Amusing site

Lol, I just read the following on the official Maiden site:

Wikipedia Dates?
Published: March 4, 2008

Useful as it is, anyone who's ever submitted school work based on what they found on Wikipedia surely knows that it's not always entirely factual.

In the case of Iron Maiden un-announced tour dates, its very much a work of fiction!

Remember folks, dates aren't official until they are announced right here on IM.com. You don't have long to wait - the second leg dates for North America will be published soon. But in the meantime, please don't pay attention to tour info on Wikipedia or any sites that have copied the same rumours cos I can tell you all that they're not correct and we'd hate for anyone to make concrete plans based on bad information.
 
lol, you can't imagine how many people have been caught trying to use wikipedia as reference in their reports at university!

Everytime I try helping someone with their report, I always see "wikipedia contributors" somewhere in the document.
 
LOL.  Wikipedia for source of upcoming tour dates???

From that unkipidia watchimakallit site:

"Run to the Hills," about escaping from Satan, who is evil and lives in hell. The Number of the Beast sold over 6 copies worldwide, and Iron Maiden was officially the biggest Christian metal band in the world.

Funny.
This belongs in the madness forum.
 
^Actually, this topic has a fairly good discussional value around the stupidity of people using Wikipedia as a reliable source of information. But if the mods decide it doesnt belong here, so be it.

Anyway, the "wikipedia thing" is so badly out of hand that even powerful companies edit their own pages on wikipedia. You can even read about it on......you guessd it, wikipedia! At least wikipedia criticises itself on its own page.
 
Ardius said:
^Actually, this topic has a fairly good discussional value around the stupidity of people using Wikipedia as a reliable source of information. But if the mods decide it doesnt belong here, so be it.
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We've had both- topics about Wikipedia and topics about Uncyclopedia. But I'm gonna leave this just how and where it is. If a proper discussion comes out of this thread, I don't see a reason for any action.
 
I think its pretty funny.  I also think it mimics what people have tried to say about Maiden forever.  Maybe in reverse fashion, but it pokes fun of those that always thought of Maiden as one dimensional, and playing 'satanistic' music.  "This album is about the devil, that one was about heaven"... what a joke-- reminds me of the guy that told me Seventh Son was named that way because it was the seventh album... had no idea of the concept.
 
Wikipedia can be useful to get a quick overview of a situation, and it often has links to valuable resources, like primary sources online for things like elections, reviews, etc.  Lots of stuff.
 
wasted155 said:
... what a joke-- reminds me of the guy that told me Seventh Son was named that way because it was the seventh album... had no idea of the concept.
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:blink: what ??? do you believe that they'd had chosen this title/ concept if it was the 8th ??  :blink:
NO. This guy was right principally
 
LooseCannon said:
Wikipedia can be useful to get a quick overview of a situation, and it often has links to valuable resources, like primary sources online for things like elections, reviews, etc.  Lots of stuff.
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Like making up trivia questions ;-)
 
LooseCannon said:
Wikipedia can be useful to get a quick overview of a situation, and it often has links to valuable resources, like primary sources online for things like elections, reviews, etc.  Lots of stuff.
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Yes, it can be a great way of starting your research into something, because it has a big collection of sources. However, the problem is most people use wikipedia and only wikipedia, they dont seem to understand the little links to sources placed in the articles.
Really, the problem with wikipedia isn't its content, but how people use wikipedia itself. Too many people use it as the end all for finding things out.
 
Do you have an example of this?

I don't think you can judge others by the way they use it. What is this way and even if so: If they are satisfied, then it works fine for them, if they don't need to write a scientific report.

Don't know, but this opinion sounds like from the time Wikipedia was very new. Right now Wikipedia is not new and the source is very much accepted nowadays for many kinds of use.

It has more pro's than con's, in my humble opinion.
 
Well, I can give you an example, but not a sourced example.  :P

As well supervised as it is, Wikipedia contributors can't keep a constant check on every single page all of the time, and as such any information gathered from Wikipedia should and will always be taken with a pinch of salt. I'm not talking just about vandalism here, I also mean innocent changes made by people that sometimes cause the loss of important information or subtle changes of facts.

As such, in my opinion, the best way to use wikipedia is to use it as a starting point in order to find out information about a subject (much like a google search). Most pages are well maintained and free from vandalism (depending on popularity) and you should be able to use the references and sources provided to gather more reliable information and confirm anything learnt from wikipedia.
Just using wikipedia without checking its sources and references is what I see as the wrong way to use it.
 
I get your point, but it depends on the goal of the search. I really don't need to re-check every issue (that's paranoia!), found on wikipedia. As soon as others tell me it's wrong, or if there's another reason, then I'll "dig" further.

So, again I state: If it's not for scientific research or important political decisions, the use of Wikipedia is very handy, innocent, and far from wrong.
 
^yeah, it definitely beats going through tons of volumes of books for information.....but then I still have to do that from time to time. Nothing beats university libraries for information.

Forostar said:
I get your point, but it depends on the goal of the search. I really don't need to re-check every issue (that's paranoia!), found on wikipedia. As soon as others tell me it's wrong, or if there's another reason, then I'll "dig" further.

So, again I state: If it's not for scientific research or important political decisions, the use of Wikipedia is very handy, innocent, and far from wrong.
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Ok, well fair enough, can't argue with that really.
I'm just opposed to this whole idea of "wikipedia knows all" thats getting around.
 
Forostar said:
Do you have an example of this?

I don't think you can judge others by the way they use it. What is this way and even if so: If they are satisfied, then it works fine for them, if they don't need to write a scientific report.

Don't know, but this opinion sounds like from the time Wikipedia was very new. Right now Wikipedia is not new and the source is very much accepted nowadays for many kinds of use.
Click to expand...

Wikipedia is still not a peer-reviewed source.  Thus, it's not usable for scholarly endeavours, such as writing university papers and such.  I personally tend to think Wiki is very reliable most of the time, but I do question things that seem questionable, and certainly make changes as I feel is necessary.

When I was marking as a job at university, the prof had a -5 point rule for any reference from Wiki, Google, or any unaccredited website.  Using the web-based versions of things like peer-reviewed journals or the National Archives of Canada was fine, because those are government or journal publications.  It's a lot easier to get, say, census results from online than it is to dig them out of the library, and it's from a stats.gc.ca website, so it's the same numbers.

I think this rule makes a lot of sense, because Wikipedia is not an academic-level style collection; it's a below-academic style.  It's an encyclopedia.
 
Hahahahaha, that's the best! I especially like the photo of Bruce pointing out the location of heaven to some the confused fans. Priceless!
 
Powergirl81 said:
How about "Adrian Smith knows all?"  :D
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We should start an uncyclopedia page for Adrian. Especially with that Adrian Smith statements thread to provide a section.  :lol:
 
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