Reply to post: Re: Why the hate?

It's Wikipedia mythbuster time: 8 of the best on your 15th birthday

JKS

Re: Why the hate?

You have to define "hate" in this context. The people who genuinely detest Wikipedia are usually people who have tried to participate in the editorial process in some way, and have been seriously burned by it. You're probably referring to the (larger) group of people who simply don't trust it because they know that the preponderance of articles are not written (and certainly not edited) by experts, but rather by (mostly) anonymous internet goons who occasionally have an ax to grind.

That said, wikipedia's lack of accuracy is actually a red herring. You rarely hear of Wikimedia officials, or even Wikipedia users, trying to counter claims of a systemic inaccuracy problem - because they can, somewhat legitimately, use that very problem as a recruitment strategy. (There's a page called WP:SOFIXIT, for example, where they encourage people to deal with the inaccuracies by becoming registered users and participating.)

In your own case, you've cited two examples that conform very well to Wikipedia's target demographic - a CS article and a chemistry article. Most of the inaccuracies are going to be in subjects related to the social sciences, the arts, and of course actual corporations and businesses. But these are almost insignificant in comparison with what goes on in articles that are actually controversial, particularly if politics is involved in some way.

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