History used to be written by the winners. At wikipedia, history is written by the loser with the most free time. The old way is better.
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Wikipedia Biographies
editJimbo’s right. Much of wikipedia is “unreadable crap” [1]. Especially the biography pages.
Richard Guadagno
editThe first wikipedia page I edited was Richard Guadagno’s. Guadagno died on 9/11 while attacking the terrorists that hijacked Flight 93. It's well-documented that Guadagno lived in Eureka, California and worked for the USFWS [2][3]. But his wiki entry said that he was "manager of EPPD" and lived in El Paso, Texas. I fixed those errors, but wonder how many similar mistakes are scattered throughout the wiki pages.
Guadagno’s page was deleted [4]. Guadagno helped bring down Flight 93 [5], has a federal building [6] and a college scholarship [7] named after him, is the sole subject of a federal law [8], has an IMDB page [9], and is the primary subject of news stories nearly six years after his death [10][11]. However, the wikipedia brain trust decided that he wasn’t notable enough for a page. I guess the space was needed for useless lists [12] and to give every unknown academic who ever wrote anything about marxism an entry [13][14][15][16]. The fact that pages of notable people can be deleted at any time is a reason why wikipedia will never be considered a reliable reference [17][18].
"By speaking with forked tongue, I am in heap big trouble!" - Lisa Simpson while posing as a member of the "Hitachi tribe" [20]
“…as we have seen, facts aren’t professor Churchill’s strong point” – University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos
I'm embarrassed to admit that I went to the school that gave Ward Churchill tenure. Anyone who wants to know about Churchill should read the reports in the Rocky Mountain News [21] instead of the biased and silly puff-piece that appears in wikipedia. Wikipedia is full of slanted and poorly-written work like its Churchill article. Which is another reason why nobody considers wikipedia a reliable reference [22].
“University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” – Henry Kissinger [23]