Airgun mish-mash on Wikipedia

wrc · Post by **wrc** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 1:50 pm

Could someone with time and wiki knowledge please go to the wikipedia airgun entry and straighten them out about single stroke pneumatics!?! I cringed when I read the entry. Oh - and adding a link to Target Talk would probably be a good thing too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gun#Si ... ic_airguns

Steve Swartz · Post by **Steve Swartz** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 6:36 pm

Why on earth do you think participating in "Wikipedia" at any level is a good idea to start with?

Just curious.

Steve Swartz

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 11:18 pm

the world has come to a point where youngsters do not take wikipedia with a pinch of salt.

the whole concept is that even if something is wrong, a knowlegable person will correct it thus making wikipedia accurate. so since we can see the mistake we have a responsibility to correct it to prevent people from being misled.

im trying to correct it where i can but i find my lack of real knowledge disturbing. can someone help me?

Chris · Post by **Chris** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 12:19 am

Not that I have time right now to look but I wonder what wiki says about gun control.

Has anyone seen the Penn and Teller showtime show? If you do not have Showtime you can go to google video and search for Penn and Teller. They have a good one about gun control.

Steve Swartz · Post by **Steve Swartz** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:40 am

Hasn't the "self correcting" fallacy been demonstrated (since at least 1980) in every newsgroup on the internet?

So we assume that a different chat room/newsgroup format is automatically going to be more accurate just because . . . ?

Steve Swartz

(Responsible college professors are adopting policies of substantive point penalties for any use of "wiki" as authoritative material. Unless, of course, the study is on "wiki" itself. Wiki is somewhat below the National Enquirer as source material. Almost as low as the New York Times!)

Bill Poole · Post by **Bill Poole** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 10:37 am

Has anyone read the Wiki on ISSF/Oly shooting?

the first time I read that I found it well written with satisfactory info for a general audience

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISSF_shooting_events

the few other times where I have searched for general info on guns and some electronic things, I have found the Wiki to be easy to read and no less accurate than other online sources

also, I remember reading recently a report that Wiki was not substantially less accurate then established mainstream encyclopedias

Poole

an example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB

David Levene · Post by **David Levene** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 11:30 am

Bill Poole wrote:Has anyone read the Wiki on ISSF/Oly shooting?

I just had a very quick look and it doesn't seem far off. The only mistake I spotted is in the section headed "History and admittance of new events".

It talks about one new event for 5 shot air pistols. There are of course 2 new event types in section 8.20 of the rules, the Five Target Event and the Air Pistol Standard event. To describe either of these as a "10 m version of Rapid Fire Pistol" is probably stretching things a bit.

wrc · Post by **wrc** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 12:54 pm

Steve Swartz wrote:Why on earth do you think participating in "Wikipedia" at any level is a good idea to start with?

Just curious.

Steve Swartz

Having as much factual information ANYWHERE is always a good idea. You never know when some of it might stick.

Steve Swartz · Post by **Steve Swartz** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:03 pm

If the overlap between "Wikipedia" and "factual" were in some way reliable, then your point would apply.

While having "factual" data widely available is A Good Thing, having unsubstantiated and unverified "data" widely available is just One More Modern Problem.

Diogenes need not shine his lamp on Wikipedia.

Steve Swartz

Bill Poole · Post by **Bill Poole** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:40 am

If the overlap between "Wikipedia" and "factual" were in some way reliable

If Steve Swartz were to write an article about shooting on Wiki and have a coupla of us here review it, I think it would be as accurate as anything readily available, and probably more accurate within our narrow specialty than almost anything mainstream.

I think wiki has the potential to be very good, if the individual articles are written by experts in the field who try writing, rather than writers who try interviewing experts in the field

but maybe i'm being overly optimistic and naive

Poole
http://arizona.rifleshooting.com/

Sparks · Post by **Sparks** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 4:08 am

Steve Swartz wrote:If the overlap between "Wikipedia" and "factual" were in some way reliable, then your point would apply.

His point does apply because if you think journalists have enough time to do extensive background checks on the reliability of data, you've not been watching the news, reading the newspapers or looking at any news media for a few decades. Edward Murrow's spirit is long dead :(

So, if journalists are going to take any source they can get, and the wikipedia is one of them, and we can ensure the wikipages are well-written, then isn't it an opportunity for us to seize?