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Re: Crap articles

Posted: Sun May 14, 2017 10:28 am
by lonza leggiera
Poetlister wrote:
Rogol Domedonfors wrote:The Arxiv reference is to a preprint written by a professor of astronomy and an associate professor of astronomy in a recognised British university and accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
Precisely. Why did they not reference the peer-reviewed publication? (Incidentally, it's not a journal; I have a copy in frot of me and it describes itself as "a review of astronomy".)
The Observatory's own webmaster, for one, doesn't seem to think that its being described as "a review of astronomy" precludes it from also being described as a "journal":
[url=http://www.ulo.ucl.ac.uk/obsmag/][i]The Observatory[/i][/url] web page wrote:The Observatory Magazine is an independent journal [boldface added], owned and managed by its Editors (although the views expressed in published contributions are not necessarily shared by them).

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Sun May 14, 2017 4:22 pm
by Rogol Domedonfors
Poetlister wrote:
Rogol Domedonfors wrote:The Arxiv reference is to a preprint written by a professor of astronomy and an associate professor of astronomy in a recognised British university and accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
Precisely. Why did they not reference the peer-reviewed publication? (Incidentally, it's not a journal; I have a copy in frot of me and it describes itself as "a review of astronomy".)
I neither know nor care. You have to have had your thinking seriously distorted by over-exposure to Wikipedia to believe that referring to a preprint, by experts, which itself refers to a journal, rather than referring to the journal directly, is sufficient to make difference between an article being tolerable and "crap".
The Observatory wrote: The Observatory Magazine is an independent journal [...] All papers and short contributions are subject to peer review by the normal refereeing process.
There is so much real crap in Wikipedia that this does not even begin to register. In accordance with the usual challenge "name five", got by pressing the random article button less than twenty times So my analysis, such as it is, is that something like a quarter of randomly chosen Wikipedia articles do not have references that support them at all. This is more within my definition of "crap" than an article reporting a finding by experts published in a medium used by experts and in a way conventional for experts.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Mon May 15, 2017 7:17 pm
by Poetlister
This thread does not attempt to list every poor article on Wikipedia. That would be a huge and never-ending task. It is just for reporting nuggets that happen to catch people's eyes.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 1:23 am
by Bezdomni
I wrote up a post about one such nugget (Criticism of Wikipedia (T-H-L)) and think that if Wikipedians are awesome, as Doc James claims, they might take a look at improving that article in order to brand themselves as so awesome they can do relevant and even timely self-criticism. Any comments on the many things I missed are welcome (either here or there), especially any historical info on the weird redirect discussion in 2012.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 4:01 am
by thekohser
Bezdomni wrote:I wrote up a post about one such nugget (Criticism of Wikipedia (T-H-L)) and think that if Wikipedians are awesome, as Doc James claims, they might take a look at improving that article in order to brand themselves as so awesome they can do relevant and even timely self-criticism. Any comments on the many things I missed are welcome (either here or there), especially any historical info on the weird redirect discussion in 2012.
Looks like you caught hell from The Dark Knight, scolding you for even looking at that Wikipedia article, then using it as a cudgel against Wikipediocracy, shaming this site for thinking articles like that might be a useful form of Wikipedia criticism, when (in the cold glare of sunlight) it's difficult to find anything of substance that The Dark Knight has ever produced that was noticed by anyone with any sort of academic, journalistic, or political pedigree. Weird how that "largely forgotten" Wikipedia article about criticism of Wikipedia has been viewed over 13,000 times in the past two months, while its "louse" cousin list of Wikipedia controversies has obtained a lesser but still healthy 3,676 page views.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 6:17 am
by Rogol Domedonfors
I think Mr Knight is capable of some good insights. His position on threads like this, for example, is cogent. However, he has the unfortunate habit of being unable to tolerate disagreement, or even agreement. He is also under the impression that he is personally entitled to the credit for the Daily Mail response to the unreliable source imbroglio.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 5:55 pm
by Bezdomni
Your point, Greg, about page views is apt; part of the reason I decided to write that post is that I noticed its views were up significantly in the last few months -- obviously a different scale than anything I could muster without serious promotional help on my own page.

But piling it even higher and deeper isn't going to help unless it is structurally revised. I mentioned it because I really do believe that most people agree that it would be close to impossible to fix it by anyone with any sort of "record" in wiki-land. Would it be improving WP to improve that article? Difficult to say. But as it exists now, I think most critics would agree that it's not very representative of what RS say...

