# Do You Edit on Wikipedia?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 13, 2019, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431 "2019-02-13T00:20:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2019, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/61 "2019-02-15T22:39:20Z")
> [@Johanna](#):
>
> Overall, Wikipedia is a fucking awesome treasurehouse of knowledge.
So true. Sometimes I even get paid to look stuff up in Wikipedia. But it’s value just in addressing my personal learning interests is unsurpassed.
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### Author:  [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2019, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/62 "2019-02-15T23:26:59Z")
> [@Johanna](#):
>
> OK, cool. Sorry if I snapped at you. Just in general around here, the carping against Wikipedia is too often ill-informed and unfair. My point is that the system really works. What I’m seeing too much of is mere carping instead of well-founded criticism. I’ve been seriously critical of Wikipedia in areas that in my considered opinion need improving, particularly the gender gap. Because I care about it, I back up my criticism with action toward solving the problem. Overall, Wikipedia is a fucking awesome treasurehouse of knowledge. It deserves more respect from Dopers given the stated mission of the Dope. Especially now that Cecil has retired.
I’ve often told people “You don’t **get** to complain about Wikipedia, as you can fix it” although fixing it is often a huge pain. The issue isn’t Wikipedia or the basic system, but the type of people it attracts as well as the type it repels. I explain it this way “Imagine, if you will, a bureaucracy staffed entirely by _volunteer bureaucrats_.”
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2019, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/63 "2019-02-16T02:21:49Z")
I’ve compiled several wiki-lists on a topic I like. Also made a number of additions to other, usually stub, articles with the same info that is in the list. One of the lists has been deleted for reasons I didn’t really understand. I thought it was a valid topic, but others disagreed. I did get a (I thought) rather bogus accusation of Original Research about this list. I understand the original reason for the OR rule, but it seems to have mutated into a club to attack articles or changes someone doesn’t like. I also sensed some politics behind the afd, but don’t have any evidence to support that.
Today, I mostly just keep an eye on the remaining lists and don’t do much else. I don’t mind people making valid additions to them, but really there aren’t many to add. I was rather thorough in their initial compilation.
ETA: One other thing: I supported my lists with extensive cites. I have yet to see anyone who makes an addition to them add a reference. Not one. Someone did add "citation needed"s to one of the lists for those entries I hadn’t referenced.
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### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2019, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/64 "2019-02-16T04:15:57Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> So what’s the way the system has to correct for that? Because I’ve manually corrected such things more than once.
Yep, me too. Every time I discover a mislaid link I direct it to where it belongs. The system I referred to works by detecting links unintentionally made to disambiguation pages and prompting the editor who made them to direct them to the specific intended page.
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### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2019, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/65 "2019-02-16T08:30:23Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> There are almost six million articles on Wikipedia and the number of editors who are in this “in crowd” or are protective of their pages is probably, at best, in the few thousands. It seems to me that the odds are that you’re unlikely to come across one of these editors.
Well, I’m at 66% for coming across those ever-so-rare editors. Maybe I should buy lottery tickets.
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### Author:  [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2019, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/66 "2019-02-17T06:06:02Z")
Almost all just fixing typos and other simple errors. The rest I work with cites only, correcting errors where I have cites, providing cites where needed, and adding relevant info with cites.
I’ve been reverted a few times, but for most of them I didn’t feel my changes were worth fighting over. Once on Wikiquote I politely asked the reverter his reasons, showed him hard evidence proving he was wrong, and he relented.
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### Author:  [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2019, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/67 "2019-02-17T06:15:00Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> So what’s the way the system has to correct for that? Because I’ve manually corrected such things more than once.
That’s the system.
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2019, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/68 "2019-02-17T11:08:46Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#):
>
> I don’t make grammar or spelling changes. You probably wouldn’t want me to anyway. I’m an engineer, and engineers are notorious for bad grammar and spelling.
And that’s where people like me come in. 🙂
Fixing grammar, spelling, and confusing wording rarely gets reverted. Not so with useful, original data, so I stick to what sticks.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2019, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/69 "2019-02-17T12:41:10Z")
The previous post needs an editor to fix attribution
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### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2019, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/70 "2019-02-17T14:40:02Z")
**Moderator Note**
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> The previous post needs an editor to fix attribution
I do make minor edits here. Quote fixed. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2019, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/71 "2019-04-16T20:42:54Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#):
>
> I mainly check [Recent Changes](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&limit=500&hideliu=1) from time to time, looking for anonymous vandalism.
This led me into a rather odd situation over the past few days. There’s this singer who was born in Iran and moved to the UK. One particular editor, evidently an agent for the singer or someone who works for an agent, insists that this singer has always been known by the singer’s current name. Never a name in Farsi. I’ve provided sources for the singer’s name in Farsi but the editor claims to not understand them.
Guess who an administrator recently found to have edited the singer’s article on the Persian Wikipedia and had no problem with a Farsi name for the singer in October of 2014.
