Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Why You Should be Paying Attention to the "Wikipedia Sucks" Messageboard: the "Crap or Questionable Articles" and the "Articles Wikipedia should have -- but doesn't" Threads

 

Yes, this is another promotional article of sorts, to try to attract more users for the Wikipedia Sucks! messageboard. Eric Barbour has been running two threads, "Crap or Questionable Articles" and "Articles Wikipedia should have -- but doesn't" on the board since 2017. Here are some of them:

Articles Wikipedia should have--but doesn't.

by ericbarbour » Sat Nov 18, 2017 9:30 pm

I start with Peggy Jo Tallas aka "Cowboy Bob", one of the most famous bank robbers in Texas history


https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna10367955

https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-last-ride-of-cowboy-bob/

https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-cowboy-and-the-lady/

She is famous enough that a play about her was staged in 2014

https://www.westword.com/arts/peggy-jo-and-the-desolate-nothing-is-nothing-much-5124423


And an episode of the TV series Forbidden

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2964722/


And a song

https://themoaners.bandcamp.com/album/nocturnal-lp


And there is currently a movie about her in development

https://www.movieinsider.com/m15835/the-last-ride-of-cowboy-bob

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/big-sick-michael-showalter-directing-last-ride-cowboy-boy/

https://variety.com/2017/film/news/michael-showalter-the-last-ride-of-cowboy-bob-the-big-sick-1202547007/


But there is NOTHING about her on Wikipedia. Zero.

Re: Articles Wikipedia should have--but doesn't.

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Post by ericbarbour » Thu Dec 07, 2017 2:55 pm

If Wikipedia skeptics and the RationalWiki nut squad hate crackpot gurus so much......

....where's the coverage of Bentinho Massaro?

https://medium.com/@bescofield/tech-bro ... 6314f830ef
It’s clear that Bentinho has achieved many of the goals of a new startup: successful branding, passive income, social media reach, great design and platform creation. Bentinho has mastered the game. No, he became the game and upgraded it. Cosmic domination. He wants your soul. And his followers are the pawns of his delusional, tragic vision of an enlightened society.


https://tealswanblog.wordpress.com/2017 ... teal-swan/
https://peacenowflower.com/2015/01/31/c ... o-massaro/
http://chi-ting.blogspot.com/2013/01/ba ... story.html
http://thebrayingjackass.blogspot.com/2 ... e-lie.html

Yes, most of those are blog posts. Since when has that ever stopped the "guerilla skeptics" from taking a dump on a guru? He's just another Werner Erhard ripoff anyway.

Metafilter had time and space to screech about him. https://www.metafilter.com/171035/Cult-20-is-upon-us
I have never heard of this person before, and he does indeed sound like just another shitty cult leader to me. This is only reinforced by the vast flood of sycophants showing up in the comments on the Medium article to tell the author how wrong she is and how awesome he is and how obviously she just needs to understand his teachings better and she will see how wrong she is. Nothing says "not a cult" like vast floods of defensive sycophants.
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Crap or questionable articles

Post by ericbarbour » Fri Feb 24, 2017 7:03 pm

Posted before but restarting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpster

Something any "reference encyclopedia" should have. But it's a sad little near-stub: only about 5k bytes and created in 2007.

On the other hand, there is this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpster_diving

One of Wikipedia's oldest articles, dating from 2001. Cuerrently [sic] more than 43k bytes long. Why do Wikipedians think dumpster diving is more important that the dumpster one dives into? Is there any kind of sane explanation for this?

Re: Crap or questionable articles

Post by ericbarbour » Sat Feb 25, 2017 4:54 pm

This is such VALUABLE INFORMATION!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_S

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Post by ericbarbour » Thu Mar 23, 2017 3:14 pm

The next time some Wiki-Fool wants to berate you about "proper referencing", show him this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_V8_engine

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Unread post by ericbarbour » Sat Feb 19, 2022 2:25 pm

wexter wrote: 
Wed Feb 16, 2022 2:59 pm
This is the first time I have seen this kind of subjectivity (and bias) in Britannica. At least the bias can be traced to a single author with a single expertly-biased opinion. I would think that much of social science is subjective. Its sort of sad...that this topic occupies space in an encyclopedia of any kind.
All encyclopedias have similar problems. Find a pre-1970s Britannica and I guarantee you will find some very disturbing content about indigenous people and politics. Really, does anyone expect Brits to be "even handed" considering the history of their now-collapsed empire?

Whether Wikipedia will be the same after a human lifetime (assumig [sic] it does outlive its orignal [sic] founders) is impossible to say. Let's just put down that it "doesn't look too good".

And today I saw this. Created today (19 February) only because she suddenly became "notable" due to media reports about her death. It's a shit article, it could be longer (references do exist), but I expect it will remain shit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsey_Pearlman

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Unread post by ericbarbour » Thu Mar 10, 2022 1:41 pm

Can't remember noting the James Bulger article and the massive UK shitstorm over the case. Not so much a Wiki-stupidity item, as an item showing the extreme stupidity of governments, as well as the sort of "nice young men" walking around loose in Britain.

Today, 29 years after little Jimmy Bulger was tortured and killed, it is STILL a "criminal offence" in the UK to describe, post photos, or divulge the location of his murderer Jon Venables, thanks to the British mealy-mouthed treatment of "free speech" concepts. Even though he keeps going around and "outing himself" to people. But here it is on Wikipedia, in some detail (although lacking recent photos--wonder if Wikimedia UK got threatening letters from the Crown prosecutor.) You can also google Venables and find some photos of him, on websites presumably not hosted in the UK.

You can learn more than you will want to know from that magnificent bastard Count Dankula, because he recently posted a video about the case. Yep, he's got a point: the "United" "Kingdom" could probably use a First Amendment. As if that will ever happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOAuMATiRA0

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This is basic research in the tradition of Harvey Einbinder's The Myth of the Britannica (1964), just with a lot more cursing and mockery. 

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