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Wikipedia's war on the demoscene

category: general [glöplog]
Another excellent example of why wikipedia doesn't work.
There are far more people who don't know anything about the demoscene than the ones who do, so it's impossible to shut out the ignorance and misinformation.

Not to mention that they have all sorts of stupid rules that are overly enforced by some OCD-inflicted idiots. For example, it took ages for the new CGA high-colour modes to 'stick' in the CGA article on Wikipedia (we never bothered to add it ourselves, because hey, you can't be your own reference, so better delete information, even if it is 100% correct and relevant).
See the talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Color_Graphics_Adapter
Alan Cox mentioned it a few weeks after the initial release of 8088 MPH, and about a year later it was finally added.

What I don't understand is that they seemed to take special care not to mention the name of the demo itself. That I don't get. Isn't it somehow 'historically significant' or whatever to just briefly mention the title of the demo that introduced the new hack (and as far as I know is still the only piece of software in the world to do this)? Especially since you link to a blog that is called '8088 MPH', and you lift some of the example pictures from that?
It would just make the information more complete. People would see "Oh, that's the demo that does this, ah, and this is a blog by the creators of the demo and the effect".
added on the 2017-03-26 11:17:37 by Scali Scali
I bet that 98.194.39.86 person got some cracktro attached to his/her game(s)...
added on the 2017-03-26 13:45:14 by rutra80 rutra80
Quote:
(we never bothered to add it ourselves, because hey, you can't be your own reference, so better delete information, even if it is 100% correct and relevant).

i.e. "I don't understand what an encyclopedia is or why they work this way".
added on the 2017-03-26 14:10:49 by noby noby
Quote:
Quote:
(we never bothered to add it ourselves, because hey, you can't be your own reference, so better delete information, even if it is 100% correct and relevant).

i.e. "I don't understand what an encyclopedia is or why they work this way".

Jeez. Like Wikipedia is perfect
added on the 2017-03-26 16:58:07 by lollol lollol
Nontroversy, lol. Of course you can edit or even create your own entry on Wikipedia.

Shadertoy entry is a good example.
I also love how some guy removed blatant self-promotional phrase ;)
added on the 2017-03-26 17:21:28 by tomkh tomkh
Quote:
"I don't understand what an encyclopedia is or why they work this way".


I'm pretty sure that any encyclopedia considers Albert Einstein and his books on the theory of relativity to be the source of the theory of relativity.
Wikipedia however does not work like that. They need some third-party to quote Albert Einstein, and then the quote is considered a source, not Albert Einstein himself.
Basically, if nobody ever quoted Albert Einstein, the theory of relativity would never be included.
added on the 2017-03-26 20:02:57 by Scali Scali
I guess my point is two-fold:
1) Wikipedia often seems to remove correct info because of stupid reasons.
2) Because you can't be your own reference, you need to rely on someone else to add your information for you, which often results in incomplete or incorrect information. Which is terribly annoying, especially since there is no cooperation whatsoever.
added on the 2017-03-26 20:12:54 by Scali Scali
Scali: COI is in a bad taste and is one of the top rules of Wikipedia.
I don't think it's a bad rule.

But anyway, what if Alan Cox had good intentions, but simply didn't fully realize that 8088 MPH was the first software ever to introduce this trick?
added on the 2017-03-26 21:04:11 by tomkh tomkh
Quote:
Scali: COI is in a bad taste and is one of the top rules of Wikipedia.
I don't think it's a bad rule.


I think this is more of a meta-rule...
As in, collecting information/knowledge is the primary goal of an encyclopedia. So this COI-rule is conflicting with Wikipedia's own best interests.

I mean, I simply don't bother to enter anything to wiki, because I know from experience that things tend to get nazi-edited out, rather than people *researching* what was posted, and perhaps correcting/ameliorating the original post.
I mean, don't you think it's rather silly that if VileR would have linked his blog himself, it would have been deleted on the grounds that he was referencing his own blog... yet when someone else references his blog, it is somehow okay? It's the same blog, the same information.

