Hacker News Reader

Comment by timeinput | Hacker News Reader

> because I don't want it that way.

- some editor probably

In my handful of encounters trying to contribute to wikipedia it's always been such a frustrating experience.

"not enough people monitoring for quality" is one way to put it, but I've often found it to be one very zealous person monitoring for their idea of quality. It ends up quite frustrating, especially if you're a domain expert.

I've corrected articles where things I've written have been cited and had the changes reverted. It was enough to just give up.

View on HN

> I've corrected articles where things I've written have been cited and had the changes reverted. It was enough to just give up.

I've heard about this happening enough that I stopped treating WP with any credibility whatsoever even for what should be cut & dry fact (aka: non-controversial/political topics). I've heard of people who were being quoted updating the context to more accurately reflect what they were saying and having the changes reverted. As if the person who said the thing being quoted doesn't know what they meant. Often because it didn't meet some guideline or another but more often than not because one overzealous editor has decided that the page being edited is "their page".

I learn the truth more from perusing the edit history or talk pages than from ever reading the page itself. Also despite claims of neutrality it's amazing how often pro-communist articles are heavily maintained almost exclusively by diehard self-proclaimed Marxists making politically biased edits.

Exhibit A: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Holodomor

Kings of their own tiny virtual mountains. I tried once to update the Wikipedia article about my own military unit, just to update for our new location after a move and some other details about our heraldry. Basically, I was told/ordered to update it by the CO. No luck. Changes were repeatedly reversed by whatever kid/editor didn't want anyone else in thier sandbox. It remains incorrect to this day.

>As if the person who said the thing being quoted doesn't know what they meant.

What they meant at the time they said it and what they want it to mean later upon reflection, certainly could be two completely different things and should be scrutinized.

For political things sure. Now imagine you're explaining how something works on a technical level - like the physics of how induction heating works or the summary of a study where they've twisted your summary to claim the opposite of what the study and your summary actually claims. You go to correct their misinterpretation of your study and are told you are wrong and your edit reverted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com