Wired reports that a cool (but extremely clunky) new tool called WikiScanner lets us all see who’s been making anonymous edits to wikipedia. Or, at least, which IP addresses.
And of course, it turns out that those edits haven’t all been for the betterment and enlightenment of mankind.
Nope, politicans trash others and prop themselves up, companies hide their wrongdoing, journalists and news media giants from Fox to the NYT seem to make edits left and right. (Speaking of left and right, the blogs on the Right seem to notice NYT doing it, but ignore that FOX is doing it. Go figure. Prolly happens with the blogs on the Left too, but I haven’t seen that yet.)
I hate Wikipedia. There. I’ve said it. People look at me as though I’m crazy when I admit it, but you can’t see me, so I’m telling you straight. I don’t trust it, and I don’t like that it comes up first on everything I search for, so I can’t get away from it.
Anyway, now I trust it less, which is kind of amazing.
(By the way, I first found out about all this from a blog I guess is supposed to be called The Spike. But I’m not sure what it’s called. I don’t agree with anything the guy says, and his page loads really slowly, but credit where credit’s due. He did post this stuff about WikiScanner and I read it there first.)
It is indeed called The Spike. And yes, the page does load slowly, not only because I just moved over to my own host and haven’t really optimised the page yet, but because also because the host is in South Africa, where we’re not overly blessed with bandwidth.
And you wouldn’t be the first to disagree with my views 😉
I am sorry, you can get away from, just ignore it if you wish. I don’t think it’s true that Wikipedia has displaced anything, or in any way restricted your access to information.
Ignoring it isn’t the same as getting away from it. Ignoring it doesn’t change whether it comes up all over my searches, and yes, displaces other pages that would have come up instead.
Anyway, can we really ignore it, or can we just pretend to ignore it by not clicking on it?
Mind you, I’m not saying that this is really BAD, or that Wikipedia has done anything wrong. It’s successful, that’s all. Good for Wikipedia.
But since I don’t like it for myself, I wish I could avoid seeing it so much. I also wish I could avoid seeing Paris Hilton. This isn’t a major world problem. Just a minor gripe.
The “now I trust it even less” reminds me of you saying something to the effect that nothing could make you think less of a certain someone, and that being interpreted by another poster as meaning you were a huge fan of that someone. As usual for me, a digression, but hopefully one that amuses.