Crap articles

[Poetlister]

Ample newspaper coverage means it passes GNG.

Anything that Trump does attracts ample coverage; it's the nature of being president, particularly when the officeholder is given to saying and doing stupid things. But every flash-in-the-pan incident doesn't need an elaborate on-line memorial.

Ming is talking about what is logical and sensible. If Ming or Poetlister had much influence, of course the article would be deleted. But under Wikipedia policy, since this event has had extensive coverage in reliable sources it is "entitled" to have an article.

[DexterPointy]

...
Would it not be more interesting and productive to discuss what it is about Wikipedia and its policies that makes the production of crap articles inevitable? The stupidity of "anyone can edit" is self-evident, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Let's for the sake of the argument say that we'd write a manifesto - detailing what's wrong, and what's to be done.
Now, who's going to execute?
Think about it: The Enlightenment went to illuminate the world, starting roughly 300 years ago, yet, to this very day, there's a very vast amount of people having religious beliefs.
Saying: You can force a horse to water, but ...

... probably about 80-90% of the articles on Wikipedia are crap by any reasonable definition. Why act as unpaid, unappreciated and unrecognised reviewers of WP articles so that the faithful can fix them and take the credit? ...

I don't know if anyone is pursuing to take credit for attempting to fix various articles, but, to the extend anyone is, the they're setting themselves up to be a laughing stock. (The status gained by authors of graffiti in public toilets, is above what quite a few Wikipedians derserves)

[Eric Corbett]

I think you misunderstand the point of criticism.

It's got nothing to do with manifestos or other political symbolism, it's about telling the truth. And just like with lies, the more you tell the truth the more it is believed.

[DexterPointy]

I think you misunderstand the point of criticism.

It's got nothing to do with manifestos or other political symbolism, it's about telling the truth. And just like with lies, the more you tell the truth the more it is believed.

I suspect you misunderstood my use of the word manifest to imply something political. A manifest is, at heart, simply a framing of a theatre/scenario/stage, with detailing as appropriate for the context of the manifest. Certainly, e.g. the communist manifest by Karl Marx, is usually taken to be political, but other manifests simply aren't. A ship or airplane may have a cargo or passenger manifest - and such are not political. Other examples of manifests would be e.g. Google Web App Manifest, or MS .NET Assembly manifest.

I do understand the point of criticism. It's the further/deeper criticism, which I'm finding pointless, in it being a waste of time, because: Everyone knows not to trust Wikipedia, and it's only the devout Wikipedians, living in their own delusional echo-chamber, who believes in building this temple of "all human knowledge".
Saying: I'm sure it's possible to dive into deep thoughtful criticism, but is there more than a very small audience? (and is there an audience with both will and determination to do something effective?)
Or to paint an analogy: How much time should be spent on details concerning the shape of the earth? (It's not going to convince members of the flat earth society, and ordinary people with common sense & knowledge, aren't going to care for all the details)

[Poetlister]

Let's for the sake of the argument say that we'd write a manifesto - detailing what's wrong, and what's to be done.
Now, who's going to execute?

Why do we have this site at all? Obviously, it's a relief valve for people who want to moan about how they were treated unfairly on Wikipedia. However, surely at least in theory it is here to provide constructive criticism, in the hope that as a result Wikipedia will improve, at least marginally. Many senior Wikipedians, including current and former Arbs, seem to see the value of this and they contribute here.

For example, Yngvadottir (T-C-L) has made many corrections to articles based on comments here. I doubt that it has brought her much glory, but it has certainly reduced the number of crap articles, albeit by only a small proportion. She claims to have made over 9000! edits; that's about 8x1031681.

[DexterPointy]

Let's for the sake of the argument say that we'd write a manifesto - detailing what's wrong, and what's to be done.
Now, who's going to execute?

Why do we have this site at all? Obviously, it's a relief valve for people who want to moan about how they were treated unfairly on Wikipedia. However, surely at least in theory it is here to provide constructive criticism, in the hope that as a result Wikipedia will improve, at least marginally. Many senior Wikipedians, including current and former Arbs, seem to see the value of this and they contribute here.
...

