So the situation was pretty reasonable. Since then, however, people have started trying to make Wikipedia more "authoritative" - defined from academic point of view. End result? Decent articles on paganism are getting squeezed out because of a lack of "authoritative" writings ...
Wikipedia can no longer claim in any way, shape or form, in my opinion, to be a people's encyclopaedia (actually, I don't know that it ever did ... ).
However, what has been the death knell of Wikipedia for me personally was some absolute rubbish I found recently on the entry for Laser sailing dinghies (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_%28dinghy%29). The passage concerned claims that a few Laser sailors recently revolutionised downwind sailing by introducing ... * ta-da * techniques that I have been using for four decades!
The passage concerned is this:
"Since 1998 Laser sailing has increased to not only be physical upwind and reaching but also to also include far more demanding sailing and potential speed increases when sailing downwind. Traditionally sailing downwind has been considered processional in dinghy racing, simply being pushed downwind. But Laser sailors, including Ben Ainslie and Robert Scheidt significantly changed the techniques used to race a Laser downwind. The techniques these sailors introduced uses a much more dynamic sailing method, concentrating on surfing the waves going downwind. The sailors will weave their way downwind, constantly look either side for the next large wave they can "hop" onto and surf downwind. In order to maximise their speed boats will often be sailed by the lee, where the boom and sail will be allowed to travel significantly forward of the mast.
This change in technique for downwind racing has changed most dinghy racing to be much more competitive on the downwind legs and resulted in a change of the international course shape from a traditional triangle to a trapezoid giving greater opportunity for increased upwind and straight downwind legs."
In refutation of this ill-considered, unresearched tripe, I state that:
- I used surfing as a standard in my Heron in the 70s;
- sailing by the lee was standard technique in the OK dinghies when I was learning back in the early 70s!!!!!
- the American John Bertrand, who won the 1976 and 1977 Laser World titles (as opposed to the Australian John Bertrand, who skippered the first winning challenger in the America's Cup), was an early source of the idea of keeping your dinghy's bow pointing downwards to maximise the surfing which everyone was using;
- luffing and blanketing were standard parts of racing that I was taught back in the early 70s - and used regularly.
Still, as I once pointed out to a friend, Wikipedia does at least give information sources and references and external links, so it is useful starting point, but I now have to say, treat everything there with considerable caution, and I will caution all Wikipedia links I post with the following:
"Please see my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia."
Oh, the reason I haven't got on line and fixed the wrong article?
I have too many blasted accounts and passwords to manage as it is, and no desire to get into any online arguments - I had enough of those a long, long, long time ago ...
PS - there is a newspaper article here about the possible deletion of an article on a murder in my home city which also illustrates this problem - both the complexity of coming up with rules that enable a useful creation that reflects reality, and the unacknowledged "if it ain't in the US, it ain't important" bias that taints too many things. The use of social media, and the public response to that terrible murder is what makes it notable. If the editing committee is too stupid to understand or grasp that, then maybe they should get out of the way, and let Wikipedia stay a people's encyclopaedia, 'cos it is rapidly losing any claim to being that, and when that change has finished, I'll stop using it.
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear")
My "blogiography" is here.
May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
A home is for living in, not feeling, becoming or being rich or a “better” class than others.
The International Labour Organisation's definition of "full employment" is wrong, useless and misleading.
Armageddon is alive and well and happening right now: it is a battle
between the indolence of "I only ..." and/or "I just ..." on one side,
and perspicacity on the other.
Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing. EDMUND BURKE
Your children are not your children. ... They come through you but ...
they belong not to you ... for their souls dwell in the house of
tomorrow KAHLIL GIBRAN
We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
Those whom we cannot stand are usually those who we cannot understand P.K.SHAW
Tags: about me, academia, discrimination, references, society,
First published: Laugardagr, 11th August, 2012
Last edited: Tuesday, 12th July, 2016 = added the PPS
