Cindy Adams Takes On Wikipedia

New York Post:

Wikipedia's chairman and founder Jimmy Wales told me how authoritative is his operation, which is basically sourced by a ragtag assortment of contributors.

"A core group vets it, tries to lock down articles or anyone making an outrageous claim and usually has a secondary source. There are controls. When it's edited for the first time, the community will monitor it."

I told him my own personal listed information is factually incorrect and I can substantiate its inaccuracies with legal documentation.

Totally unfazed, he said, "People should use it for background - not as their primary source."

I explained the misinformation on my site is not only outrageous but hurtful.

Even more totally unfazed, he said, "Sometimes those sorts of things can be posted by someone who doesn't like you."

He ultimately agreed to a re-edit.

That was two months ago. He did nothing.

So much for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in icky Wiki.

Read the whole story: New York Post

Comments

[openhand]

I have no inclination to look up who Cindy is, but I must say her picture looks like someone photoshoped the hair and body from different sources.

[string-em-up]

excellent!

[larry278]

Don't go to any encyclopedia for up-to-date accuracy, not Britannia, Americana, Wiki.... They all claim to do constant revisions & up-dates. That means that encyclopedias revise only when 400 elementary school students find the same mistake in an encyclopedia for 2 years. Revisions & up-dates are costly, very costly.

[patianneb]

So, who is Cindy Adams?

[manndan]

Did she object to Wiki saying that she was born in 1925?

[MountPanic]

Good Lord (choke)! What's that thing under the wig!

[gps8001]

Come on, you can do better HuffPo. Anyway, people outside NY probs don't know who this whacko is, and they shouldn't care. Nor should you!

[LBJeffries]

I spent 15 minutes on this and I still don't know what it means.

[supergranny]

Cindy, who cares! Your articles are about who threw up on whom and who has had too many face lifts (God, that sounded kind of biographical.) Serious journalism your column is not.

Whhaaaaa!

[katocat]

Dammit Huff post... why do you link to the New York Post without a warning?

The last thing I want to do is increase traffic to this right wing rag.

Seriously.

[peachesmahoney]

Wow! I'm just impressed this old hag even knows what the "interweb" is much less even knows how to find Wikipedia. Cindy, not everything on Wiki is the truth but your paper rarely prints the truth either so I guess your even.

[dbushik]

Uh...Cindy...seems like you are unclear on the concept. If your entry is incorrect...then fix it. You don't ask them to "re-edit", you create a user account (in seconds) and then changfe your entry (or any other one) to be factual. Not everyone is going to adhere to the ethic of only modifying or creating entries on the basis of good faith and on information they have full expertise on, but that is the disadvantage you know going in (no one is hiding that fact), and honestly I don't think it's a huge problem.

[harriettubman]

Who uses verbatim from Wiki? A grade schooler probably.

With friends like Cindy who needs enemies. Remember how she reported the impending death of Jackie O before it was even known? We got a daily description of Jackie's gaunt appearance too.

[littlepuffycloud]

Yikes!! Cindy, back away from the facelift clinic and nobody gets hurt. Oops, too late.

[minty68]

If I'm taking the time to look up something on Wikipedia, you can rest assured it won't be about Cindy Adams.

[majorteddy]

Wikipedia is the Fauz Noise of encyclopedias. It is worth nothing more than a quick reference to find out basically someone's cause for rise to fame, what they are known for. I wouldn't trust the results to be accurate. It is basically a jumping point to get on with useful serious research.

[GeorgeP922]

Ok assuming you have a valid point, how can you state when the person making the point, is doing so in a newspaper owned by Fox News/NewsCorp. Aside from their ownership by right wing zealots they are a tabloid newspaper.

Wikipedia prides itself to be based on facts,

New York Post makes National Enquirer look like Time magazine!

[3fingerbrown]

That's a horseshit response, George. What difference does it make who Adams works for? Are you saying that only those who measure up to your standards deserve to be represented accurately on the Internet? Wikipedia "prides itself to be based on facts"? Puh-lease. Wikipedia's greatest contribution to humanity is that it keeps thousands of the world's most mediocre minds occupied with busywork so that they won't be able to screw up something truly important.