How useful is Wikipedia as a resource?

[Clarence Yard]

It was well covered in the class 800 introduction threads on here at the time, and not just by me.

If you publish tosh in the mags, it gets picked up by wiki. And you can’t seem to shift it, even when you point it out. Frankly, I’ve given up with it as a source of accurate data and not just for this subject either.

 

[43096]

You must understand then that, for anybody who isn't you or who doesn't know you, this reduces to "Wikipedia is wrong because I say it is".

And everyone needs to develop a BS-filter when reading Wikipedia. There is a huge amount of garbage on there.

 

[XAM2175]

It was well covered in the class 800 introduction threads on here at the time, and not just by me.

If you publish tosh in the mags, it gets picked up by wiki. And you can’t seem to shift it, even when you point it out. Frankly, I’ve given up with it as a source of accurate data and not just for this subject either.

No, it get picked up by the people who in good faith enter the information they have found in reputable sources. If you want to shift it, you need to come up with a source for your new information of equal or greater repute.

Quite often that can be an immense pain in the backside, I don't deny that at all, but it is the least bad system devised so far.

Please understand that I want to help here, but I cannot do anything on the strength of "some bloke posted it in a forum thread".

 

[43096]

No, it get picked up by the people who in good faith enter the information they have found in reputable sources. If you want to shift it, you need to come up with a source for your new information of equal or greater repute.

Quite often that can be an immense pain in the backside, I don't deny that at all, but it is the least bad system devised so far.

Please understand that I want to help here, but I cannot do anything on the strength of "some bloke posted it in a forum thread".

Self evidently the “reputable sources” that are used to justify the tosh in Wikipedia are not reputable.

 

[Wyrleybart]

No, it get picked up by the people who in good faith enter the information they have found in reputable sources. If you want to shift it, you need to come up with a source for your new information of equal or greater repute.

Quite often that can be an immense pain in the backside, I don't deny that at all, but it is the least bad system devised so far.

Please understand that I want to help here, but I cannot do anything on the strength of "some bloke posted it in a forum thread".

Question.
If someone on wiki asked you to take a long walk off a short pier would you ?

"Clarence Yard" is as informed source as you can find so my advice is to ditch wiki and trust what he says on here and other fora.
You just need to trust his info

 

[Pit_buzzer]

I've been on here a while now and Clarence yard is obviously a reliable and knowledgeable insider taking the trouble to inform us all. Wikipedia has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Some other users come across as bitter opinionated dinosaurs

 

[Starmill]

It was well covered in the class 800 introduction threads on here at the time, and not just by me.

If you publish tosh in the mags, it gets picked up by wiki. And you can’t seem to shift it, even when you point it out. Frankly, I’ve given up with it as a source of accurate data and not just for this subject either.

With respect, the post you quoted earlier wasn't doubting your contribution, but asking whether there's a verifiable source for it.

Nobody has any reason to suspect that what you've posted isn't a complete and correct account, as far as I can see. Unfortunately though, an anonymous post on a public forum isn't suitable as a source.

The sources currently in use on Wikipedia are, just as you say, at risk of being incorrect. However, your posts on this forum aren't suitable sources on the basis of which to post a correction there. If you are aware of any such sources please feel free to add them, and one of us can then put that forward in the edit on Wikipedia.

Question.
If someone on wiki asked you to take a long walk off a short pier would you ?

"Clarence Yard" is as informed source as you can find so my advice is to ditch wiki and trust what he says on here and other fora.
You just need to trust his info

For the avoidence of doubt, I don't think that anyone has actually suggested that they're wrong, or not an "informed" source.

Self evidently the “reputable sources” that are used to justify the tosh in Wikipedia are not reputable.

Commonly the case. But note that a newspaper or journal article, written by a named journalist, who can be contacted and held to account if they're wrong, is generally speaking an acceptable source for Wikipedia, unless it is then challenged by another account, interview, or paper which is of better standing, or was closer to the facts of the matter.

In this case, a better verified source has yet to be posted.

 

[Wyrleybart]

With respect, the post you quoted earlier wasn't doubting your contribution, but asking whether there's a verifiable source for it.

Nobody has any reason to suspect that what you've posted isn't a complete and correct account, as far as I can see. Unfortunately though, an anonymous post on a public forum isn't suitable as a source.

The sources currently in use on Wikipedia are, just as you say, at risk of being incorrect. However, your posts on this forum aren't suitable sources on the basis of which to post a correction there. If you are aware of any such sources please feel free to add them, and one of us can then put that forward in the edit on Wikipedia.


For the avoidence of doubt, I don't think that anyone has actually suggested that they're wrong, or not an "informed" source.

Just as in real life, you just have to learn to trust or distrust stuff on forums. If uncle Percy told you he shot down an ME109 in WW2 you either believe him or not.

"CY" has already told you he rode the initial class 800 trials with GWR. He does not need to verify it. You need to choose whether to believe him or not
Your choice

 

[XAM2175]

Self evidently the “reputable sources” that are used to justify the tosh in Wikipedia are not reputable.

