Wikipedia?
 

On Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:32:54 -0800, Andy Dingley wrote:

The whole mess stinks. The closer you get to the wikidrama, the more
toxic it becomes.

Sounds a lot like the Department of Records in the Ministry of Truth.

Constantly updating the records to keep in line with the current
official version of "the truth".

Wikipedia?
 

In article , Bill Wright
scribeth thus
Clive George wrote:
On 17/11/2010 18:05, Andy Dingley wrote:
On Nov 17, 4:26 pm, Roland wrote:

That's my experience too. And the website is very biassed towards
published sources, even when they are wrong! Apparently, being there
when it happened, doesn't count.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yagi-Uda_antenna

There's a diagram showing inter-element spacing for a yagi as 10% of
wavelength, but the text says it's usually 25% of wavelength. As we all
know these bald statements are both misleading. There's also a picture
intended to illustrate the yagi aerial type. Trouble is the aerial has
been assembled incorrectly and the elements are in the wrong position.

To me these errors mean that no-one who actually knows anything about
the subject has ever edited the page.

Actually, the item has a slight smell of radio amateur about it.

Bill

If you think its wrong why not edit it Bill?..
--
Tony Sayer

Wikipedia?
 

On Wed, 17 Nov 2010 02:08:52 +0000, Bill Wright wrote:

I've just tried to look something up, and it was about as slow as a slug
with a broken leg trying to wade through treacle.

That sounds a bit Blackadderish.

I think you must have meant to write Colouredadderish.

Wikipedia?
 

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
Clive George wrote:
On 17/11/2010 18:05, Andy Dingley wrote:
On Nov 17, 4:26 pm, Roland wrote:

That's my experience too. And the website is very biassed towards
published sources, even when they are wrong! Apparently, being there
when it happened, doesn't count.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yagi-Uda_antenna

There's a diagram showing inter-element spacing for a yagi as 10% of
wavelength, but the text says it's usually 25% of wavelength. As we all
know these bald statements are both misleading. There's also a picture
intended to illustrate the yagi aerial type. Trouble is the aerial has
been assembled incorrectly and the elements are in the wrong position.

To me these errors mean that no-one who actually knows anything about the
subject has ever edited the page.

Actually, the item has a slight smell of radio amateur about it.

That's a bit cheeky. Some radio amateurs are highly knowledable people while
others aren't. Bit like aerial riggers really.

--

Brian Gregory. (In the UK)

To email me remove the letter vee.

Wikipedia?
 

tony sayer wrote:
In article , Bill Wright
scribeth thus
Clive George wrote:
On 17/11/2010 18:05, Andy Dingley wrote:
On Nov 17, 4:26 pm, Roland wrote:

That's my experience too. And the website is very biassed towards
published sources, even when they are wrong! Apparently, being there
when it happened, doesn't count.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yagi-Uda_antenna

There's a diagram showing inter-element spacing for a yagi as 10% of
wavelength, but the text says it's usually 25% of wavelength. As we all
know these bald statements are both misleading. There's also a picture
intended to illustrate the yagi aerial type. Trouble is the aerial has
been assembled incorrectly and the elements are in the wrong position.

To me these errors mean that no-one who actually knows anything about
the subject has ever edited the page.

Actually, the item has a slight smell of radio amateur about it.

Bill

If you think its wrong why not edit it Bill?..

It would be like replacing a few tiles on the roof of one house in
Hiroshima, just after the A bomb.

Bill

Wikipedia?
 

Brian Gregory [UK] wrote:
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
Clive George wrote:
On 17/11/2010 18:05, Andy Dingley wrote:
On Nov 17, 4:26 pm, Roland wrote:

That's my experience too. And the website is very biassed towards
published sources, even when they are wrong! Apparently, being there
when it happened, doesn't count.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yagi-Uda_antenna

There's a diagram showing inter-element spacing for a yagi as 10% of
wavelength, but the text says it's usually 25% of wavelength. As we all
know these bald statements are both misleading. There's also a picture
intended to illustrate the yagi aerial type. Trouble is the aerial has
been assembled incorrectly and the elements are in the wrong position.

To me these errors mean that no-one who actually knows anything about the
subject has ever edited the page.

Actually, the item has a slight smell of radio amateur about it.

That's a bit cheeky. Some radio amateurs are highly knowledable people while
others aren't. Bit like aerial riggers really.