Not going to get involved in the forum wars (except to say 1) that I've learned things from both of you two and 2) that the code here doesn't seem to allow CSS). I did enjoy rereading the AfD on Wikipediocracy (especially when I got to the dreams and flyers); I hadn't realized DHeyward had historically been such a foe of the site. ^^

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 12:23 am
by Zoloft
Aaron Mannes (T-H-L) is a strategically crappy article.

To quote his Politico bio:
"Aaron Mannes, the author of Profiles in Terror: The Guide to Middle East Terrorist Organizations (Rowman & Littlefield-JINSA Press 2004), has been a researcher at the University of Maryland’s Laboratory for Computational Cultural Dynamics since 2007. At UMIACS he is the subject matter expert on terrorism and international affairs to a team of inter-disciplinary scientists building cutting edge information systems to support decision-makers facing 21st century security and development problems.

He is also a PhD student at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy where he is studying the national security process and the vice president’s evolving national security role. Mr. Mannes holds a Masters from St. John’s College and from 1998 to 2001 was the director of research at the Middle East Media Research Institute, which provides timely translations of Middle Eastern media to better inform the foreign policy debate in the United States.

Mr. Mannes, the author of the blog TheTerrorWonk Plus, has written scores of articles, papers, and book chapters on an array of topics including Middle East affairs, terrorism, technology, and other international security issues for popular and scholarly publications including Policy Review, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, The Journal of International Security Affairs, The Huffington Post, The Washington Times, The Jerusalem Post, and The Guardian.

Mr. Mannes has lectured at universities and research institutes worldwide, including the Hudson Institute, the National Defense University, Georgetown University, and the Royal Military Academy of the Netherlands. He has appeared on radio and television throughout the world, and consulted with the United States government on a range of security issues."

Books:
  • Deep State Calculations: Computational Analysis of Pakistani Belligerence
    (Forthcoming Autumn 2017, Springer 250 pages (with V.S. Subrahmanian)
  • Indian Mujahideen: Computational Analysis and Public Policy
    December 2013, Springer, 172 pages (with V.S. Subrahmanian, A. Roul, and R.K. Raghavan)
  • Computational Analysis of Terrorist Groups: Lashkar-e-Taiba
    December 2012, Springer, 231 pages (with V.S. Subrahmanian, A. Sliva, J. Shakarian, and J. P. Dickerson)
    Book length analyses of terrorist groups Indian Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba respectively, using cutting edge computational models to predict behavior and generate policy recommendations
  • Profiles in Terror: The Guide to the Terrorist Groups of the Middle East
    October 2004, Rowman & Littlefield, 372 pages
He's a bad-ass expert on the most important strategic topic the United States has, if you discount Russia, and here is his article:
Aaron Mannes (born 1970) is an American writer living in suburban Maryland. In addition to authoring Profiles in Terror: A Guide to Middle East Terrorist Organizations (2004), he has written on Middle East affairs and terrorism for numerous publications including Policy Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, National Review Online, The Forward, Middle East Insight, and The Journal of International Security Affairs. Mannes also speaks to groups throughout the United States and has been interviewed on radio shows worldwide.

From 1998 to 2001, Mannes was the Director of Research at the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), where he wrote numerous papers and helped to establish MEMRI as a source of translations and analysis of the Middle East media.

Mannes holds a master's degree from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland.
Pitiful.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Thu May 18, 2017 8:33 pm
by tern
As one who wants the articles to be crap and is not going to offer any tips to improve them, I'm not going to say exactly what the faults are.

As
I don't use 'pedia as a source I rarely read articles either, which makes me an infrequent poster. But with the present British election on and with an unusually intense divergence between the parties the most there has been since the 80s, I looked at the British political history articles. On both major parties and some prominent political history events and names. Pleased to find, they are very unreliable.

They now tend to contain, the articles on both major parties definitely do contain, big omissions and jumps in the story. They show you what chanced to or not to interest the writers. Events not having their causes and timings explained, too often made to read like how Carl Sagan described dreams, "a sense of unpredictable buffeting by uncontrollable events." Some significant turning points in the story left out. Some just mentioned in a few words, some given several lines of an absurd lot of detail. Erratically.

Nicely erratically to not be a quality product.

