedia Britannica, so odds are most of what you read on Wikipedia will be true, and if you're unsure, check the sources and make sure that they're also trusted. [/QUOTE] "almost" the exact same level of accuracy. "almost". But it's not. There may be only one in a thousand articles that is messed up, but you don't know if that's the one article you're happening to read. And if you need to check the sources to prove otherwise, why not just read the sources themselves and educate yourself directly on the matter than using the secondary source of a secondary source of a secondary source?
[QUOTE=rrunyan;39095188]I am currently a sophomore in college. When I was a freshman, I had a class about basic Roman history, and I swear to god I've heard this name before. Gaius is a common name. [editline]4th January 2013[/editline] And one that's seen often in Roman politics.[/QUOTE] Well, Gaius and Flavius are incredibly common Roman names, and I don't think Antoninus is a terribly rare name either. It's going to sound familiar in the same sense that the name, say, "George Thompson" will. Common first name, common enough last name. The guy who made the page probably knew he was using common names and did so on purpose.
[QUOTE=Teddybeer;39104943][T]http://i.imgur.com/dEwET.png[/T] I think it will be there for a while.[/QUOTE] someone ruined it :( [img]http://filesmelt.com/dl/someonefuckedup.png[/img]
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