Obviously, yes, it's a kind of "relief valve", and constructive criticism is a side-effect of the involuntary absurd humour provided by Wikipedians. Though hoping that Wikipedia will improve in any significant fundamental way, is, in my opinion, an illusion (a vain hope, or a delusion if you'd like): The fundamental problems of WP, has existed for years, and are entrenched. If the fundamental problems were to be solved, then it'd require a making a WP 2.0 - but I'm not seeing that coming around the corner in any near or far future path.

[DexterPointy]

Yet another example.
An example showing how WP:CIR is again disregarded, and that even within a topic field which is neither controversial nor popular.
From WP:CIR (T-H-L):
| What is meant by "Competence is required"?
| There is a presumption that people who contribute to the English-language Wikipedia have the following competencies:
| * the ability to read and write English well enough to avoid introducing incomprehensible text into articles and to communicate effectively. ...
| * the ability to understand their own abilities and competencies,
|      and avoid editing in areas where their lack of skill and/or knowledge causes them to create significant errors for others to clean up.


The lead paragraph of Lamport's bakery algorithm (T-H-L) (current version), where
- The term "computer algorithm" is only a first small sign of an incompetent author.
- Lead sentence ends equivalent to describing food as "being intended for improving life span expectancy, by means of ingestion".

Lamport's bakery algorithm is a computer algorithm devised by computer scientist Leslie Lamport, which is intended to improve the safety in the usage of shared resources among multiple threads by means of mutual exclusion.

In reality: The algorithm's purpose & effect is to ensure mutex on a shared resource, when in a concurrent process scenario. (Mutex is a well known & established technical term/concept; a contraction/abbreviation of "mutual exclusion", which is always relevant & required in all such concurrent scenarios, except for read-only resource access if by all concurrent processes)

[Poetlister]

George E. P. Box (T-H-L)

Personal life
Box married Joan Fisher, the second of Ronald Fisher's five daughters. In 1978, Joan Fisher Box published a biography of Ronald Fisher, with substantial collaboration with Box.[14] Box married Claire Quist in 1985.

There is no mention of Box's first wife, Jessie Ward, the year of his marriage to Joan Fisher (1959), that they had two children, or what happened to his first two wives that allowed him to re-marry.

[Vigilant]

Qigong (T-H-L)

Fitness Woo, pages and pages of unlikely claims, 89 references, no scientific validity to any of the claims, been around since 2002.

Jesus

[Ming]

Qigong (T-H-L)

Fitness Woo, pages and pages of unlikely claims, 89 references, no scientific validity to any of the claims, been around since 2002.

Well, it does have a classic WP caveat: "there remains no evidence that qigong has any therapeutic effect, as of 2016."

[Ritchie333]

Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (T-H-L)

Stanshall and Slater then parted ways for a while but Slater in particular kept faith in the band's continued existence and dedicated himself to its eventual resurrection. Things began to come together again in 1963 when the two reunited with Wilkes, and two new faces entered the picture: On banjo, double bass and later bass guitar, Goldsmiths College lecturer Vernon Dudley Bowhay Nowell and his lodger, songwriter/pianist and later guitarist Neil Innes. Bowhay Nowell was already familiar with the band's earlier incarnation and happily came on board. According to Innes' website, the Bowhay Nowell was added to Vernon Dudley's name by Stanshall, although this has proven to be untrue. Vernon's parents were Walter Nowell and Bessie Bowhay. Unwilling to lose the unusual 'Bowhay' part of the name, they gave their children Vernon Dudley and Peter the name 'Bowhay' as an addendum to the surname 'Nowell'. It seems unlikely, however, that the slightly older, slightly more conservative Vernon had used such an affectation in his everyday life before Stanshall's suggestion, which may be where the confusion arose.

As for the "Keynsham" album itself, it is an intense, surreal, but near-impenetrable conceptual piece that depicts the town of Keynsham as an enclosed psychiatric hospital, populated by anxious and disturbed characters in search of meaning or enlightenment. However this only becomes even slightly apparent to the listener once they have read Vivian Stanshall's original liner notes (which unfortunately are usually omitted from reissues of the album), although there are a few clues to the theme in the short linking passages between songs. Despite the vagueness of the concept, "Keynsham" remains for the most part a strong musical collection. Innes' songwriting in particular had developed in subtlety and maturity, to a point that equalled many 'serious' artists of the era. Stanshall's songs, such as "Tent", while still overtly humorous had now taken on a much darker aspect, or, as with "Sport (The Odd Boy)" a new and urgent poignancy. Even "Mr Slater's Parrot", Stanshall's sole concession to The Bonzos sound of old, had an unsettlingly manic edge to it.

