Wikipedia SUCKS!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Telling you facts you don't want to hear isn't evil, it's reality. Next time stick to ATS where everything you read confirms your preconceived notions.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Wikipedia quote:
" In many cultures, including the indigenous cultures of Scandinavia,
ancient Ireland and Wales, Bhutan, the northwest coast of North America,
and Siberia and northeast Asia, the common raven has been revered as
a spiritual figure or godlike creature."

That seems about right.
No complaints here.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
However, while it has always had a left bias, Wikipedia has increasingly gone extreme left recently...and it's getting worse!

Or maybe it’s you that has a right bias, which has increasingly gone extreme and is getting worse.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I just about fell out of my chair when I saw an entire section dedicated to the "up side" (positive) of Somali piracy.

I agree generally about Wikipedia - it's biased, non-reliable source, and the more 'political' the topic is, the less you can trust it. However, sometimes, if an article is very technical and fact-based, it can be relatively accurate (but often not even then - one example is Wikipedia's confusion and contradiction about whether the old Motorola 68000 CPU is 16-bit or 32-bit or what - different articles claim the opposite of each other).

However, what you seem to be doing here, is adding a 'moral dimension' to an explanation that can be observed without one.

If a completely soulless, feelingless robot were to look at a war, for example, it would gather 'good' and 'bad' sides to the event - war can be good for technological advancement, it can bring people together, and rebuilding a whole city or country can be a boost to people's morale and make them stronger, and so on.

There are 'inherently wrong and evil' things that can have a benefit to -some- group of people or a more abstract thing, like economy, that directly affects people and their everyday life.

There's nothing wrong with listing all sides of a story. Al Capone, for example, was a celebrated man that brought people many benefits despite being a ruthless and cruel mafia boss (or gangster) and murderer, and having selfish motivations.

There was a situation in ancient Greece, where there were 'free men' and 'slaves', and although slavery is unquestionably wrong and no human being (or, in my opinion, animal, either) should be forcefully subjected to such a thing, if you look at that situation objectively and without heated emotions and the 'moral dimension', you can actually see that for the 'society as a whole' and the 'free men', the slavery - as bad as evil as we morally think it is - was actually a benefitial, and thus, could be argued, 'a good' thing in many ways.

Besides, the Greek treated their slaves relatively well - they had welcome gifts and plenty of food, and there was no torture or cruelty involved usually.

My point is, that the slavery system made it possible for the 'free men' to have a lot of free time to philosophize, create art, socialize, and 'live like kings' - a rare occurrence that a large group of people could live this way in this planet's history - so if we look at things only from this kind of 'beneficial, usefulness perspective', it was a really good system for the non-slaves, as they had so much freedom and abilities to cultivate themselves and the 'society as a whole' as a result as well.

If -everyone- had been non-slaves, but had to toil for most of their lives, there would possibly have been 'high culture', or it wouldn't have reached such heights anyway. Hard to philosophize if you're exhausted after having your nose to the grindstone all day.

Now, it should be obvious that I am not condoning slavery or any form of oppression or evil towards any living entity capable of feeling pain or suffering, but if we take away the emotional 'shock reaction' to things, and look at things purely from a pragmatic perspective, that particular slavery system was incredibly beneficial and good for 'the society' and the 'free men' of Greece back in the day.

It was not so beneficial and great for the slaves, of course.

So in this sense, I don't see why we should let morals or emotions prevent us from pragmatically observing some event or thing from all possible perspectives, and admitting all sides of it truthfully and honestly - a murder is wrong, but if it benefits someone, it should be right to say so and observe it to be true. Not everything has to be constantly emotionalized and moralized, we should be able to look at things philosophically and pragmatically and see all sides of it honestly and truthfully - while still acknowledging that the thing we're observing may be morally wrong.

The piratism is of course wrong, but if it HAS brought benefits, why would it be wrong to say and list those benefits?

Another example is Yakuza in Japan. I don't know how much power they have anymore, but once they were a powerful and wealthy group, that had members in all levels of society. As they were criminals and often ruthless, the whole system was of course morally wrong - however, they did take care 'of their own', so they could catch thieves and return local people's stolen property, they could organize rescue efforts when there's a natural calamity like earthquake or flood, and so on.

Yakuza may be an evil organization, but people -have- benefited from it.

Things are not always black and white, there are often (maybe unpleasant) grey areas that we, as adult human beings with some intelligence and wisdom, should be able to recognize and tolerate the discussion and observation of.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

You do realise you can edit most articles if you disagree with the content - subject to moderation, of course.

I think you have to be a registered user, but still.

originally posted by: CJCrawley
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

You do realise you can edit most articles if you disagree with the content - subject to moderation, of course.

I think you have to be a registered user, but still.

Right. Don't even have to be registered. But don't piss off the wrong person or group of fair haired 'Wikipedians', or you will be banned from the platform. Lesser punishments involve removal of any edits made. And many of these actions have nothing to do with actual fact checks or use of reliable sources. It is just axe-grinding by network psychopaths.

Anything related to politics, history, or geography is regularly 'gamed' on Wikipedia. Reader Beware.

The amusing thing is that the various Wikipedias are "language products". Thus, the German Wikipedia has a different set of articles, written completely differently, than the English language Wikipedia. But it is the en-wikipedia that is the most popular, and hence, the most targeted to serve as a propaganda platform for interests of various stripes. Other wikipedias, like the German one, actually control content modification much more tightly than the en-wikipedia. Another one of those, 'good or bad, that's the way it is' situations.

Cheers

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Only thing I use it for is video game and music info. Other than that I agree, it sucks. What gets me is students will use it as a research tool for their classes. Terrible.