Wikipediocracy

So consider this passage from Peggy Fleming (T-H-L):

In June 13, 1970, Fleming married her teenage sweetheart Greg Jenkins, a dermatologist and a former amateur pair figure skater.9 10 The couple have two sons, Andy in 1977, Todd in 1988,4 and three grandchildren.11 They also own and operate Fleming Jenkins Vineyards & Winery in California. The winery produces close to 2,000 cases of wine a year with such brands as "Choreography Cabernet" and "San Francisco Bay Syrah Rosé."12 Profits from the "Victories Rosé" go towards charities that support research towards breast cancer.12 The winery closed in 2011.13

Amazing how much wine a closed winery is producing, n'est pas? But this is so common in articles: someone updates that a facility is closed, but never goes back through the article to rectify the tenses.

Doesn't this belong in 'Wikipedia improving?'. An article can stay exactly the same for 5 years, but still be getting worse, even without changing.

The same thing happens when a political figure leaves office or the subject of a biography dies. The gnomes race to see who can be the first to add the date of death or departure from office, but do not have enough interest in the article to actually rewrite or rebalance it.

Of course, when someone like Bradley Manning (T-H-L) transitions to a different gender, suddenly thousands of volunteer hours become available to argue over every single pronoun in the article. If that volunteer effort could be redirected toward the more general problem of updating biographies, this problem would be solved.

Doesn't this belong in 'Wikipedia improving?'. An article can stay exactly the same for 5 years, but still be getting worse, even without changing.

Kind of like Egyptian pyramids that experience erosion as time passes.

Peter Damian wrote:Doesn't this belong in 'Wikipedia improving?'. An article can stay exactly the same for 5 years, but still be getting worse, even without changing.

I would say link rot (T-H-L) represents an aspect of the same phenomenon.

If the verifiability of an article depends on cited web links, but some or all of those web links die and are no longer accessible from within the article itself, then some or all of the article has suddenly become unverifiable, and the article has got worse without being changed.

And yet, in how-to-guides like Wikipedia:Link rot (T-H-L), Wikipedians are merrily advised (my bolding):

Do not delete cited information solely because the URL to the source does not work any longer. WP:Verifiability does not require that all information be supported by a working link, nor does it require the source to be published online.

Which suggests Wikipedia:Verifiability (T-H-L) must be a crock, because the basic, dictionary (non-Wikipedian) concept of "verifiability" requires - as a bare minimum - that the cited source really is available for independent consultation at the cited location.

It is unfortunate that the Wikipedia community assumes that we all know how to use archive.org.

Thracia wrote:Which suggests Wikipedia:Verifiability (T-H-L) must be a crock, because the basic, dictionary (non-Wikipedian) concept of "verifiability" requires - as a bare minimum - that the cited source really is available for independent consultation at the cited location.

WP:AGF, it was thoroughly checked when it was first entered so needs no more checking.

Poetlister wrote:

Thracia wrote:Which suggests Wikipedia:Verifiability (T-H-L) must be a crock, because the basic, dictionary (non-Wikipedian) concept of "verifiability" requires - as a bare minimum - that the cited source really is available for independent consultation at the cited location.

WP:AGF, it was thoroughly checked when it was first entered so needs no more checking.

Ah, of course...

Although if WP:AGF was anything more substantial than just a nice fluffy idea, they'd never need to cite anything.

eagle wrote:Of course, when someone like Bradley Manning (T-H-L) transitions to a different gender, suddenly thousands of volunteer hours become available to argue over every single pronoun in the article. .

Of course, Bradley/Chelsea Manning was a important news item on and off Wikipedia. Nobody cares about somebody's old winery, unless you have a vested interest in it.

This is why I've always believed in the benefits of COI editing: They care far more about their articles than your average gnomes and drama mongerers, and thus will be constantly revising and updating an article. Only people that want to get articles to FA so it will look good on their RfAs have as much dedication.

Konveyor Belt wrote:

eagle wrote:Of course, when someone like Bradley Manning (T-H-L) transitions to a different gender, suddenly thousands of volunteer hours become available to argue over every single pronoun in the article. .

Of course, Bradley/Chelsea Manning was a important news item on and off Wikipedia. Nobody cares about somebody's old winery, unless you have a vested interest in it.

More importantly, he/she/it Manning was An Important Justice Cause.