<p>I once listened to a young, educated Muslim woman give an explanation of Islam. All was well until she began talking about how well Jews were and are treated in Arab countries. She literally knew nothing of this history, and I literally was biting my tongue.</p>
<ol>
<li>For those who think Wikipedia is a reliable source of information or “facts”, from its own website:</li>
</ol>
<p>" Wikpedia is an open source, multilingual, wiki based, online encyclopedia. Wikpedia is written collaboratively by volunteers; its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the web site. The name is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a type of collaborative website) and encyclopedia."</p>
<p>“Having a Wikepedia entry makes you seem important, and moreover lets you control the first thing others read about you. Why not add your own! Go to “How do I get listed in Wikpedia ?” to start your own Wiki entry!”</p>
<p>“A Wikepedia entry on yourself is a powerful reputation management tool. Google floats Wikepedia pages to the top of people searches, and unlike traditional press coverage, you get to edit it. Or more wisely, get someone else to edit.”</p>
<p>“Having a Wikepedia entry makes you seem important, and moreover lets you control the first thing others read about you. But remember the Golden Rule: Do not edit Wikepedia from your own computer. It’s too easy for rivals to get your computer’s IP address whenever you edit a page, which lets them call up an inarguable audit trail of your exact edits from the wiki’s database archive. People edit their own entries all the time, but you’ll look vain and foolish if caught at it by a grudgeful opponent.”</p>
<p>“Instead, edit your entry from another network, and don’t login with a Wikepedia user account to do it. Post anonymously using your IP address, and use whatismyip.com to check that address first. Only edit Wikepedia from an IP address whose first number (say, the “64” in 64.81.53.27) is different from both your home and office computer’s addresses. If they’re the same, it strongly suggests that you’re editing yourself.”</p>
<p>Convenient, isn’t it.</p>
<ol>
<li> For those who claimed that Israel engages in"political assasination" and is therefore at odds with US policy:</li>
</ol>
<p>Israel targets leaders of groups that promote, support, plan and implement bombings and other attacks on civilian populations and who have culpability, both direct and indirect for such attacks. It targets leaders of groups who have declared a defacto or dejure war against Israel’s survival. What do you think the US did with regard to Hitler in WWII. What do you think the US is doing now with bin Laden in the aftermath of 9/11. Oh, that’s right. it’s the “ole double standard” used by Israel bashers. And by, the way, the cited Executive Orders have been taken out of context. </p>
<p>Ford’s Executive Order was primarily aimed at curbing abuses by our intelligence agencies within our own country that were directing their intelligence activities against civilians here in violation of the Constitution and statutory civil rights. It was a multi page document, with much detail. Except where it came to “political assassination”. There, it contained a single sentence: “(g) Prohibition of Assassination. No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.” Conspicuously devoid of definition and explanation of purpose and intent in contrast to the rest of the document. Wonder why. And there is a world of difference between political assassination and targeted killings of terrorist leaders. All subsequent Executive Orders addressing “political assassination” were equally sparse and devoid of detail.</p>
<p>And for good reason. They were never intended to apply to targeted killings of leaders of groups intent on attacking and killing our own citizens. In a Memorandum of Law on Executive Order 12333 and Assassination, it was concluded: </p>
<p>" The purpose of Executive Order 12333 and its predecessors was to preclude unilateral actions by individual agents or agencies against selected foreign public officials, and to establish beyond any doubt that the United States does not condone assassination as an instrument of national policy. Its intent was not to limit lawful self defense options against legitimate threats to the national security of the United States or individual U.S. citizens. Acting consistent with the Charter of the United Nations, a decision by the President to employ clandestine, low visibility or overt military force would not constitute assassination if U.S. military forces were employed against the combatant forces of another nation, a guerrilla force, or a terrorist or other organization whose actions pose a threat to the security of the United States."</p>
<p>“This memorandum was coordinated with and concurred in by the Legal Adviser, Department of State; General Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency; Legal Adviser, National Security Council; Office of Legal Policy, Department of Justice; General Counsel, Department of Defense; and the Judge Advocate Generals of the Navy and Air Force.