... all unsourced, naturally.

[DexterPointy]

Hmm, Why don't we try locate some actual good articles instead?
- and I mean actually good articles, not just some which has been classified as such, by WP.
This "Crap articles"-thread listing articles on WP, is a quest similar to locating dogs in a kennel (doesn't require mastering sleuthing).

[Poetlister]

As for the "Keynsham" album itself, it is an intense, surreal, but near-impenetrable conceptual piece that depicts the town of Keynsham as an enclosed psychiatric hospital, populated by anxious and disturbed characters in search of meaning or enlightenment. However this only becomes even slightly apparent to the listener once they have read Vivian Stanshall's original liner notes (which unfortunately are usually omitted from reissues of the album), although there are a few clues to the theme in the short linking passages between songs. Despite the vagueness of the concept, "Keynsham" remains for the most part a strong musical collection. Innes' songwriting in particular had developed in subtlety and maturity, to a point that equalled many 'serious' artists of the era. Stanshall's songs, such as "Tent", while still overtly humorous had now taken on a much darker aspect, or, as with "Sport (The Odd Boy)" a new and urgent poignancy. Even "Mr Slater's Parrot", Stanshall's sole concession to The Bonzos sound of old, had an unsettlingly manic edge to it.

... all unsourced, naturally.

You could argue that this is partly referenced by the liner notes, which are surely reliable if hard to verify. But on the whole it's hard to disagree.

[Poetlister]

Hmm, Why don't we try locate some actual good articles instead?
- and I mean actually good articles, not just some which has been classified as such, by WP.
This "Crap articles"-thread listing articles on WP, is a quest similar to locating dogs in a kennel (doesn't require mastering sleuthing).

There is no shortage of good articles, though there is always the risk that a bit of undetected vandalism or incompetence has crept into even the best articles. However, most people here are far keener to note the bad points on Wikipedia than the good ones.

[Ming]

Besides, "good articles" would be a separate topic.

[DexterPointy]

Besides, "good articles" would be a separate topic.

Obviously, yes!

Hmm, Why don't we try locate some actual good articles instead?
- and I mean actually good articles, not just some which has been classified as such, by WP.
This "Crap articles"-thread listing articles on WP, is a quest similar to locating dogs in a kennel (doesn't require mastering sleuthing).

There is no shortage of good articles, though there is always the risk that a bit of undetected vandalism or incompetence has crept into even the best articles. However, most people here are far keener to note the bad points on Wikipedia than the good ones.

ad "There is no shortage of good articles," : I think that depends on the readers' standards & expectations.
I constantly find articles that may answer my simple question(s) on exact hard facts, but which aren't good articles at all. Mostly because articles was written by too many people, without anyone caring about the overall content. People who mostly also happen to direly lack in competency within the topic/field they're editing. (and I'm not even there including problems caused by the subset of wikipedians who have neither common sense, nor any feel for what quality sources are.)

ad "However, most people here are far keener to note the bad points on Wikipedia than the good ones."
Yup, I just got bored looking at crap articles, all suffering problems, picked from the big set of repeating common problems.

[Poetlister]

It is undoubtedly the case that nearly all of the best articles are written by one person or occasionally two or three. If there is a large number of editors, it's usually because the article is controversial for some reason, often a reason that to most of us here seems absurd. And controversy is a recipe for a poor article.

Maybe the proportion of articles that can really be described as good is quite small. But when you consider how many articles there are, even if only a fraction of a per cent of articles are good, that could still be thousands. And don't forget that even in respectable reference works you can't guarantee freedom from error in every article.

[Eric Corbett]

It is undoubtedly the case that nearly all of the best articles are written by one person or occasionally two or three. If there is a large number of editors, it's usually because the article is controversial for some reason, often a reason that to most of us here seems absurd. And controversy is a recipe for a poor article.

Maybe the proportion of articles that can really be described as good is quite small. But when you consider how many articles there are, even if only a fraction of a per cent of articles are good, that could still be thousands. And don't forget that even in respectable reference works you can't guarantee freedom from error in every article.

No, you can't.

