Main Page Crap -- a PAP smear

[enwikibadscience]

I would like to start a read highlighhting the mess that is Wikipedia's main page.

Today, I noted as bad a completely incomprehensible collage of bad science, misinformation and highlighted copy pastes written by an editor without any understanding as I have ever seen.

I attempted a few minor fixes, but gave up.

Porcupine Abyssal Plain as accepted for Cwmhiraeth (T-C-L)'s current WikiCup run and on the main page today.

The article never links to or defines abyssal plain, does not indicate where the name came from (no brainer look up, it's from a very famous 19th century deep sea dredging ship, the first of its kind, I believe), and claims the observatory, built as a moored carbon sink observatory to collect information on carbon rich detritus raining down on the sea floor, in other words, where it starts on the surface, to the seabed, is built on the plain, rather than being moored to the plain, says it has had instruments for 11 years, but has somehow been collecting data for 20, and that's only four sentences.

In other words, the editor copied information she did not understand, then got the article okayed for the main page by another editor who cannot understand what they read. The approval by an editor who claims to be a biologist, Micromesistius (T-C-L).

Wikipedia needs to drop Wikipedia University and start Wikipedia Grade School to teach editors to read.

[enwikibadscience]

And we have a sock puppet to the rescue of the article being templated for the crap it is.

Dunditschia (T-C-L)

[EricBarbour]

Not just factual errors, also outright bad writing and formatting.

It has a muddy seabed, with scattered abyssal hills that covers an area approximately half the size of Europe's landmass. Its depth ranges from 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) to 4,850 m (15,910 ft).

The Porcupine Abyssal Plain is a vast, relatively level stretch of seabed with a depth range of 4,000 to 4,850 m (13,000 to 15,910 ft). It has a muddy floor in the abyssopelagic zone and scattered rocky abyssal hills that rise into the bathypelagic zone forming seamounts and knolls.

[enwikibadscience]

Not just factual errors, also outright bad writing and formatting.

It has a muddy seabed, with scattered abyssal hills that covers an area approximately half the size of Europe's landmass. Its depth ranges from 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) to 4,850 m (15,910 ft).

The Porcupine Abyssal Plain is a vast, relatively level stretch of seabed with a depth range of 4,000 to 4,850 m (13,000 to 15,910 ft). It has a muddy floor in the abyssopelagic zone and scattered rocky abyssal hills that rise into the bathypelagic zone forming seamounts and knolls.

The writing stinks. This editor wrote a couple of FAs and some GAs, and got this lovely, but finally accurate, thanks for the work:

"Dear Cwmhiraeth, as a fan of your contributions (actually creating new articles) on lots of otherwise ignored species, I was really disappointed with your GA and FA efforts. Now you are welcome back to creating new articles and bringing a great number of species into light again. Best wishes --Hanberke (talk) 06:37, 14 November 2013 (UTC)"

This editor cannot string together related ideas in a logical order, because she does not understand what she is writing about. She has no idea what is missing because she does not read her own articles. who can blame her? She makes no effort to be comprehensive--the name of the plain has an interesting history, but, instead of researching her topic she randomly found a couple of sources and copied them into article space with no understanding. She never competently wikilinks, because I suspect she understands 1/10th of what she contributes, at most.

There is no reliability when the editor cannot read the related Wikipedia articles to link them, competently, much less the sources she cites.

I read an article about an editor who faked degrees, and everyone shuffled the blame. With the Wikicup and praise for badly promoted DYKs and GAs and FAs, there is enough blame to go around when this blows up in the press.

Stop writing already, stop promoting. This stuff stinks!