[SanjayMehta]

> very high standards

Maybe in the pure STEM subsections but anything to do with humanities is highly subjective and biased.

Even in the hard sciences I find that Wikipedia is a just good starting point: scan the references for the real material. It helps if you have access to real libraries, both physical and digital.

Personally I stopped donating to them when I discovered how difficult it was to correct errors in literally my own family's history; there's always some "editor" sitting there to roll it back in seconds.

[bawolff]

> Personally I stopped donating to them when I discovered how difficult it was to correct errors in literally my own family's history;

As it should be. Wikipedia is not your personal blog. If you cannot prove what you say is true to an acceptable standard it should be reverted. That is how it wikipedia stays reliable.

[SanjayMehta]

> wikipedia stays reliable.

Hi there. I have a bridge on Mars to sell you.

[bawolff]

Of course wikipedia is far from perfect when it comes to reliability.

However, given you did not include a citation for the sale of that bridge that meets wikipedia's guidelines on appropriate sources, i am not sure it is quite the comeback you think it is.

[SanjayMehta]

Yawn.

[bensonn]

Wikipedia being a starting point is one of my favorite things about it. I really like that all their sources are cited and linked to. It always amazes me that news organizations don't cite their sources or have links to the original source.

On that same note, could that be why your family history gets rolled back? No doubt it would be frustrating to have a change you know is real get rolled back but it would make sense from an objective editorial standpoint. That said, I get why you wouldn't want to donate. I personally come from a long line of nobodies (and am proudly carrying on that tradition) so I will never have this problem!

[SanjayMehta]

The first time the excuse was some gibberish about "primary sources."

The second time was something more esoteric, which I can't remember.

Then Wikipedia deleted my account during some transition and I lost interest in the whole thing.

[satiric]

That gibberish about primary sources is one of the fundamental ways in which Wikipedia stays at least partially accurate. Wikipedia is not a blog, it's just meant to be a gathering of information from other sources. So adding facts which are not anywhere else online is not the sign of a broken system, it's the sign of a system that cares about citations and about being a reliable source of information. It's unfortunate when people try to add factual things, but if anyone was able to edit Wikipedia to add whatever, it would have become a cesspool long ago.

[SanjayMehta]

> Wikipedia is not a blog

That's the second time today someone has said that to me. Is this the prescribed mantra to justify their obvious lack of objectivity?

Take Trump's entry for example: looks like a blog, walks like blog, talks like a blog.

I suggest you have a look at what the co-founder of Wikipedia has to say about it. Larry Sanger, not that Wales fellow.