But to back up your initial point, all of those articles in "respectable reference works" will have been written by one or two people who at least know something of what they're talking about. Not some schoolkid who's regurgitating what (s)he's just been told by his teacher.

[DexterPointy]

It is undoubtedly the case that nearly all of the best articles are written by one person or occasionally two or three. If there is a large number of editors, it's usually because the article is controversial for some reason, often a reason that to most of us here seems absurd. And controversy is a recipe for a poor article.

Maybe the proportion of articles that can really be described as good is quite small. But when you consider how many articles there are, even if only a fraction of a per cent of articles are good, that could still be thousands. And don't forget that even in respectable reference works you can't guarantee freedom from error in every article.

No, you can't.

But to back up your initial point, all of those articles in "respectable reference works" will have been written by one or two people who at least know something of what they're talking about. Not some schoolkid who's regurgitating what (s)he's just been told by his teacher.

Amen to that, though not necessarily schoolkids in the literal sense; in as the saying goes: "Wisdom is a companion to age, but sometimes age may travel lone". Yeah, too many overlooking the fact that the skill of forming grammatically correct sentences, does not auto-align with producing read-worthy text, much less articles of quality.

[Poetlister]

There are editors who know what they are talking about, at least in some areas. Obviously, the good articles were not written by schoolchildren, but by subject experts. It may well be that they are wasting their time by writing for Wikipedia, but that's their problem.

[Eric Corbett]

I'm always amused when I see the claims made by cult members that vandalism is usually quickly detected and removed. Take a look at Hadleigh Castle (T-H-L) for instance, and see if you can spot what no Wikipedia editor or bot has been able to since that article was vandalised in March last year.

[Eric Corbett]

There are editors who know what they are talking about, at least in some areas. Obviously, the good articles were not written by schoolchildren, but by subject experts. It may well be that they are wasting their time by writing for Wikipedia, but that's their problem.

It's not so much that they're wasting their time in writing for Wikipedia, although they are, but the certain knowledge that whatever they write will be edited by the unwashed masses, to the point where their work will become an embarrassment to them.

[DexterPointy]

I'm always amused when I see the claims made by cult members that vandalism is usually quickly detected and removed. Take a look at Hadleigh Castle (T-H-L) for instance, and see if you can spot what no Wikipedia editor or bot has been able to since that article was vandalised in March last year.

My initial reaction, when simply looking at the present version, was that of pity for the 13th century. What did the 13th century do to deserve only being mentioned once(?) How could anyone be so cruel as to not duplicate the 13th century(?)
But, it gets better, when looking into the version history of the article: This diff.

[Eric Corbett]

My initial reaction, when simply looking at the present version, was that of pity for the 13th century. What did the 13th century do to deserve only being mentioned once(?) How could anyone be so cruel as to not duplicate the 13th century(?)
But, it gets better, when looking into the version history of the article: This diff.

Good admin material there; revert on sight, think about it (or not in this case as in so many others) later.

[Ritchie333]

I'm always amused when I see the claims made by cult members that vandalism is usually quickly detected and removed. Take a look at Hadleigh Castle (T-H-L) for instance, and see if you can spot what no Wikipedia editor or bot has been able to since that article was vandalised in March last year.

The real issue here, and what I imagine Eric is getting at, is that the editor who improved and nominated it to GA, Hchc2009 (T-C-L), retired about 18 months ago. He did a lot of good work on castle articles, several of which were reviewed and subsequently watched over too by Eric, but since they have both gone (one left, one was kicked out), nobody is left to attend to ensure the article continues to meet the GA criteria, and so it all gradually turns to mush. This is your use case for unblocking Eric right here.

[Peter Damian]

My initial reaction, when simply looking at the present version, was that of pity for the 13th century. What did the 13th century do to deserve only being mentioned once(?) How could anyone be so cruel as to not duplicate the 13th century(?)
But, it gets better, when looking into the version history of the article: This diff.

Good admin material there; revert on sight, think about it (or not in this case as in so many others) later.

Perhaps I'm missing something. The addition in March 2019 seems to be a rehash of this article https://www.academia.edu/13329051/Hadleigh_Castle_Essex by Magnus Alexander and Susan Westlake.

[Poetlister]

But, it gets better, when looking into the version history of the article: This diff.

Now fixed, with acknowledgement to "the unmentionables". But it took months. How long would that absurd error have been there but for this site?