And some wrong statements.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 4:11 pm
by Kingsindian
Mass–energy equivalence (T-H-L)

Multiple templates, going back years, complaining that the article is too technical and many claims are not verifiable.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Tue May 30, 2017 8:15 pm
by Poetlister
The very short article on Edward Marjoribanks (Conservative politician) (T-H-L) finds space to say in detail "He died in office on 2 April 1932, committing suicide by shooting himself in the chest whilst in the billiard room of his stepfather, Lord Hailsham's house in Sussex. He had been jilted for a second time." (No, it doesn't link to the Lord Hailsham article.) However, it has no space to mention his work as a poet. The German article, as it happens, manages to say "Daneben entstanden einige Gedichte" (there were in addition some poems).

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 1:42 am
by AndyTheGrump
Poetlister wrote:The very short article on Edward Marjoribanks (Conservative politician) (T-H-L) finds space to say in detail "He died in office on 2 April 1932, committing suicide by shooting himself in the chest whilst in the billiard room of his stepfather, Lord Hailsham's house in Sussex. He had been jilted for a second time." (No, it doesn't link to the Lord Hailsham article.) However, it has no space to mention his work as a poet. The German article, as it happens, manages to say "Daneben entstanden einige Gedichte" (there were in addition some poems).
Pardon my scepticism, but does failing to mention that someone wrote poetry necessarily make for a crap article? Clearly if the article was about Alfred, Lord Tennyson it would be somewhat remiss, but in a stub article about an MP (presumably the reason he is Wiki-'notable'), 'crapness' would be rather dependant on evidence that people considered his poetry a significant part of his life. Biographies (on Wikipedia or elsewhere) don't have to be complete to be interesting, and what gets included is necessarily dependent on what is available to the biographer - if one didn't know that he wrote poetry, how would one find out that he did?

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 2:49 am
by thekohser
His stepfather was a house?

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 3:35 am
by AndyTheGrump
thekohser wrote:His stepfather was a house?
The English aristocracy have always been prone to eccentricity...

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 6:13 am
by Rogol Domedonfors
AndyTheGrump wrote:Pardon my scepticism, but does failing to mention that someone wrote poetry necessarily make for a crap article? Clearly if the article was about Alfred, Lord Tennyson it would be somewhat remiss, but in a stub article about an MP (presumably the reason he is Wiki-'notable'), 'crapness' would be rather dependant on evidence that people considered his poetry a significant part of his life. Biographies (on Wikipedia or elsewhere) don't have to be complete to be interesting, and what gets included is necessarily dependent on what is available to the biographer - if one didn't know that he wrote poetry, how would one find out that he did?
A very good question. The answer might involve looking it up in an encyclopaedia. If you don't know enough about someone's life, why try to write an article about it?

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 9:10 am
by AndyTheGrump
Rogol Domedonfors wrote:
AndyTheGrump wrote:Pardon my scepticism, but does failing to mention that someone wrote poetry necessarily make for a crap article? Clearly if the article was about Alfred, Lord Tennyson it would be somewhat remiss, but in a stub article about an MP (presumably the reason he is Wiki-'notable'), 'crapness' would be rather dependant on evidence that people considered his poetry a significant part of his life. Biographies (on Wikipedia or elsewhere) don't have to be complete to be interesting, and what gets included is necessarily dependent on what is available to the biographer - if one didn't know that he wrote poetry, how would one find out that he did?
A very good question. The answer might involve looking it up in an encyclopaedia. If you don't know enough about someone's life, why try to write an article about it?
Are you going to write to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and ask them to delete all biographies that don't state whether the subject wrote poetry or not? Because that might seem to be the logic of your argument. Whoever wrote the stub on the self-deceased parliamentarian appears not to have known that he wrote poetry. And presumably not to have known that trying to find out whether the deceased wrote poetry was a worthwhile endeavour. That is the point I'm making here. Not some general point about stub Wikipedia articles with surplus commas implying a step-relationship with a stately mansion. If I saw a biography elsewhere that omitted a detail about an individual, I would only consider it reprehensible if there was evidence that the author should have known it, and that it was of significance. And 'did this person write poems' isn't the sort of question biographers will generally start their research on. Now maybe Poetlister can point to a source which should have led whoever wrote the Wiki-stub to start asking questions about poetry, but until he does, I'm inclined to assume the Wikipedian(s) didn't ask because they didn't know it was relevant. There are many things wrong with the process in Wikipedia articles are produced, but absence of omniscience isn't one of them. Or at least, if it is wrong, it isn't confined to Wikipedia.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 4:14 pm
by Rogol Domedonfors
AndyTheGrump wrote:
Rogol Domedonfors wrote:[...]A very good question. The answer might involve looking it up in an encyclopaedia. If you don't know enough about someone's life, why try to write an article about it?
Are you going to write to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and ask them to delete all biographies that don't state whether the subject wrote poetry or not?
No, but I might write to the EB if I saw an article written by someone who clearly had insufficient knowledge of the subject to form a well-informed and scholarly decision about what the significant aspects of the subject were that should be included in the article. That's because as a reader I would want an article to tell me what is signficant about the subject.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 7:04 pm
by Poetlister
The article has a section "Books". This section ought to include his volume of poems. His article in Who was Who mentions his poems; that would be a logical reference to read before writing the article, and is available in any decent library in Britain, or online if you have a ticket to some libraries. It's also in his obituary in The Times which, admittedly, might take a bit more effort to find. As I say, an editor of the German WP managed to find out.