And how do you demonstrate that? How do you demonstrate to other people, who don't know you and almost certainly never will know you, that your alteration or addition is more likely to be correct than the material that you replaced? If the positions were reversed and you were presented on one hand with information from a newspaper or a trade magazine, etc etc, and on the other hand information from a faceless internet user about whom you know nothing who's saying "it's correct because I know it is"?

That sort of problem is why the Verifiability policy has evolved such as it has - and by process of consensus amongst users - over nearly nineteen years now:

Wikipedia:Verifiability - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In the English Wikipedia, verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. Wikipedia does not publish original research. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than editors' beliefs, opinions, or experiences. Even if you are sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it. If reliable sources disagree, then maintain a neutral point of view and present what the various sources say, giving each side its due weight.

All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists, and captions, must be verifiable. All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material. Any material that needs an inline citation but does not have one may be removed. Please immediately remove contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced.

There is also a procedure for finding sources to be or not to be reliable, which also operates by consensus:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources

By such operation sources like The Times have been held to be generally reliable, Parliamentary Hansards have been found to be reliable sources of things that are said in Parliament but not whether anything said there is or is not factually correct, and the Daily Mail has been thoroughly and roundly deprecated - but sources about British railways tend to fly under the radar at that scale. Were it up to me I'd push to have several of Colin Marsden's books deprecated, for example, but at the moment I've neither the knowledge nor breadth of superior sources to make a case stick in front of an audience of non-enthusiasts.

If someone on wiki asked you to take a long walk off a short pier would you ?

This is stunningly facile. Congratulations.

"Clarence Yard" is as informed source as you can find so my advice is to ditch wiki and trust what he says on here and other fora.
You just need to trust his info

I've been on here a while now and Clarence yard is obviously a reliable and knowledgeable insider taking the trouble to inform us all. Wikipedia has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Some other users come across as bitter opinionated dinosaurs

For what it's worth, I personally do trust Clarence Yard on this topic, just as I trust a number of other members here to also be speaking authoritatively on a number of subjects close to them. Indeed the only reason that I am even spending time on this now is because I actively want to help! The problem is that I cannot "export" my trust, so to speak, to people who don't know me in the slightest and who don't know whether or not I can be trusted. It is the whole crux of the issue - it's all well and good for us to judge, on the balance of probabilities and aided by own knowledge, that a contributor here in our discussion forum knows their stuff; but we ourselves cannot demonstrate that to people who are not members here and who do not have the same level of knowledge as we do.

 

[Starmill]

Just as in real life, you just have to learn to trust or distrust stuff on forums. If uncle Percy told you he shot down an ME109 in WW2 you either believe him or not.

If Mr Percy is a primary source of that information, and it has been recored somewhere what he saw, in his own words, then that is more than sufficient as a source for the information on Wikipedia. Unless there's a conflicting primary account of the event of course, in which case they would need to be compared closely. Admittedly this is often an area where contributors to Wikipedia are at their worst, but the system works as well as it does for a reason. If your view is that it should be better then you're of course free to present the information using your own account on Wikipedia.

"CY" has already told you he rode the initial class 800 trials with GWR. He does not need to verify it. You need to choose whether to believe him or not
Your choice

It's not for me to believe or disbelieve anything which is presented without someone's real name and contact information attached. Whether I believe it or not means basically nothing.

 

[Cowley]

mods note - some posts from this thread have been moved to here.

 

[Peter Sarf]

There is some Wikipedia editor who *insists* that the Cornbook-Broadway extension of Manchester Metrolink opened on 12th June 1999. It didn't - it was 6th December 1999. Every edit I make to correct this gets reverted.

Whoever it is is mixing up 6/12 with 12/6...

To me that looks like an interpretation of the same date. 6th December is 6/12 in the UK but is 12/6 in US. OR 12th June is 6/12 in the US and 12/6 in the UK.

I have had trouble with this kind of thing in spreadsheets etc. If the day of the month is over 12 then it is unambiguous. Any day between 1 and 12 could be a month !. So don't release/implement/close anything in the first twelve days of any month !.

 

[D6975]

Has anyone else received the message telling you that your IP address is banned from editing?
I have when attempting to do so in my lunch break at my former workplace.
I used to work at a College, so perhaps not that surprising that it happened.

 

[Royston Vasey]

"Wikipedia has rendered university education all but pointless"
Alan Partridge

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Has anyone else received the message telling you that your IP address is banned from editing?

Yep. Have to log in under my user name to have any edits accepted.

 

[AngusH]

Not using EE by any chance are you? Wikpedia seem to have blocked the entire ip range.


link:

Your Appeal – UTRS 2

 

[najaB]

This recent story from the BBC indicates one of the big problems with Wikipedia and the reliance on 'published sources'. In a nutshell, someone edited a Wikipedia page with a fake fact, that article then got used as a source for an online article, which was then linked as a reference for the topic.

Until recently, if you had searched for "Alan MacMasters" on Wikipedia, you would have found the same article that Adam did.
And who would have doubted it?
After all, like most Wikipedia articles, this one was peppered with references: news articles, books and websites that supposedly provided evidence of MacMasters' life and legacy. As a result, lots of people accepted that MacMasters had been real.