[Poetlister]

Perhaps I'm missing something. The addition in March 2019 seems to be a rehash of this article https://www.academia.edu/13329051/Hadleigh_Castle_Essex by Magnus Alexander and Susan Westlake.

You're missing the fact that for the best part of a year a huge slab of the article was duplicated, and when some observant IP corrected this, the correction was reverted.

[Peter Damian]

Perhaps I'm missing something. The addition in March 2019 seems to be a rehash of this article https://www.academia.edu/13329051/Hadleigh_Castle_Essex by Magnus Alexander and Susan Westlake.

You're missing the fact that for the best part of a year a huge slab of the article was duplicated, and when some observant IP corrected this, the correction was reverted.

Oh yes! (My mistake for just checking the diff). There were two history sections.

[Midsize Jake]

I agree that it's often funny when this happens, but if they have to start eyeball-reviewing every revert that restores one or more paragraphs that have just been removed from an article, there's going to be a backlog from there to Uranus.

[Poetlister]

I agree that it's often funny when this happens, but if they have to start eyeball-reviewing every revert that restores one or more paragraphs that have just been removed from an article, there's going to be a backlog from there to Uranus.

And that's why, despite many statements to the contrary, vandalism can persist for ages on Wikipedia. How many similar cases are there where a lrgitimate correction has been mindlessly reverted, restoring the error?

[Eric Corbett]

I agree that it's often funny when this happens, but if they have to start eyeball-reviewing every revert that restores one or more paragraphs that have just been removed from an article, there's going to be a backlog from there to Uranus.

And that's why, despite many statements to the contrary, vandalism can persist for ages on Wikipedia. How many similar cases are there where a lrgitimate correction has been mindlessly reverted, restoring the error?

A great many, I don't doubt. And it's not helped by the mindless clots who automatically revert every edit made by an editor convicted of sockpuppetry.

If I hadn't pointed out this problem with Hadleigh Castle yesterday, does anyone really think it would have been fixed any time soon?

[Ming]

If I hadn't pointed out this problem with Hadleigh Castle yesterday, does anyone really think it would have been fixed any time soon?

Judging from the edit comment ("remove duplicated content sections; with thanks to the unmentionables") apparently not.

[Moral Hazard]

If I hadn't pointed out this problem with Hadleigh Castle (T-H-L) yesterday, does anyone really think it would have been fixed any time soon?

I added the link to the article.

[Poetlister]

Holocaust Remembrance Day: Neither Public holidays in Israel (T-H-L) nor Holocaust Memorial Days (T-H-L) mentions that since 1981, if this day would be on Friday or Sunday it is moved to Thursday or Monday respectively to avoid starting or ending the Sabbath on a day of mourning. (The way the calendar works, it can never fall on Saturday.)

[Eric Corbett]

We could go on for ever listing all of Wikipedia's 6 million crap articles, but maybe the more interesting thing would be to wonder what is it about Wikipedia that makes them crap?

I'd suggest that, apart from generally incompetent editors, the two main issues are the NPOV policy and the completely unachievable fantasy of attempting to be the "sum of all human knowledge". Is this of interest to anyone else, or has it already been discussed?

[Poetlister]

We could go on for ever listing all of Wikipedia's 6 million crap articles, but maybe the more interesting thing would be to wonder what is it about Wikipedia that makes them crap?

I'd suggest that, apart from generally incompetent editors, the two main issues are the NPOV policy and the completely unachievable fantasy of attempting to be the "sum of all human knowledge". Is this of interest to anyone else, or has it already been discussed?

"Anyone can edit", so people read an article in a tabloid and think that they are qualified to write an encyclopaedic article on the topic.

[Ryuichi]

We could go on for ever listing all of Wikipedia's 6 million crap articles, but maybe the more interesting thing would be to wonder what is it about Wikipedia that makes them crap?

I'd suggest that, apart from generally incompetent editors, the two main issues are the NPOV policy and the completely unachievable fantasy of attempting to be the "sum of all human knowledge". Is this of interest to anyone else, or has it already been discussed?

I'd hazard the guess that it's likely to have been discussed somewhere. I'm interested; particularly in your thoughts on why NPOV is an issue.