[signed]
W. Hays Parks
Chief, International Law Branch
International Affairs Division 15”</p>
<p>But Israel doesn’t have the same right, does it. Oops, another double standard.</p>
<p>Not going to get overly involved in this debate, but MichaelNKat, please link me to where you read that - it sounds contrary to all the rules I’ve encountered in my time editing Wiki, and furthermore have never read it myself. I’m inclined to call BS only because notability and No Original Research are extremely important Wiki guidelines, which those suggestions would seem to violate. Please link so I can verify.</p>
<p>Here’s the link. Took me a while to find it again and in the process I saw other pages that makes it understandable why you would question the quotes. Either the page I got the quotes from is legit or someone did a good job “spoofing” the Wikipedia page. <a href=“http://www.wikepedia.biz/how-do-i-get-listed-in-wikepedia.php[/url]”>http://www.wikepedia.biz/how-do-i-get-listed-in-wikepedia.php</a> It appears it may be the latter.</p>
<p>However, it also appears that the basic premise is correct that Wikipedia is not a reliable source of info. These I am confident came from the actual Wkipedia cite.
Anyone can edit any article:
" The most basic wiki feature of all is: Edit this page! With the exception of a few protected pages, every page has a link that says “edit this page”. This link lets you do exactly that: edit the page you’re looking at. Sites like these, where anyone can edit anything, are known as ‘wikis’."</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial_(Editing)[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial_(Editing)</a></p>
<p>Also that the accuracy of the info can be questionable:
"“Many ignorant people who think they know stuff will riddle articles with errors and serious omissions. In all honesty, Wikipedia has a fair bit of well-meaning, but ill-informed and amateurish work.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections</a></p>
<p>And that posters with an ax to grind post misinformation:
“There are plenty of partisans who are all too eager to leave out information that is important to presenting a balanced view. They’ll be delighted to post to Wikipedia, and that’s going to create huge gaps in your coverage, which will ruin the project. Frequently the initial author omits crucial information, whether due to ignorance or malice.” </p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections</a></p>
<p>And that there is a problem with a lack of balanced coverage:
"“Wikipedia coverage is heavily biased by the sorts of people who want to contribute to it. This seems to be a perfectly legitimate concern. Certainly, Wikipedia coverage is patchy. It’s easy to find examples of a really long article on one subject, whereas another, equally important subject, has a very short article. Sometimes this is just the result of a single enthusiastic contributor. Other times it is due to systemic bias.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections</a></p>
<p>A simple Google search revealed Michael was quoting not from “Wikipedia’s own website” as he claimed, but from a blog by Paul Boutin in Silicon Valley Users’ Guide (link below):</p>
<p><a href=“http://valleywag.com/tech/silicon-valley-users-guide/svug-18-how-do-i-get-into-wikipedia-225940.php[/url]”>http://valleywag.com/tech/silicon-valley-users-guide/svug-18-how-do-i-get-into-wikipedia-225940.php</a></p>
<p>Maybe good advice if you want to get into you-know-what, but not from their site.</p>
<p>And elementary school children (and their teachers) know Wikipedia is not a totally reliable site b/c of the possibility of vandalism. Or simple misinformation.</p>
<p>Yeah Michael, as I suspected, you went to a site that while it looks legitimately related to Wikipedia, is actually not at all.</p>
<p>Anyways, as to the other common objections to Wikipedia, some are more legitimate than others. Is lots of the work amateurish? For sure. But are the important things, the things that have high value of information for many people, amateurish? Not at all. The amateurish articles tend to reflect their audiences - so a page about some teenager-targeted TV show will likely be of lower quality than a page about chemical synthesis.</p>
<p>As for errors, it’s very true that they will occur through inadvertent edits, but the point of the consensus review process is to correct these errors - and it generally does so, rather quickly.</p>