Quote:
But anyway, what if Alan Cox had good intentions, but simply didn't fully realize that 8088 MPH was the first software ever to introduce this trick?


Which brings me back to the research-point above:
1) People should research their shit.
2) People should only research/edit shit they understand and care about.
Currently we have a lot of people corrupting or downright deleting demoscene-related articles just because they don't have any clue what the demoscene is, nor any interest to research anything and validate the information in the articles.
What's the point in having 'editors' if they're this crap at their job?
This is hardly scientific, nor anything even remotely related to 'quality control' or whatever other excuse they can think of.
added on the 2017-03-26 22:22:23 by Scali Scali
Every free thing has its share of crap.
added on the 2017-03-26 22:54:20 by rutra80 rutra80
Quote:
Quote:
"I don't understand what an encyclopedia is or why they work this way".


I'm pretty sure that any encyclopedia considers Albert Einstein and his books on the theory of relativity to be the source of the theory of relativity.
Wikipedia however does not work like that. They need some third-party to quote Albert Einstein, and then the quote is considered a source, not Albert Einstein himself.
Basically, if nobody ever quoted Albert Einstein, the theory of relativity would never be included.

EXACTLY
added on the 2017-03-26 23:38:07 by lollol lollol
I really love every single opportunity to make something about me, myself and I so I'll start off by stating that my single contribution to Wikipedia ever was stating that Puerto Vallarta (Mexico) was the final port of call for the original Love Boat episodes. It was 1 single line, and I was right.

Now, it seems someone is trolling (for whatever reason slash mental defect) the demoscene. It is or will be (I didn't read for a few days, nor care to, I just want online exposure) corrected and when I and many of you started this hobby there was no Wikipedia.

So let's have it set straight and not get onion(s) in our respective jars of ointment because someone said something stupid.

With love,
- N.
added on the 2017-03-26 23:58:48 by superplek superplek
Quote:
I'm pretty sure that any encyclopedia considers Albert Einstein and his books on the theory of relativity to be the source of the theory of relativity.
Wikipedia however does not work like that. They need some third-party to quote Albert Einstein, and then the quote is considered a source, not Albert Einstein himself.
Basically, if nobody ever quoted Albert Einstein, the theory of relativity would never be included.

Again, you don't understand how an encyclopedia works. Einstein published his theory of special relativity in 1905 in a scientific journal, and it's not like it was immediately accepted as canon, but took years of further findings and verification by third parties in the scientific community until the approach became generally accepted. Your blog posts and code snippets don't exactly amount to much in comparison. Wikipedia's goal isn't to gather as much information as possible, but act as a reliable collection of information that is as trustworthy as possible; to be an encyclopedia. The rules they employ are there to minimize the inclusion of erroneous or biased information, even if they sometimes catch false positives. And that's how it's supposed to be; you might similarly notice that not every single finding in every research paper published is automatically included either. By proxy original research isn't allowed either because you know why, most research turns out to be false for various reasons, even in the relatively rigorous scientific community.

Not that Wikipedia is without criticism, for an example on some of their notability standards and some deletionist attitudes, but attacking couple of the principles that makes it actually usable makes you look ignorant. And I don't deny it's not a dilemma though. You absolutely need citations and third party verification before you can include new findings to any article, but what if just... nobody cares about the original findings? I don't know how to solve that, but just allowing original research and disregarding conflicts of interest would make the site unusable.
added on the 2017-03-27 00:25:55 by noby noby
^^ To be fair, *very very many* of wikipedia editors don't understand how peer review works.
added on the 2017-03-27 08:11:59 by jmph jmph
^very very many can't seem to grasp that peer review is also corruptible
added on the 2017-03-27 08:42:19 by 1in10 1in10
The problem with Wikipedia is that it doesn't differentiate between people who actually know stuff and people who don't know jack shit. Real encyclopedias have experts writing their content, the Wikipedia models rewards the kind of people who camp on articles and protect them against any kind of change, and that sort of a person rarely has a clue about anything. For most articles that doesn't really make a difference, but it's a huge problem for some articles. Also, the notability guidelines and deletionist bullshit really drive a lot of sensible people and contributions away.
added on the 2017-03-27 08:46:30 by Preacher Preacher
Quote:
Again, you don't understand how an encyclopedia works.


