The Wikipedians Who Make it Happen

Phoe6 writes "Many of us might have wondered who these crazy people are, spending lot of time at wikipedia and presenting us with such an invaluable information. Wired has decided to give some credits to the most active wikipedians, in their article titled Wiki becomes a way of life"

Good for them

[Anonymous Coward]

About time people who did this got some praise. Damn fine work they do, and an invaluable source of info.

WTF? Why would you /. Wikipedia?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow -- great idea to slashdot such a wonderful server when we KNOW it has bandwidth problems already...

I love the wikipedia,

[Moby Cock]

I think Wikipedia is excellent. It is amazing how much care is put into it. However, I also find it extraordinarily frustrating. The latency of it renders it pratically unusable. I hope that Google's bandwidth can help this because as it is, I find I do not use the wikipedia because of the hrrible lag.

And before you flame on, I DID send a donation.

Wiki

[wpiman]

While I enjoy the resources of Wikipedia- I often wonder how they come to terms with very controversal subjects- such as the Israeli/Palestinean conflict, the war of terror, the Halocaust--- etc.

There is really nothing to prevent me from going into those submissions and editting my view of the facts. There is nothing preventing someone from taking the other viewpoint.

I am suprised that these entries aren't changing on a minute by minute basis. Everyone wants to write history from their viewpoint.

Re:Wiki

[JeanBaptiste]

"There is really nothing to prevent me from going into those submissions and editting my view of the facts. There is nothing preventing someone from taking the other viewpoint.
I am suprised that these entries aren't changing on a minute by minute basis. Everyone wants to write history from their viewpoint."

yep. [wikipedia.org]

but then

[nounderscores]

why is there no article about slashdotters who make it happen? :_(

Instead we are seen as this kind of human wave that takes down websites.

Maybe it's more eligatarian this way.

Re:Knowledge is democratized?

[Quiet_Desperation]

So...if Wikipedia had been around way back when... the "world-is-flat" crowd would have edited out the silly "world-is-round" guy, right?

No. The idea that the flat earth theory was ever widely accepted by is a myth. Auguste Compte and others laid the ground work for the "theory" in the 1800s with anti-religious sentiments that overstated the whole idea of "war" between science and religion.

The idea that Colombus was opposed by a vast Flat Earth opposition was invented by Washington Irving in his book on the explorer in 1828. French scholar Antoine-Jean Letronne furthered the myth a few years later.

Re:wikipedia skeptic

[krgallagher]

"I have found numerous errors when reading articles."

I just recently discovered Wikipedia and think it is great! The way I found it was through Trillian [ceruleanstudios.com]. When I am in chat Trillian highlights words that have Wikipedia articles. Once I found it I immediately looked up my favorite subject, beer [realbeer.com]! Like you I found many mistakes. Of course I never completely believe anything I read even from so called experts. I still think it is a great site and project. As far as a teacher letting students use it as a source, I would allow it. There are almost as many errors in most text books.

Discussing Wikinews stories

[Drog]

For anyone interested, my site (The World Forum [theworldforum.org]) has been officially cooperating with Wikinews [wikinews.org] to offer a place for people to discuss some of the stories posted there. If there is ever a story posted on Wikinews that you'd like to discuss, but it's not cross-posted to The World Forum yet, you can submit it yourself (word-for-word, it's allowed).

I posted a Wikinews story yesterday entitled "CIA Sending Suspects Overseas For 'Rendition' [theworldforum.org]", which received almost 2000 hits due to being displayed on the front page of Google News for most of the day. This helps give Wikinews more readership, since they are not listed in Google News. Sadly, however, it does not result in increased discussion, since most people visiting from Google News are not people interested in posting comments.

Re:Knowledge is democratized?

[Speare]

It was the first paragraph that rubbed me the wrong way: ...

So, click on the 'Edit' button which was just a few inches away from the text. Insert a phrase that makes the statement more neutral, without removing details others have added.

• American wire gauge (AWG) is a way of specifying wire sizes, where each gauge represents a different wire diameter. It was originally applied to non-ferrous, conducting wire, but lately is commonly used
• in diverse related applications, such as a standard to specify body piercing jewelry sizes in the United States.

If you know why it rubs you the wrong way, what have you got to lose in improving the content?

rambot!

[istewart]

So that explains why every little town has a default page containing census data! I honestly thought somebody was going through and copying and pasting all the census data into Wikipedia by hand.

I must say I appreciate the Jack Kerouac reference in my hometown's article [wikipedia.org], though.