Yes, the clumsy sentence "He died in office on 2 April 1932, committing suicide by shooting himself in the chest whilst in the billiard room of his stepfather, Lord Hailsham's house in Sussex" doesn't help. A properly written article would name his parents (easily found from Who was Who), then say that after his father's death his mother married Lord Hailsham; see Douglas Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham (T-H-L). Then, if you need the gory detail, you say "in the billiard room of his stepfather's house in Sussex".

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 7:14 pm
by Rogol Domedonfors
AndyTheGrump wrote:
thekohser wrote:His stepfather was a house?
The English aristocracy have always been prone to eccentricity...
As witness the fate of Lord Fortnum.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 7:30 pm
by Poetlister
Rogol Domedonfors wrote:
AndyTheGrump wrote:
thekohser wrote:His stepfather was a house?
The English aristocracy have always been prone to eccentricity...
As witness the fate of Lord Fortnum.
That was a character in a film, not a real person.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 8:12 pm
by Rogol Domedonfors
And a play. And a radio programme.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 7:04 pm
by Poetlister
Rogol Domedonfors wrote:And a play. And a radio programme.
That still doesn't make him a real person.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 8:30 pm
by Poetlister
Edward D. Swift (T-H-L): I'm not sure if he deserves an article at all. He is mainly notable for being the son of Lewis Swift (T-H-L). However, he did more than, as the article says, co-discover (or rather rediscover) a comet. He also, as a teenager, assisted his father in searching for and cataloguing nebulae and is credited with discovering several.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2017 2:27 am
by Ming
Squirrel-sponsored cyberterrorism (T-H-L)

It may survive deletion by being given a less click-bait-y name.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2017 4:30 am
by Zoloft
Ming wrote:Squirrel-sponsored cyberterrorism (T-H-L)

It may survive deletion by being given a less click-bait-y name.
For use in social media:
squirrel-terrorists.png
Deletion discussion: linkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... rterrorism[/link]

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2017 11:54 pm
by Botto
Counter Logic Gaming (T-H-L)

First someone nominated this for Good Article status. Then someone passed it...

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Sun Jun 11, 2017 10:39 pm
by Johnny Au
DarthBotto wrote:Counter Logic Gaming (T-H-L)

First someone nominated this for Good Article status. Then someone passed it...
It's counter-logical to consider this GA.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2017 12:47 pm
by Poetlister
Johnny Au wrote:
DarthBotto wrote:Counter Logic Gaming (T-H-L)

First someone nominated this for Good Article status. Then someone passed it...
It's counter-logical to consider this GA.
"Good Article" is one of these things that means something completely different on WP from its everyday meaning. At best, it means it's passed a number of guidelines which have little to do with whether it is accurate, comprehensive or even well-written.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2017 2:17 pm
by Johnny Au
Poetlister wrote:
Johnny Au wrote:
DarthBotto wrote:Counter Logic Gaming (T-H-L)

First someone nominated this for Good Article status. Then someone passed it...
It's counter-logical to consider this GA.
"Good Article" is one of these things that means something completely different on WP from its everyday meaning. At best, it means it's passed a number of guidelines which have little to do with whether it is accurate, comprehensive or even well-written.
Don't forget the myriad articles pertaining to specific Simpsons episodes given GA status as well, with some of the episodes being from the modern era.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2017 10:12 pm
by Botto
Johnny Au wrote:
Poetlister wrote:
Johnny Au wrote:
DarthBotto wrote:Counter Logic Gaming (T-H-L)

