# How horrible is Wikipedia really? (concrete examples, please) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 27, 2015, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765 "2015-02-27T14:08:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Verily](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e9a140/32.png) [@Verily](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Verily)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/101 "2015-03-22T22:30:42Z")
> [@GreenElf](#): > > I rarely see any blatantly false information on Wiki. Do you generally restrict yourself to reading pages about subjects you know well enough to recognize false information when you see it? Eric Burns, who used to run a webcomic criticism site called Websnark, once [wrote a piece](http://www.websnark.com/archives/2004/11/a_modest_webcom.html) in which he pointed out that obscure subjects are less likely to have reliable information. The main thrust of the piece he wrote was that he wanted more webcomics to have Wikipedia articles, but along the way he makes the point that when an article covers a topic well-known and dear to the hearts of the sort of geeky types who are likely to spend time editing Wikipedia, mistakes or misinformation will be caught and corrected rapidly. But when it’s a more obscure topic that only a very few people will know about, that’s not as likely to happen. As a test of this, he went to the article on his own hometown (a small town people who aren’t from the area aren’t likely to have heard of) and deliberately inserted one piece of false information. Specifically, he said the town has a ship-building industry, when in fact it doesn’t. Then he monitored the page to see if anyone else would correct it. He waited two weeks and then corrected it himself, because no one else had touched it. Is it “blatantly false” to say that a town with no ship-building industry has a ship-building industry? It’s not _obviously_ false unless you’re familiar with the town. It was a subtle error no one unfamiliar with the subject would have caught, but it was still completely factually wrong. And I would argue that, whether or not we want to call it “blatantly false”, its subtlety makes it even more pernicious. I once went to the article on Cicero to look up some detail or another about his life. When I got there, the header of the article said his name was Marcus Godzillius Cicero, and that he was a Roman politician and giant lizard who destroyed Tokyo. Okay, ha ha, funny prank. No reasonable person is going to think that’s true, so vandalism like that probably didn’t lead to anyone getting a low grade on a history paper. I think we can all agree that’s “blatantly false”, and the fact that it was reverted very rapidly from when I saw it speaks well of Wikipedia that may or may not cancel out the ill it speaks of Wikipedia that crap like that was able to get in there in the first place. But the example of Eric Burns and his hometown isn’t anywhere near that level of obviousness. How many people saw the article during the two weeks he let his own vandalism stand and didn’t realize they had read wrong information? How many more would it have been if he had let the experiment run more than two weeks? Or forgotten about monitoring it and never went back to fix it? How long would it have taken before _somebody_ came across it who knew better and fixed it? Overall, I’d say information on Wikipedia _always_ has to be taken with a grain of salt. For obscure subjects, errors can stand for a long time. But even with better-known topics, vandalism gets in, and if you happen to see the page before corrections are made, you can get false information from it. The prankster who did the Godzillius Cicero thing was clearly not trying to be subtle, but I happened to see it during the short time it was there, and what if they had wanted to be more subtle? What if they had made only plausible changes that only someone who knows a lot about Cicero’s life would notice, like giving the wrong city for his birth, and the wrong age for his death, and the wrong number of children he had? Wikipedia is largely reliable for well-known subjects, but if you see the page while misinformation is there, and don’t know the subject well enough to recognize it, and don’t seek out other sources to corroborate what you saw there, you’re still going to be duped. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/102 "2015-03-23T03:47:11Z")
> [@Verily](#): > > … As a test of this, he went to the article on his own hometown (a small town people who aren’t from the area aren’t likely to have heard of) and deliberately inserted one piece of false information. Specifically, he said the town has a ship-building industry, when in fact it doesn’t. Then he monitored the page to see if anyone else would correct it. He waited two weeks and then corrected it himself, because no one else had touched it. > > Is it “blatantly false” to say that a town with no ship-building industry has a ship-building industry? It’s not _obviously_ false unless you’re familiar with the town. It was a subtle error no one unfamiliar with the subject would have caught, but it was still completely factually wrong. Did you happen to see [this cite](http://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/jan/26/schools.uk2) I posted earlier? It describes a 12-year-old finding two errors of almost exactly the same type in the Encyclopedia Britannica – _obviously_ false but that “no one unfamiliar with the subject would have caught”. Your hypothetical what-ifs basically ask what if someone maliciously or for whatever reason went in and inserted false information into a Wikipedia page, since anyone can do it. And of course it does happen. I think the answer to the question is that it just doesn’t happen very much – the success of the Wiki concept is one of the big surprises of the Internet age. I’m not exactly sure why it works or if anyone really knows why, but by and large it does. I suspect it’s a combination of a general sense of communal responsibility, controls over controversial material, and a pretty active small core of dedicated editorial staff. It’s far from perfect, but it seems to hold up well in comparisons with conventional encyclopedias. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/103 "2015-03-27T03:21:22Z")
