Thread: Who's Messing with Wikipedia?

The world's best encyclopedia is prone to one limitation. Anyone with an internet connection can log into the website and edit the web pages being listed. False information can be suitable listed in the website and it may in turn lead to confusions. Various tools have been developed for detecting such unauthorized and rogue editing and one of the recent entrants into the field is WikiDashBoard. So how does this portal which was developed by a senior research scientist named Ed Chi function? Read more about it in Technology Review: Who's Messing with Wikipedia?

is this tool useful enough for detecting false edits ... i dont think so ... this seems to be based on some heuristics .... which may go wrong ... if a user who has not edited any other articles and is adding/modifying one particular article with some good knowledge then it is prone to be marked as controversial. even this can lead to confusions

I think user edits are quoted as citations. In any case, Wikipedia does not claim to source the entire truth. Fairly accurate - but could be wrong at times.

problem is we believe in the "semblence of truth" more than the "truth" itself.

Originally Posted by panchabhut

problem is we believe in the "semblence of truth" more than the "truth" itself.

very well said. but one thing i must say - i have never come across any such false information on wikipedia. there must be some verification mechanism for testing edits and new articles.

right...or at least they give 'disclaimers' stating that info has not been verified or may be unbalanced.

Originally Posted by pjaveed

right...or at least they give 'disclaimers' stating that info has not been verified or may be unbalanced.

exactly .. i have seen 'info not verified' disclaimer on wikipedia many times

maybe those are messing who dont like wikipedia on company levels.. because there are many spammers like me...

The spammers are exploiting the wikipedia,
As there are lot of new websites available daily,so the competitors are getting jealous

Editing information is a function in wiki that does not make the data reliable yet it serves as basis for information.