Re: a little something for all you wikipedia-lovers

grapheus@xxxxxxx wrote:

At the beginning, Wikipedia contributed to the development of a "common opinion". It was at the time when ARTICLES were blocked in case of an Edit-War, so that both parties were OBLIGED to open a public discussion, in order to reach an agreement on a redaction respecting the Neutral Point of View basic rule.
But this is NO MORE the case, since not the articles, but the redactors are blocked. So that, the redactor of a "good contribution" can be hindered to publish it by a pack of partisans. This is, in my opinion, the number one problem concerning the scientific value of Wikipedia : instead of being informative on ALL existing theories (with possible ponderations like "Theory A is supported by several specialists, but not Theory B"), Wikipedia informs now ONLY on the theory accepted by the Wiki-administrators, who are generally amateurs in the field. So it has become completely untrustful.

And I have to concur with grapheus on this point. Wikipedia suffers too much from administrator interference. This can have both effects: not only relevant information may be trimmed away by a group of administrators who know little of the field but decided that '80% of people say oranges, so oranges it is and mention of lemons is "not NPOV"', all kinds of loony stuff may be kept in an article by a group of administrators who know little of the field but decided that 'pink meatball theory was proposed as an alternative to general relativity so it should be mentioned as well'.

So, to address Peter's concern, the issue with WP is not that it hasn't got editors, but that its editors' competence can't be guaranteed.
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am

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