I'd add two that I think are core:
1. Decision making (broadly construed) is heavily weighted in favour of local majorities (despite NOTVOTE, LOCALCONSENSUS, etc).
2. Policies & guidelines are inconsistent, are inconsistently or tendentiously applied, and are sufficiently arcane & convoluted as to be able to support any desired outcome.

[Eric Corbett]

I'd hazard the guess that it's likely to have been discussed somewhere. I'm interested; particularly in your thoughts on why NPOV is an issue.

I'd add two that I think are core:
1. Decision making (broadly construed) is heavily weighted in favour of local majorities (despite NOTVOTE, LOCALCONSENSUS, etc).
2. Policies & guidelines are inconsistent, are inconsistently or tendentiously applied, and are sufficiently arcane & convoluted as to be able to support any desired outcome.

Competence is of course a major issue as well, as Poetlister suggests above.

As for NPOV, there are many areas where it's not sensible to be neutral. The shape of the Earth, for instance, or the morality of racism, even assuming that the concept of "race" has any real meaning. NPOV basically demands that you include all views, making no judgement between them, leaving the reader no wiser. Should every article on the royal house of Windsor include a reference to David Ike's idea that they are alien lizards who've adopted human form?

[Poetlister]

NPOV on a controversial topic (and on Wikipedia almost anything can become controversial) often leads to highly polarised stuff along the lines of "John Smith has been regarded as the best thing since sliced bread [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9], while others call him the Devil incarnate [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]." Alternatively, the article can give a vague and poorly sourced impression that there are three different widely held views when in fact two of them are rejected by all competent authorities.

[Eric Corbett]

NPOV on a controversial topic (and on Wikipedia almost anything can become controversial) often leads to highly polarised stuff along the lines of "John Smith has been regarded as the best thing since sliced bread [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9], while others call him the Devil incarnate [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]." Alternatively, the article can give a vague and poorly sourced impression that there are three different widely held views when in fact two of them are rejected by all competent authorities.

That's what I'm saying.

One of my favourite Wikipedia "controversies" concerned polydactylism, when someone demanded a citation for the number of fingers that a human being usually has.

A dead giveaway often is the existence of a Controversies section in an article, or similar.

[Ryuichi]

As for NPOV, there are many areas where it's not sensible to be neutral. The shape of the Earth, for instance, or the morality of racism, even assuming that the concept of "race" has any real meaning. NPOV basically demands that you include all views, making no judgement between them, leaving the reader no wiser. Should every article on the royal house of Windsor include a reference to David Ike's idea that they are alien lizards who've adopted human form?

To be fair to the policy, I actually think that NPOV, as written, does a good job of addressing this. NPOV, as written, certainly doesn't require inclusion of all views. The bigger issue appears to be a failure to attribute opinion, and a failure to use impartial language; both of which are required by NPOV.

NPOV on a controversial topic (and on Wikipedia almost anything can become controversial) often leads to highly polarised stuff along the lines of "John Smith has been regarded as the best thing since sliced bread [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9], while others call him the Devil incarnate [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]." Alternatively, the article can give a vague and poorly sourced impression that there are three different widely held views when in fact two of them are rejected by all competent authorities.

If a something has 9 references, none particularly authoritative, then it's probable that a fix is in and a POV is being pushed. In the culture wars areas, it is also far more likely that only one of "best thing since sliced bread" or "De'il incarnate" would ever make its way into an article, and far more likely that it be couched as fact, not opinion.

A dead giveaway often is the existence of a Controversies section in an article, or similar.

Amen.

[Poetlister]

One of the daftest controversies I've seen was about Georg Cantor (T-H-L). He himself said unequivocally that his father's parents were Jewish. ("Er ist aber in Kopenhagen geboren, von israelitischen Eltern, die der dortigen portugisischen Judengemeinde...") There are umpteen reliable sources that describe him as Jewish. WHat does the article say? "... the British historian of mathematics Ivor Grattan-Guinness mentions ... that he was unable to find evidence of Jewish ancestry". On the basis of that one source, all the others are rejected.

[lonza leggiera]

One of the daftest controversies I've seen was about Georg Cantor (T-H-L). ...

It doesn't seem to me to be any more daft than the controversies over the ethnicitIes of Nicolaus Copernicus (T-H-L) (German or Polish) or Christopher Columbus (T-H-L) (Genoese, Italian, Jewish, Catalonian, Jewish-Catalonian, Greek or Polish).