First someone nominated this for Good Article status. Then someone passed it...
It's counter-logical to consider this GA.
"Good Article" is one of these things that means something completely different on WP from its everyday meaning. At best, it means it's passed a number of guidelines which have little to do with whether it is accurate, comprehensive or even well-written.
Don't forget the myriad articles pertaining to specific Simpsons episodes given GA status as well, with some of the episodes being from the modern era.
Good Article criteria has had a noticeable degradation in standard over the last three or so years. What I'd argue makes it even worse is that people participate in WikiCup, where both nominators and reviewers race to pass them- if they quick-fail, they don't get their four points, so better throw standards under the bus!

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2017 11:41 pm
by AndyTheGrump
Category:eSports (T-H-L) needs a good cleaning out. Much of it is primary-sourced junk, which fails entirely to demonstrate 'notability' per Wikipedia standards.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 12:48 am
by The Adversary
Ming wrote:Squirrel-sponsored cyberterrorism (T-H-L)

It may survive deletion by being given a less click-bait-y name.
Mostly written by User:Barbara (WVS) (T-C-L): a Wikipedian Visiting Scholar, and Wikipedian in Residence with the University of Pittsburgh

Perhaps it should change name to Squirrelus interruptus ...there are WP:RS (T-H-L) for that name ...

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 1:08 am
by Botto
AndyTheGrump wrote:Category:eSports (T-H-L) needs a good cleaning out. Much of it is primary-sourced junk, which fails entirely to demonstrate 'notability' per Wikipedia standards.
The topic of eSports, sir, is a can of worms. We've tried numerous times to regulate those articles, but we always are hit with obstruction to the discussions by a few editors. Plus, if you delete one shitty eSports article, someone immediately retaliates by creating twenty shitty new ones.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 2:51 am
by thekohser
The Adversary wrote:
Ming wrote:Squirrel-sponsored cyberterrorism (T-H-L)

It may survive deletion by being given a less click-bait-y name.
Mostly written by User:Barbara (WVS) (T-C-L): a Wikipedian Visiting Scholar, and Wikipedian in Residence with the University of Pittsburgh
Looks like you meant Barbara (WVS) (T-C-L).

(She's a Wikipedia Wunderkind. Don't ask me how a 58-year-old can be a "wunderkind".)

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 4:27 am
by AndyTheGrump
DarthBotto wrote:
AndyTheGrump wrote:Category:eSports (T-H-L) needs a good cleaning out. Much of it is primary-sourced junk, which fails entirely to demonstrate 'notability' per Wikipedia standards.
The topic of eSports, sir, is a can of worms. We've tried numerous times to regulate those articles, but we always are hit with obstruction to the discussions by a few editors. Plus, if you delete one shitty eSports article, someone immediately retaliates by creating twenty shitty new ones.
Yup. Though to be fair, the entire topic is a can of worms, even to reputable journalists etc. Most (non-'e') sports have governing bodies, and some sort of clear hierarchical structure as far as competitions go. ESports on the other hand seem to be a god-awful free-for-all, where it is almost impossible to figure out whether a team or competition is actually of significance, or is just being hyped by the publisher of whichever game they are playing. Under such circumstances, it isn't that surprising that coverage by non-specialist sources is sparse and frequently lacks depth.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 9:58 pm
by Johnny Au
For e-sports, the video game publisher is very much the de facto governing body of a particular game used in a competition; the developer has the power to change the rules of the game.

For competitions such as the Olympics, the IOC would have to develop a video game specifically for the competition; they can contract out work to a designated video game developer who would be a sponsor as well and the IOC would have to beta-test the game thoroughly to ensure fair play.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 4:41 pm
by Ming
Ming wrote:Squirrel-sponsored cyberterrorism (T-H-L)

It may survive deletion by being given a less click-bait-y name.
Well, it has, and now they are having a gloriously stupid argument over names.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 6:19 pm
by thekohser
Ming wrote:
Ming wrote:Squirrel-sponsored cyberterrorism (T-H-L)

It may survive deletion by being given a less click-bait-y name.
Well, it has, and now they are having a gloriously stupid argument over names.