Is this a blatant discrepancy? Is it 13 states, or 14? Bolding and italics mine: > **[Lincoln Park (San Francisco)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Park_(San_Francisco))** > > Lincoln Park is a park in San Francisco, California. It was dedicated to President Abraham Lincoln in 1909 and includes about 100 acres (0.4 km2) of the northwestern corner of the San Francisco Peninsula. Lincoln Park park hosts the Legion of Honor Museum of art and is the western terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile roadway across the United States of America. > The land on which Lincoln Park stands was the city-owned Golden Gate Cemetery, established in 1868. It held about 10,00... > [@](#): > > The Lincoln Highway, with its western terminus at Lincoln Park, was conceived and mapped in 1913 as the first coast-to-coast road across America, _ **traversing 14 states** _. > **[Lincoln Highway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Highway)** > > The Lincoln Highway is one of the first transcontinental highways in the United States and one of the first highways designed expressly for automobiles. Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated October 31, 1913, the Lincoln Highway runs coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City west to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. The full route originally ran through 13 states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Col The... > [@](#): > > Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated October 31, 1913, the Lincoln Highway ran coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, originally _ **through 13 states** _: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/104 "2015-03-28T00:57:44Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > Is this a blatant discrepancy? Is it 13 states, or 14? Did you not read the very next two sentences in the main article, after the one you quoted? In 1915, the “Colorado Loop” was removed, and in 1928, a realignment relocated the Lincoln Highway through the northern tip of West Virginia. Thus, there are a total of 14 states, 128 counties, and over 700 cities, towns and villages through which the highway passed at some time in its history. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/105 "2015-03-28T05:20:36Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Did you not read the very next two sentences in the main article, after the one you quoted? > In 1915, the “Colorado Loop” was removed, and in 1928, a realignment relocated the Lincoln Highway through the northern tip of West Virginia. Thus, there are a total of 14 states, 128 counties, and over 700 cities, towns and villages through which the highway passed at some time in its history. I did read that. It was in the second article. However the wording in the first article leads the reader to believe that in 1913 as the first coast-to-coast road, it then traversed 14 states. That is incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/106 "2015-03-28T05:40:03Z")
I agree, the first article is misleading and the “14” should be “13”. It’s a minor article and is already flagged for needing citations. And it does remind me of the kind of understandable minor error I used to find in encyclopedias all the time. In this case, the highway initially passed through 13 states, then 12 when Colorado was bypassed, then 13 again when WV became part of the route, so 14 in all but never at the same time. Yes, it’s an error, but not evidence that Wikipedia is “horrible”! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/107 "2015-03-28T13:54:23Z")
> [@Apollon](#): > > Does anyone know of any actual bad articles that Wikipedia currently hosts? A while back, on one of my blogs, I discussed the horrible state of affairs on Wikipedia, noting that the actual real information that was completely absent from an article, was actually present on an related article, one of those boring pages almost nobody ever looks at. But it was a decent Wiki article, and a good source. Somebody read my entry, actually joined Wikipedia, to make exactly one edit. The removed all the information (that I was pointing out existed there) from the obscure article, and alerted the cult of idiots there, who descended like a swarm of locust to make sure scientific sources were not replaced, and their belief dominated all. It’s so common, it happens so often, it’s not even a surprise anymore. After that, when I found a good page, I don’t mention it online. But for a concrete example, nothing beats “the CO theory”, or “the theory of global warming”. Wikipedia, nothing the real world, [plenty of info](http://www.colby.edu/sts/controversy/pages/9historical.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/108 "2015-03-28T14:09:16Z")
[Wikipedia, the horrible truth](http://youtu.be/zp9L60t7dm8). Wake up, sheeple! ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/109 "2015-03-28T16:10:07Z")
While the obvious focus is on “bad articles”, the real travesty of WP is the important and valid information that is constantly removed. It’s an invisible problem, and examples are numerous. For example, you hear about a story concerning the “missing carbon sink”, [something that shows up everywhere](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1SKPC_enUS368&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=%22missing%20carbon%20sink%22), but not on Wikipedia. There are [plenty of sources](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22missing+carbon+sink%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=ttAWVeSjC6mwsATgu4H4Bw&ved=0CBsQgQMwAA) for it. You try Wikipedia, and the two obvious articles that come up, global warming and carbon sink, neither contains the phrase, much less tells you anything about it. Hell, the carbon sink page actually has a source that is about it, but the term doesn’t even appear in the article. > **[Carbon sink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sink)** > > A carbon sink is anything, natural or otherwise, that accumulates and stores some carbon-containing chemical compound for an indefinite period and thereby removes carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. These sinks form an important part of the natural carbon cycle. An overarching term is carbon pool, which is all the places where carbon can be (the atmosphere, oceans, soil, plants, and so forth). A carbon sink is a type of carbon pool that has the capability to take up more carbon from the Gl... This is not by chance, just as the theory of global warming does not appear anywhere on Wikipedia. It’s not like people haven’t added the information, with valid sources. It’s that people remove the information, because they “don’t like it”, which is insanity. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/110 "2015-03-28T16:15:12Z")
Beg pardon? The article on carbon sink absolutely does contain the phrase “carbon sink”, and you went from talking about the global warming article to saying that a global warming article doesn’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![jimbuff314](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c57346/32.png) [@jimbuff314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimbuff314)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/111 "2015-03-28T16:26:33Z")
