My impressions of Wikipedia. I think freedom of information is a wonderful thing, however, the main problem with Wikipedia is very few people want to make edits because it is just too annoying, time consuming, and even making the most edit can lead to a editing dispute. Who needs all that stress.
I attended Bay Con 2006 in San Jose at the Double Tree Hotel, and I attended a panel with a Wikipedia founder, and many questions came up on up about what to do when there is a disagreement, and haters go around changing pages of people they hate, and he said, the winner is the person who has the most time to keep changing the page.
Some guy asked about what to do about the page on him. This guy was an entry, and someone kept changing his page, and the founder told him to lock the page down, but he said, no because his fans were adding new stuff all the time.
There was no resolution to the problems to do about what to do when people disagree.
here is a link to Bay Con 2006
description of panel: from the Bay Con website Sunday 1:00 PM Santa Clara Wikipedia
Douglas Adams had both the Encyclopaedia Galactic and The Hitchhiker's Guide. We've got our new Internet font of all knowledge, the Wiki. How good is the information contained within the Wikipedia? Does it need a panel of experts to ensure that entries aren't re-written to eliminate unfavorable information or put a positive spin on events?
Panel Guests: Laura Majerus (M), Sean Eric Fagan, Berry Kercheval, Brad Templeton, Mike Van Pelt
Brad Templeton lead the discussion on Wikipedia and here is a link to his homepage
http://www.templetons.com/brad/
He stated that the person who kept coming back to the page, most often would be the winner, who had the most time to keep changing it, unless the page gets locked down. However, when the page is locked down it is often some unlocked. They claim that the previous versions of articles are saved in the history section, but I can not find out how to view them. I would suggest if you like an article in Wikipedia, that you save it to your own documents because it will is likely to soon be changed.
For example the Danzig Page gets changed a lot, and when I went to the resolution of past discussions or the controversy page, I found out that he may have injured his voice in the past, but this is not kept on the main page about him. Wikipedia is useful for finding out information that one can not find anywhere else online.Robert551 01:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I logged on my page and I found the five pillars of Wikipedia are everywhere, even added to my page. If we go back to what the founder wanted, he believed that editing wars were a good way to hash thing out. But, I am now sadder and wiser, and I don't bother to make any chances or edits anymore. I suggest you take certain things you read here with a big grain of salt. Most of the entries are correct over all, but don't make any new conclusions without seeking out a trustworthy news source to verify what you have learned.