There are some funny people on Wikipedia, I'll grant them that.
The four squirrels of the apocalypse

I envisage four main squirrel based threats, each with a section. An encompassing intro, with Media coverage as a separate final section. Irondome (talk) 02:00, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 8:36 pm
by Poetlister
Ming wrote:
Ming wrote:Squirrel-sponsored cyberterrorism (T-H-L)

It may survive deletion by being given a less click-bait-y name.
Well, it has, and now they are having a gloriously stupid argument over names.
Wikipedia editors are often at their best when discussing how many angels can dance on the point of a pin.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 10:24 pm
by Zoloft
Poetlister wrote:
Ming wrote:
Ming wrote:Squirrel-sponsored cyberterrorism (T-H-L)

It may survive deletion by being given a less click-bait-y name.
Well, it has, and now they are having a gloriously stupid argument over names.
Wikipedia editors are often at their best when discussing how many angels can dance on the point of a pin.
It's possible that Cornpone T. McGillicutty may write a short squirrel-based post.
Categories: Start-Class Rodent articles | Low-importance Rodent articles

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 7:50 pm
by Johnny Au
Midnight sun (T-H-L)

The article has very few sources and one-third of the article consists of references to fiction. Not just that, but Yukon and Nunavut are listed as provinces (they are actually territories).

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 8:17 pm
by Rogol Domedonfors
Squirrels Estate (T-H-L)

Just past the tenth anniversary of being tagged as an unreferenced article about a housing estate in Halesowen.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:50 pm
by AndyTheGrump
Freelance model (T-H-L)

I think this is supposed to be about model trains etc being sold with fictional paint schemes. Googling the term however brings up multiple links on another subject entirely: people looking to work as fashion etc models.

Edit: It appears that someone had previously added a section on the other more obvious subject, only for it to be removed: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =373575595 I suppose that an unsourced and confusing article about one thing is preferable to an unsourced and confusing article about two entirely different things. Always improving...

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2017 9:07 pm
by thekohser
AndyTheGrump wrote:Freelance model (T-H-L)

I think this is supposed to be about model trains etc being sold with fictional paint schemes. Googling the term however brings up multiple links on another subject entirely: people looking to work as fashion etc models.

Edit: It appears that someone had previously added a section on the other more obvious subject, only for it to be removed: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =373575595 I suppose that an unsourced and confusing article about one thing is preferable to an unsourced and confusing article about two entirely different things. Always improving...
With about 20 page views per day, at least the damage is minimal. And don't you sort of cringe at what kind of article Wikipedians would develop to cover Freelance model (fashion) (T-H-L)?

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 7:36 am
by Botto
Though not "crap", Boogeyman 2 (T-H-L) does not seem like FA content at all. It has a review with some of the softest-hitting comments I have ever seen. Most GAs are tougher than this.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 8:12 pm
by Poetlister
DarthBotto wrote:Though not "crap", Boogeyman 2 (T-H-L) does not seem like FA content at all. It has a review with some of the softest-hitting comments I have ever seen. Most GAs are tougher than this.
There's a thread somewhere on poor FAs. I think we accept that the FA system is extremely idiosyncratic, to use the kindest word.

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 8:41 pm
by Rogol Domedonfors
I was amused by this reference in À la lanterne (T-H-L): number 7, "any reputable English-language source on The French Revolution".

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 9:53 pm
by AndyTheGrump
Rogol Domedonfors wrote:I was amused by this reference in À la lanterne (T-H-L): number 7, "any reputable English-language source on The French Revolution".
And do I detect a note of disappointment in the sentence it is referencing: "Hanging people from lamp posts ceased to be a part of Paris rebellions in the 19th Century"?

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 11:41 pm
by The Adversary
In the gift that keeps on giving, the article Naked short selling (T-H-L) has:
Also, this is a wrong activity with respect to moral religious principles.
....with not less than 3 citations. Must be right then. :dry:

Re: Crap articles

Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2017 8:18 pm
by Rogol Domedonfors
Spirit of the Abyss (T-H-L), a typical example of the fancruft genre. The subject is the antagonist of the Andromeda science fiction televison series, which wasn't too bad, but the article certainly is. Original Research in-universe from beginning to end, and sourced to just one thing, namely an epsiode of the series – nothing about the character as a fictional element at all. Tagged for improvement for a decade.