I think he meant “missing carbon sink” and he is correct. The term “missing sink” does only appear in Reference #7. Consequently, so much for that article, eh? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/112 "2015-03-28T17:26:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > and you went from talking about the global warming article to saying that a global warming article doesn’t exist. No, I clearly stated “the global warming theory”, or any variation of it (it has many names) does not have an article on Wikipedia. “the Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change” does appear, in a reference, but not in the article [History of climate change science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_science). This is not a chance mistake of course. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/113 "2015-03-28T17:39:44Z")
Rather than repeat myself, extended explanation in this post. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > … Even the articles on Plass, Callendar and Arrhenius don’t contain the theory that is credited to them. How bad can it be? The [article on Plass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Plass) does not mention “The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change”, even when that paper is listed as a source of the article! … It’s not possible such a situation is just ignorance or chance. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/114 "2015-03-28T17:54:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Beg pardon? The article on carbon sink absolutely does contain the phrase “carbon sink”, and you went from talking about the global warming article to saying that a global warming article doesn’t exist. > [@jimbuff314](#): > > I think he meant “missing carbon sink” and he is correct. The term “missing sink” does only appear in Reference #7. > > Consequently, so much for that article, eh? Oh **FXMastermind** is just talking sour grapes, Many times I told him that the context clearly shows that the thing is explained even if the term is not in the article, as I mentioned before it is like a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 would declare the episode with the movie _Space Mutiny_ as [Comic Book Guy]“the worst episode ever”[/CBG] simply because the guys at the satellite of love never bothered to make a single joke or a direct mention (there was only a very indirect reference) to the fact that the B movie used footage from the original Battle Star Galactica TV show. > **[MST3K 820 - Space Mutiny](https://mst3k.fandom.com/wiki/MST3K_820_-_Space_Mutiny)** > > Main article: Space Mutiny (film) A heroic space pilot helps the crew of a large generational ship stop the attempted mutiny by the ship's villainous chief of security. The pilot and the Captain's daughter fall in love during the crisis. Opening:... It remains anyhow by the judgement of almost all fans as one of the best episodes. This idea of declaring something useless or horrible because a term does not appear in an article is asinine. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/115 "2015-03-28T18:40:05Z")
It’s not that the articles are horrific, it’s that the people who try and control them are. While obviously either the term “missing sink” or “missing carbon sink” is an actual thing, with many papers and science articles about it, Wikipedia is [horrible](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1SKPC_enUS368&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=site:en.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F+%22missing+sink%22) for [finding out anything about it](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=missing+sink&title=Special%3ASearch&go=Go). And as we see, those responsible for the missing information still consider everything is just fine. Just because there is no article, or any mention of the thing in question on any page., that isn’t a problem. Of course [using Google is quite helpful,](https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&q=%22missing+sink%22) since so far nobody is censoring what Google shows you. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/116 "2015-03-28T19:10:31Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Of course [using Google is quite helpful,](https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&q=%22missing+sink%22) since so far nobody is censoring what Google shows you. . . . In the US. Right? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/117 "2015-03-28T19:27:48Z")
Oh yeah, I forgot about the other stupid countries. ---
**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2015, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/118 "2015-03-28T23:33:12Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > It’s not like people haven’t added the information, with valid sources. It’s that people remove the information, because they “don’t like it”, which is insanity. “Citation needed” 😛 It’s an invisible process, you are free to link to removed edits to demonstrate the process. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2015, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/119 "2015-04-16T02:59:23Z")
> [@Cugel](#): > > “Citation needed” 😛 > It’s an invisible process, you are free to link to removed edits to demonstrate the process. I already have. It didn’t make any difference at all. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2015, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765/120 "2015-04-16T07:07:56Z")
From a [current GQ thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=754267). What Wikipedia says: “1,600 deaths were related to the evacuation or its consequences” of the Fukushima nuclear accident.What the atcual source says: 1,612 deaths in the Fukushima prefecture “off the Pacific Ocean Earthquake”. What English language translations say: [the total death toll from the \*tsunami \*in Fukusihma prefecture was 1, 612](http://asia.nikkei.com/print/article/80373), with no attempt to split those into deaths caused by drowning, building collapse etc. and deaths related to the nuclear accident. But as I said earlier, one of the problems with \*\*Wolfpup \*\*'s definition is that whenever these sorts of examples are brought up on these sorts of boards, somebody runs in and makes the appropriate changes, so that the error ceases to exist, at least briefly. So Wikipedia champions like \*\*Wolfpup \*\* then get to claim that the error wasn’t “long term” even though it existed for over a decade. And then the next time it gets discussed we have to go to the effort of finding more long-term errors, which are corrected by the champions in the discussion. And then the exact same subject is brought up next time. Which is why I asked \*\*Wolfpup \*\* to clearly define what they mean by important fact, important topic and permanently entrenched. But he simply refused to answer the question. When he is able to do that we might be able to decide whether it’s a meaningful definition, and if it is I’m sure we can find multiple examples like the one just cited… which will then be corrected by people in this thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-horrible-is-wikipedia-really-concrete-examples-please/713765.md?page=7)