…

On 6 February 2012, Alan was at a university lecture, when the class was warned against using Wikipedia as a source. To hammer the point home, the lecturer said that a friend of his - one "Maddy Kennedy" - had named himself on the site as the inventor of the toaster.

Alan and his classmates found the story "amusing" but pondered correcting the article - after all, one of Wikipedia's distinguishing features is that pretty much anyone can edit it.

Sitting right next to Alan was one of his closest friends, Alex, who volunteered to do the editing himself. Alex recalls: "I just changed it so that it said that my friend, who sat next to me, Alan MacMasters, had in fact invented the toaster in Edinburgh in 1893.

"We had no idea who invented the toaster."

…

Soon, the name "Alan MacMasters" would spread rapidly around the world as the inventor of the toaster. Over more than a decade, his life story was retold by major news outlets, official bodies and even a US museum.

Alan MacMasters: How the great online toaster hoax was exposed

How a 15-year-old schoolboy exposed a much-repeated "fact" as a Wikipedia hoax.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[eldomtom2]

That sort of problem is why the Verifiability policy has evolved such as it has - and by process of consensus amongst users - over nearly nineteen years now

The problem is that a group of Wikipedia editors are not necessarily the best people to outsource your judging of reliability to.

 

[XAM2175]

This recent story from the BBC indicates one of the big problems with Wikipedia and the reliance on 'published sources'. In a nutshell, someone edited a Wikipedia page with a fake fact, that article then got used as a source for an online article, which was then linked as a reference for the topic.

Circular referencing, or, the process of citogenesis. An illustration as to why the source simply being published isn't sufficient.

The problem is that a group of Wikipedia editors are not necessarily the best people to outsource your judging of reliability to.

Any outsourcing of judgement is the choice of the individual reader - it is the entire reason that the source of any particular claim is meant to be identified in the article. The only group judgement that occurs is 1) to implement and apply the verifiability policy, and 2) to class some sources as being so insufficiently reliable that they cannot be used to defend the inclusion of a claim in an article at all.

Or is your comment a complaint about the fact that the second point there occurs at all?

 

[eldomtom2]

Any outsourcing of judgement is the choice of the individual reader - it is the entire reason that the source of any particular claim is meant to be identified in the article. The only group judgement that occurs is 1) to implement and apply the verifiability policy, and 2) to class some sources as being so insufficiently reliable that they cannot be used to defend the inclusion of a claim in an article at all.

You are pretending that this is a simple and uncontroversial process.

 

[XAM2175]

You are pretending that this is a simple and uncontroversial process.

You are putting words in my mouth now.

 

[steamybrian]

This recent story from the BBC indicates one of the big problems with Wikipedia and the reliance on 'published sources'. In a nutshell, someone edited a Wikipedia page with a fake fact, that article then got used as a source for an online article, which was then linked as a reference for the topic.


…

…


[

I have been an editor since 2007 and have made many corrections. I started when there I found many obvious glaring errors in basic facts.
I fully agree with najaB that it has reliance on published sources. In one example a closure date of a line was quoted wrong so I corrected it which was subsequently reverted. I travelled on the last train, kept the ticket and recorded it my diary but it was not good enough. Eventually I found a reference in a book to the correct date which was accepted with that source.
I have had many running battles with senior editors on basic errors but it appears more recently the senior managers have changed because it appears most of my corrections are now accepted. Some errors I have corrected were-
I am not an expert but simple errors such as quoting a fact on one page then stating something different on another.
Stating that a station was owned by for example LMSR when it closed before 1923 (pregrouping).
A few days ago I corrected a fact stating a line was double track but a quick look at photographs on wikipedia showed it was single track.
Incorrectly stating the next station or previous stations in text or on maps when a simple check will correct it.

 

[ABB125]

A few days ago I corrected a fact stating a line was double track but a quick look at photographs on wikipedia showed it was single track.

Well obviously that picture has been photoshopped. Everyone knows that it was always double track.

 

[david1212]

I find it useful but always try to check details against other resources, ideally at least two since one could be copied from Wikipedia or vice-versa.

 

[eldomtom2]

I find it useful but always try to check details against other resources, ideally at least two since one could be copied from Wikipedia or vice-versa.

Or the source itself could predate Wikipedia but make mistakes of its own. This isn't necessarily an issue of bias - typos and slips can happen.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

A whole year on from the Salisbury crash, and clearly still some militant Wikipedia editors will not allow the Class 158 and Class 159 pages to state that written-off 158763 and 159102 are, in fact, not "in service with Great Western Railway/South Western Railway"...

 

[D365]

A whole year on from the Salisbury crash, and clearly still some militant Wikipedia editors will not allow the Class 158 and Class 159 pages to state that written-off 158763 and 159102 are, in fact, not "in service with Great Western Railway/South Western Railway"...

But has this been confirmed in the public domain?

 

[43096]

But has this been confirmed in the public domain?

They’ve been de-registered on the system.

 

[D365]

They’ve been de-registered on the system.

Indeed - my point being that Wikipedia doesn't take this as a source.