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### Author:  [@Win\_Place\_Show](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Win_Place_Show)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2019, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/72 "2019-04-17T02:00:19Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#):
>
> I have not even edited the Wikipedia entry on me, which was written and put up by someone else. Um, the real me, not the real Kropotkin
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> That would put you in a conflict of interest, unless you declare that you’re You. 🙂
>
> **And you couldn’t use your own personal knowledge about You, because that’s not verifiable.** 🙂 🙂
>
> Unless you write an autobiographical article about You, and get it published in a quasi-authoritative source, and then you can cite to the You article, written by you. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Reading this thread, this was one question that occurred to me (the bolding above is mine).
Is that right about Wikipedia? That if, shit I dunno, let’s say John Elway - suppose John Elway’s Wikipedia page says his first job in high school was a paper route.
He reads his own Wikipedia page and says “wtf? no it wasn’t”, and corrects it to read “John Elway’s first job in high school was doing oil changes on weekends for the local mechanic”. His ‘citation needed’ is “um, I AM John Elway, bitches”.
Is there not a way that he can somehow note that as first-hand “verified” knowledge that can’t be edited out by some overzealous Wikikid? (I’m not a Twitter guy, but isn’t there a blue icon or something that notes “this person is who they say they are”)? I’ve never seen an icon of that sort on Wikipedia, so I think I may have answered my own question.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2019, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/73 "2019-04-17T02:14:39Z")
No, John Elway can’t do that.
Two rules of Wikipedia are “vérifiability” and “no original research”.
“Verifiability” means that anyone using the 'pedia can verify the information contained in an article by checking the citations and confirming that a third party source supports the statement.
“No original research” is related to it. You can’t do your own research and post it. You have to post a citation to a verifiable source.
Together, those principles mean that it’s irrelevant if John Elway posts his complete life story. It has to be supported by citations to verifiable, reliable third party sources.
Now if John Elway writes his own biography, and it gets published by a major publishing house, you could cite to that, because the publication by a third party meets the vérifiabilité test.
In fact, this very issue came up with Jimbo Wales’ birthdate. Wales is one of the founders of Wikipedia and there’s a biography article, including his birthdate, supported by a citation to a third party source.
But then Wales posted on the Talk page and said it was wrong - off by a couple of days, I think.
But that didn’t meet the vérifiabilité test, nor the No Original Research test, so editors declined to make the change. For a while they tagged it with a [disputed] label. I don’t know if they ever found a third party source to support Wales’s comment.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2019, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/74 "2019-04-17T02:46:36Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#):
>
> This led me into a rather odd situation over the past few days. There’s this singer who was born in Iran and moved to the UK. One particular editor, evidently an agent for the singer or someone who works for an agent, insists that this singer has always been known by the singer’s current name. Never a name in Farsi. I’ve provided sources for the singer’s name in Farsi but the editor claims to not understand them.
>
> Guess who an administrator recently found to have edited the singer’s article on the Persian Wikipedia and had no problem with a Farsi name for the singer in October of 2014.
One thing I neglected to mention: this editor has threatened legal action; not really clear if such action would be against Wikipedia or those Persian sources. One of which I noticed had been used regarding the singer’s name in Farsi 3½ years ago, at which time the editor in question removed content but not the name in Farsi.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2019, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/75 "2019-04-17T03:03:29Z")
I am having trouble following this Persian story.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2019, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/76 "2019-04-17T03:40:52Z")
While perusing the recent changes, I noticed an anonymous editor had removed reliably-sourced content from an article without explaining why. So I reverted the removal.
Registered editor comes in and reverts my revert, claiming that the reference - the BBC - is unreliable.
I provided an alternate source from BBC Persia on the article’s talk page. Same editor claims to not understand Farsi and declares the source to be fake, much like how the current occupant of the White House reacts to inconvenient facts.
I contacted an admin to get their input regarding English vs. not-English sources. Admin adds this input to the article’s talk page and the editor’s talk page.
Editor replied to said input on his talk page by claiming to represent the article’s subject and threatens legal action, which another admin takes to be threatening Wikipedia and blocks the editor. Editor returns to his talk page and claims (paraphrased), “No, no, legal against those Persian sources. Wikipedia volunteers are really good!” Also like the current occupant of the White House, come to think of it.
Fast forward to earlier today: the admin I had contacted about those sources found that the editor had been active on the Persian Wikipedia. I check it out and found that he’s been editing the Persian version of the same article. One of those edits was 4½ years ago, at which time the disputed content was not removed from the Persian version. One of the sources for this disputed content in 2014 was another BBC Persia article. Both admins mentioned above now know that the editor has been playing games.
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2019, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/77 "2019-04-18T01:02:58Z")
I once edited my own page, but only to add some biographical details so that anyone from my early life who thought to look could be sure it was really me. I just checked and it hasn’t been edited since, so I guess the trolls don’t care. I know who posted it originally.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2019, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/78 "2019-04-18T04:01:50Z")
I did once. Someone had written an article about Seabees and every use of the word in the article had a lower case ‘s’. I changed them all.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2019, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/79 "2019-04-18T15:24:00Z")
Heh. Now that editor has admitted he really does understand Farsi; it’s everyone else on staff who doesn’t. Except he had already said, “\*t is a language I do not understand I had to get it translated.”
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2019, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-edit-on-wikipedia/829431/80 "2019-04-18T16:15:46Z")
When I logged onto Wikipedia this morning, I got a new interface - looks identical to the interface when I log on from my phone or an iPad. Anyone else getting that?
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