Crap articles

[Poetlister]

I did a thing with it.

Jolly good. Only umpteen thousand articles to go before this thread can be closed.

[Black Kite]

It is ludicrous to have an article on every road in the USA (which is more or less hte case), let alone Brazil, where sources are likely to be harder to come by. There are tens of thousands of named roads in London. Who wants to help me write an article on each of them?

Well at least you don't need to do Trump Street (T-H-L). Or Russia Row (T-H-L).

[Renée Bagslint]

Wherstead (T-H-L), a village near Ipswich in Suffolk. A friendly tag warns the reader This article needs to be updated. Let's see.

A short ride by electric railway through Ipswich streets carries one to Bourne bridge, which marks the boundary of Wherstead parish. ... The village is devoid of stores or public house; the only industry, aside from agriculture, is a modest smithy.

The population figure is sourced to the ONS in 2011, so not too far out of date. The rest is presumably plagiarised, to judge by its stilted language, from the other source, A Merrill Memorial by Samuel Merrill, which, as the article does not reveal, was self-published in 1917. The electric railway -- actually trams -- in Ipswich ran from 1899 to 1926, so the text of this article certainly is out of date, in this case by about a century.

I did a thing with it.

Well, the main railway line certainly goes past Bourne Bridge, but good luck trying to get off there ...

[Renée Bagslint]

I did a thing with it.

Jolly good. Only umpteen thousand articles to go before this thread can be closed.

As far as I'm concerned, the purpose of the thread is to illustrate just how easy it is to find crap articles and give examples of new and exciting forms of craptitudinacity. My personal rule is to take ten clicks on "Random article" and see what turns up. In this case, an article plagiarised from a self-published book a hundred years old giving a ludicrously out of date description of the subject. I'm not in the slightest bit interested in actually improving the so-called encyclopaedia: an Augean task at best.

[mynameisnotdave]

I did a thing with it.

Jolly good. Only umpteen thousand articles to go before this thread can be closed.

As far as I'm concerned, the purpose of the thread is to illustrate just how easy it is to find crap articles and give examples of new and exciting forms of craptitudinacity. My personal rule is to take ten clicks on "Random article" and see what turns up. In this case, an article plagiarised from a self-published book a hundred years old giving a ludicrously out of date description of the subject. I'm not in the slightest bit interested in actually improving the so-called encyclopaedia: an Augean task at best.

I don't live in Suffolk, so not particularly interested in doing anything else with that article other than removing the plagiarised blather.

[CrowsNest]

That Wherstead article is a perfect microcosm of how Wikipedia works.

User:Wherstead, webmaster of the now defunct Wherstead.com, copied the whole thing from there to Wikipedia in a single (and their only) edit in 2007, in what we now know was peak Wikipedia.

A decade later, it has been edited just two or three times a year. The only significant changes made have been to convert the original text into the right looking format, change a few words, add a few stats, an infobox & navbox, and finally in 2017, the penultimate edit, to add that one line about the mansion (to an article which doesn't even link back to the village article).

In that time, it has also seen the usual sad parade of gnome and bot edits, sneaky vandalism, and spam additions to the EL section.

On the talk page, we see a complaint about the very obvious fact this text was outdated, yet that didn't occur until 2012, and only resulted in the article being tagged.

We see another complaint about a confusing reference to "three miles (2km)" as the primary means of localising this tiny place to its nearest major settlement. Tracing that, we find that this is how it was entered by someone way back in 2008, using the unhelpful edit summary of "wikify". The complaint wasn't registered until over a year later. It then took another whole year for someone to fix it, changing it to "{{Convert|3|mi}}", again with an unhelpful edit summary, "format opening". We still have no way of knowing if 3 miles is the right figure, since it is unreferenced.

Hilariously, it is this guy's edit, only the fifth to occur, which also removed the text (the book author dating his text as being from 1910) which would have alerted readers to its out of date nature.

And finally we reach the point where it's shit state is flagged up here, and all that results in is a partial excision of some of the original text, and a likely erroneous change of "electric railway" to "train".

What remains is still basically User:Wherstead's original piece, with only one additional reference (to support the 2011 population) which has of course now suffered linkrot.

This is a sad indictment of the Wikipedia model. It is a stark window into who edits and why, and what they do and don't notice. It also shows that in an entire decade, they've only ever persuaded one person to give enough of a shit about this place, a historic settlement mentioned in the Domesday Book no less, to want to add any substantive content, and all they did was copy and paste something from their own website. And arguably the Wikipedians, in their efforts to improve it, have also set it back in many ways.

My particular favourite, for the sheer laziness of it, is the person who chose to illustrate it with a nice picture of a 12th Century Grade II* listed church, without even mentioning those descriptive qualities in the text (a byproduct of not mentioning the church in the text at all). The picture is there, yet one has to go visit an external site, or Google, to verify whether or not it is even in this place. It isn't exactly unknown for there to be two or more villages of the same name, with churches of the same name.