He himself said unequivocally that his father's parents were Jewish. ("Er ist aber in Kopenhagen geboren, von israelitischen Eltern, die der dortigen portugisischen Judengemeinde...") There are umpteen reliable sources that describe him as Jewish. WHat does the article say? "... the British historian of mathematics Ivor Grattan-Guinness mentions ... that he was unable to find evidence of Jewish ancestry". On the basis of that one source, all the others are rejected.

Not any more. The ancestry section of the current version of the article goes into what various sources (including the letter of Cantor's which you quoted) have to say on the matter in excruciating (and, in my opinion, entirely redundant) detail. The only people who give two hoots about whether Cantor, Copernicus or Columbus were of the Jewish, Catholic or Callathumpian faiths, or of Jewish, Etruscan, Jewish-Etruscan, or some other ethnicity or ethnic descent, are those who've yet to outgrow some of the more pernicious of the tribalisms that we're all unfortunately susceptible to.

[Eric Corbett]

This article, Fancy pictures (T-H-L), created almost twelve years ago now, would surely be a disgrace to any real encyclopedia.

Except of course the encyclopedia that isn't really an encyclopedia at all according to the WMF, where that sort of crap is commonplace. Perhaps the WMF ought to re-target Wikipedia as the sum of all human incompetence.

That would at least have the virtue of consonance with the WMF's software development skills.

[Poetlister]

This article, Fancy pictures (T-H-L), created almost twelve years ago now, would surely be a disgrace to any real encyclopedia.

Except of course the encyclopedia that isn't really an encyclopedia at all according to the WMF, where that sort of crap is commonplace. Perhaps the WMF ought to re-target Wikipedia as the sum of all human incompetence.

That would at least have the virtue of consonance with the WMF's software development skills.

Probably, if such an article were to be created now, it would be challenged on the grounds that it is no more thsn a dictionary definition. But as it's been around for years, it's likely to be safe in perpetuity.

[Eric Corbett]

Probably, if such an article were to be created now, it would be challenged on the grounds that it is no more thsn a dictionary definition. But as it's been around for years, it's likely to be safe in perpetuity.

Perhaps, but it's not even a good dictionary definition.

The real perniciousness of Wikipedia comes from its relationship with Google. If you do a search for "fancy pictures" Google returns this crap in second place, behind a not much more illuminating, but least better written, definition from the Tate.

[Poetlister]

Probably, if such an article were to be created now, it would be challenged on the grounds that it is no more thsn a dictionary definition. But as it's been around for years, it's likely to be safe in perpetuity.

Perhaps, but it's not even a good dictionary definition.

The real perniciousness of Wikipedia comes from its relationship with Google. If you do a search for "fancy pictures" Google returns this crap in second place, behind a not much more illuminating, but least better written, definition from the Tate.

Quality tends to be a secondary issue when it comes to keeping articles. The Tate definition is linked from the article, so maybe people will see it too.

[AndyTheGrump]

Alcohol licensing laws of Ireland (T-H-L)

A stub. Quoted in full:

The alcohol licensing laws of Ireland regulate the sale and consumption of alcohol. The legislation controlling licensing regulations is the Intoxicating Liquor Act 2008, Intoxicating Liquor Act 2003, Intoxicating Liquor Act 2000, the Licensing Act 1872 and the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994.[1] The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, has classified alcohol as a class one carcinogenic.[2]

As stubs go, I've seen worse, for the first couple of sentences. The third one however seems to have been added by someone with a bee in their bonnet about the Irish and alcohol (see here). Nothing wrong with that particular bonnet-bee either, in principle. I'm descended from an Irish anti-alcohol campaigner myself, and would probably have led a better life if I'd followed his advice. The opinion (no doubt correct) of the WHO about the carcinogenic nature of alcoholic beverages doesn't belong in an article on legislation though. Not without evidence that it is actually relevant. Which seems unlikely for the earlier legislation at least. And if it did belong, telling readers what 'a class one carcinogenic' actually entails might be wise. Is it a scale of one to ten, with one being the most carcinogenic? Or the least? As it stands, this is little more informative than one of the Daily Mail's 'X causes cancer' articles.

[Eric Corbett]

I agree, but try removing that last sentence and see what happens.