Yes I'm sorry, it was a bit cheeky wasn't it? In my defence I can only
say that if it had been written in very poor English and had been full
of dogmatic statements based on a distinctly different set of
half-truths and bizarre misunderstandings I might have said, "Actually,
the item has a slight smell of aerial rigger about it." When I was a kid
I used to listen to the older riggers and even though I knew nowt I soon
started to think that some of them based their beliefs more on faith and
repetition than reason. Here are some of things aerial riggers have told
me with a totally straight face over the years (sorry about the local
references; locals will see the joke):
In Doncaster you should always point the aerial at Cusworth Hall.
In Doncaster you should always point FM aerials at Belmont.
If you run the coax down the mast in a spiral you will get CB interference.
If you run the coax down the inside of the mast you will cure CB
interference.
If you take the reflector off an Emley Moor aerial it has no effect, but
you might be able to tune-in Central ITV and charge extra.
The best way to cut a signal down is to wrap a few strands of braid
around the inner inside the coax plug.
Steel masts attract lightning.
Always point the aerial upwards a bit because that's where the signal
comes from innit?
A DAB aerial is just a little FM aerial so it stands to reason you fix
it horizontal.
I always use wideband. Can't see the point of grouped aerials.

Bill

Wikipedia?
 

Paul Ratcliffe wrote:
On Wed, 17 Nov 2010 02:08:52 +0000, Bill Wright wrote:

I've just tried to look something up, and it was about as slow as a slug
with a broken leg trying to wade through treacle.
That sounds a bit Blackadderish.

I think you must have meant to write Colouredadderish.
I read this and just scratched my head, then I had a nice sleep and read
it again, and the penny dropped! It's a bit hard going this
sophisticated humour!

Bill

Wikipedia?
 

In message , Grimly
Curmudgeon writes:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Jeremy Double
saying something like:

In areas where I have specialist knowledge, Wikipedia is at least as
reliable as other first points of reference.

Yes, well; in a couple of areas where I have definite knowledge of
things that happened, it's bloody wrong. I tried correcting them a
couple of times, but it always got reverted by some effing know-all.

If it involves "things that happened", it's quite likely to be something
involving people. Such pages do get altered ("vandalised" when you don't
agree with the changes) more than purely technical ones. Not that
they're always right either - Bill's Yagi example for example - but
often they are, often enough anyway for me to consider it definitely one
place to look when I'm trying to answer something, especially for
certain kinds of topic (I know what I would and wouldn't look in
Wikipedia for, though would find it difficult to put into words.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)[email protected]+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Bother," said Pooh, as Eeyore sneezed the crack all over Owl.

Wikipedia?
 

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Andy Dingley
saying something like:

On Nov 17, 6:45*pm, Clive George wrote:

Land Speed Record is probably one of the worst articles on there.

Yikes. Where's all the entries for Malcolm Campbell?

..and the rest.

Read the talk page, for the reasons why Donald Campbell's record in
CN7 had to be deleted,.

Jeez, that Trekphiler is an arsehole.

Wikipedia?
 

In article ,
Angus Rodgers writes:
On Mon, 15 Nov 2010 12:19:40 -0800 (PST), D7666
wrote:

On Nov 15, 7:43*pm, "
wrote:
What's happened to Wikipedia? Have they gone bust? If you try to go to
it now the browser hangs or you get a blank page.

Good.

Perhaps people will stop quoting it in here and do some real research.

People are always making a joke of Wikipedia, but I don't know
why. I'm usually impressed by the quality of the pages there.
It's pretty reliable for articles on mathematics, and, as far
as I can tell, for other subjects, too. Are there some famous
examples of bad pages, which might explain this widespread
notion that it is unreliable? (Yes, of course I know that any-
one can edit it, so that it can never have final authority.)

I have been a contributor to some pages where I have specialist
knowledge, such as the fluorescent lighting ones. I would say it
peaked around 4 years ago - there were several people, all clearly
specialists and knowlegable, developing the pages. Then more and
more dross would start appearing - such as people knowing nothing
about the field citing a piece garbage they read in one of the
red-tops, and the task slowly turned into continual dross-repair
activity. I got bored with doing that (although I do occasionally
return and do a bit). But most significantly, if I look through
contributions nowadays, there are no longer the same level of
specialists contributing. This isn't just my experience - I'm
hearing it from many others too. This means that when I use
Wikipedia to research something I don't know, I am aware that
the data comes without guarantees, and almost certainly some
level of errors.

I think it's probably inevitable too. As you encourage more and
more people to contribute, you are going to attract less accurate
information, and the signal to noise ratio will drop.

You are right that pages such as deep mathematical ones are still
excellent - these aren't going to get dammaged by folks who, with
the best intentions, think they became a lighting expert because
of some inaccurate article they read in their dummed-down comic.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]