You fail at debating:
1) Your first post stated this with no arguments whatsoever to back this up.
2) Your second post starts again with a personal attack, rather than actual arguments.

Quote:
Your blog posts and code snippets don't exactly amount to much in comparison.


They don't?
While Einstein's theory may have been harder to prove, I would argue that we certainly gave all the information and tools to prove the theories.
In fact, we supplied the proof ourselves: we released a demo that can be run on real hardware.
This was verified independently by the demo competing at Revision, where the organizers verified that our code worked on real hardware, we brought two real IBM 5160s with two real IBM CGA cards).
I think it's very similar to Einstein and his hypothesis of light bending due to gravity. Einstein just had to wait for the opportune moment to observe this. Our stuff can be run on any IBM with CGA at any time by anyone. And it has been observed by hundreds of people at Revision, and many others since.

Quote:
Wikipedia's goal isn't to gather as much information as possible, but act as a reliable collection of information that is as trustworthy as possible; to be an encyclopedia.


We aren't talking about "as much information as possible". We're talking about some information on CGA, which is probably the best-documented around. A lot of CGA-information is pre-internet, and it isn't exactly clear who first implemented it, or how the different implementations work exactly.
In this particular case however, everything is clearly documented, you know who is involved, and you can easily reach out to those people if you want to have accurate information.
Did Alan Cox or any other Wiki-editor reach out to us? No. I conclude that nobody even bothered doing any proper research.
If I were a Wiki-editor, and I were to write about a topic that I take directly from a recent blog, I would contact the author of that blog to verify my writings, and offer any suggestions, to make sure that the Wiki entry accurately represents this technique.

Quote:
The rules they employ are there to minimize the inclusion of erroneous or biased information, even if they sometimes catch false positives.


As I say, minimizing erroneous or biased information isn't exactly what is happening in practice.
As for 'catching false positives': none of us even TRIED to add any information to the CGA article, because we already know what Wiki editors are like.

Quote:
And that's how it's supposed to be;


Well, then we disagree.
And apparently I'm not the only one here, because I see others also mentioning that many Wiki editors don't know what peer review is, or how the Wiki editors don't have a clue about the things they're editing.
added on the 2017-03-27 10:41:07 by Scali Scali
I suppose the thing is that 8088 MPH basically falsifies a lot of information in the original CGA article. You can no longer write that "Composite CGA has only 16 artifact colours". That is demonstrably false. It's like saying "the world is flat".
added on the 2017-03-27 10:47:43 by Scali Scali
Quote:
The problem with Wikipedia is that it doesn't differentiate between people who actually know stuff and people who don't know jack shit.


This.
added on the 2017-03-27 11:55:06 by ham ham
Quote:
I conclude that nobody even bothered doing any proper research.


They are not allowed to!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

So yes, Wikipedia is not what most people think it is.
I love that Scali is comparing his CGA work to Einstein's work.
added on the 2017-03-27 13:09:07 by okkie okkie
I think Wikipedia is basically destroying the world by declaring things unimportant.
added on the 2017-03-27 13:18:52 by lollol lollol
Oh, and I met the people running the Wikipedia Kontor in Hamburg. I am still angry at how non-open they are.
added on the 2017-03-27 13:19:27 by lollol lollol
okkie: Yeah, that's quite ridiculous indeed, Albert didn't even know the difference between 5150 and 5160, MUHAHAHAHAHA
added on the 2017-03-27 13:43:17 by havoc havoc

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