<p>Finally, the connected issues of people with agendas to push, and biased coverage are brought up and are valid, but are in no way much different than most traditional encyclopedias.</p>
<p>Common sense would dictate that Wikipedia should be of much lower quality than traditional encyclopedias, but in reality it’s not that much worse - various research has shown Wikipedia to be of similar quality as more traditional encyclopedias.</p>
<p>Anyways, I’m going to stop derailing this thread and let everyone get back to the Middl East-related vitriol. ;)</p>
<p>See post 64 and 66. The site I went to was not the one you note but a site set up to appear to be an actual Wikipedia site. I discovered this and noted it.</p>
<p>I spoke with a friend who is very active in Wikipedia about the original article posted by the OP when this thread first started, because I was concerned about it for several reasons. He said that with 1 million + articles, they try to monitor what is posted, but cannot control everything, so that everything on Wikipedia basically has to be taken as possibly but not necessarily factual. They will post articles about opinions, such as this one, but there is no accountability as to what is biased or prejudiced. It is anonymous, so there is NO accountability.</p>
<p>I was surprised because this friend is brilliant and went to an IVY, etc, but he basically thinks that Wikipedia is for fun, but not of academic quality, because it is too open to anyone, and vandalism, as well as bias.</p>
<p>Wikipedia also does attract a lot of sincere posters, but also its share of total nutcases. You don’t see a lot of the absolute garbage that gets posted because a lot of people spend a lot of time getting rid of it, but cannot find all of the inaccuracies and idiotic stuff that goes on it (and I have heard some real strange stuff from him about what happens.)</p>
<p>It’s amazing how good a resource Wikipedia is, considering how open it is to content from anyone. If you read the talk pages, you can see that people devote a lot of effort to getting things right.</p>
<p>As pointed out, in the long run, it’s no better or worse than using any other encyclopedia–they can have mistakes, inaccuracies, out-dated information and bias too.</p>
<p>The difference is that the vandalism can be really crazy in Wikipedia, as being anonymous, it can bring out the worst in people, as can happen on many anonymous sites. </p>
<p>I probably shouldn’t quote some of the stuff I’ve heard, but the writers and editors in the other encyclopedias don’t use random curse words and insults and jibes that some of the vandals do in Wikipedia. </p>
<p>It seems to be an OK place to start for knowledge, but it not useable in the colleges with which I am familiar.</p>
<p>I don’t know of a college that accepts any encyclopedias as sources. I seriously have never heard of using an encyclopedia as a resource for a college paper. </p>
<p>The vandalism can be crazy, but it’s usually not allowed to stand for long, and the editors can lock pages that are frequently vandalized to protect them.</p>
<p>It is impossible to get all of the vandalism on Wikipedia, but this is just my knowledge. Obviously other people have a lot more faith in it, or it wouldn’t be so popular with the general public.</p>
<p>I personally find Wikipedia marginally acceptable, but my field is very exact and I can’t use anything but a few tightly controlled peer-reviewed journals. </p>
<p>I am very glad that so many of you are part of the project of Wikipedia. My friend certainly enjoys it a lot, and spends a lot of time on it. He will be pleased to know that so many college-educated people are enthusiastic about it, because at times he finds the participants marginal per their education, as compared to his.</p>
<p>I think all encyclopedias are marginally acceptable, especially when compared to peer-reviewed journals. The only real purpose they serve is what you said: to give a general overview of a topic that might help get a person started.</p>
<p>You are right. I also think that the number of high schoolers who are active in it is good. It gives them a chance to research topics and also to interact with others with similar interests. It sure beats a lot of stuff that gets done on the Internet by teen-agers, and has to be several cuts above Paris Hiton and Lindsey Lohan news!</p>
<p>This thread has gone off topic.</p>