[lonza leggiera]

…

We see another complaint about a confusing reference to "three miles (2km)" as the primary means of localising this tiny place to its nearest major settlement. Tracing that, we find that this is how it was entered by someone way back in 2008, using the unhelpful edit summary of "wikify". The complaint wasn't registered until over a year later. It then took another whole year for someone to fix it, changing it to "{{Convert|3|mi}}", again with an unhelpful edit summary, "format opening". We still have no way of knowing if 3 miles is the right figure, since it is unreferenced. …

That seems a little pessimistic to me.

[CrowsNest]

Melide causeway (T-H-L) (Switzerland)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =822243873

Three paragraphs. The first contains an incomprehensible attempt to describe its location with respect to Switzerland's administrative and geographic boundaries. The second and third is just the usual meandering prose covering function, operation, construction, designer, construction again, then finally, with your head spinning, it tells you when it was built.

The article has two images, even though only one is really useful in terms of conveying information about the structure, the other merely serving to set the scene, by portraying the scenery. Naturally, the more useful image appears second, below the less useful one.

There's no infobox, despite this being the sort of article everyone apparently agrees they do serve a useful purpose in conveying quick facts. Like when it was built. If one is added, and the editor who does so respects the original author's apparent wishes regarding image importance, the useful image will merely be pushed even further down the article, or more likely, removed completely

A red link reveals Wikipedia's well known systemic bias against 19th Century self-taught Ticinese civil engineers.

As is common for Wikipedia, the opening line gives three alternative names used for this structure, while hinting, and only hinting, that at least one is wrong.....

The Melide causeway, sometimes called the Melide bridge or Melide dam, is a causeway and bridge......

The article was lovingly crafted by Chris j wood. In classic Wikipedia style, he slopped it onto Wikipedia some years ago, one day in August 2012 to be precise (showing just how long it is taking to even compile a comprehensive global database of notable infrastructure).

Since then, the only other edits to it have been largely performed by bots, four to be precise, one visiting twice, because their miserable task (rescuing dead references) is never ending.

Literally the only other actual human edit to the article in all that time, is an IP editor adding "be" to make one of Chris' sentences make sense. Assuming this isn't just a very tardy Chris, it evidently took four years for the Wikipedia model of readers noticing and fixing errors to work its magic here, and of course, there are many editors who would rather IP editors be banned completely, because hey, registration only takes a second, right?

As is also quite normal for Wikipedia, the relationship between this article and the article on the municipality which it is named for, reveals a lot more about the crap nature of Wikipedia.

The municipality article gives two details that would seem important to note in the article on the thing itself, namely that the causeway replaced a ferry, and the length of it. Seriously! Even worse, the two articles have contradictory years, giving disputed accounts of both when construction started (1842 or 1844), and when a railway was added (1872 or 1874). Information about road traffic is unhelpfully distributed across both - "opened for road traffic in 1848" (object article), "highway" since the "second half of the 1960s" (municipality article) and finally "the motorway in 1980" (object article).

The municipality article is bizarrely illustrated in prime position with the useful image of the structure given second billing in its own article, implying that in the opinion of another editor, it must be the thing most associated with the municipality. One can only guess if this is the case, or if it's just because Wikipedians really love bridges. Perhaps the fact this is more of a causeway than a bridge, explains why it's getting no love, other than the usual means - a random single slop. Like a turd being dropped into a bowl.

[Renée Bagslint]

Flora MacDonald (T-H-L), the Jacobite heroine, best known for having assisted in the escape of Bonnie Prince Charlie, a fact that the introduction fails to mention. The introduction does state that she "was partly educated in Edinburgh", without reference, an assertion explicitly contradicted by the Oxford DNB, listed in the footnotes. The text refers to "a short imprisonment in the Tower of London", explicitly described as "unsubstantiated" by the ODNB. Other references include The life of Flora Macdonald, and her adventures with prince Charles by Alexander MacGregor, dated 2009 but actually published in 1882; The Scotswoman, a novel by Inglis Fletcher; and five further books published in the 19th century. Given the romanticisation inevitably attached to her life, using grossly out-of-date references and failing to use a modern and scholarly source while contradicting it without mention, is deplorably slipshod. But that's crowd-sourcing for you.

In passing, a word on the article Flodigarry (T-H-L), an hamlet in Skye where Flora Macdonald lived. "In 1750 the Jacobite Flora MacDonald and her fiancé Allan MacDonald were married and lived in a cottage in Floddigarry.[1]" The sentence suggests that they were married in the cottage, which is possible if unlikely, but the source is not much help: it's a broken link to the website of a local hotel, which is not exactly a reliable source. Of course, the hamlet is far more interesting to Wikipedians for being the location of the marriage of singer KT Tunstall, a fact which is sourced to the Daily Mail. These are the only sources for this article.

[Poetlister]

I did a thing with it.

Jolly good. Only umpteen thousand articles to go before this thread can be closed.

As far as I'm concerned, the purpose of the thread is to illustrate just how easy it is to find crap articles and give examples of new and exciting forms of craptitudinacity. My personal rule is to take ten clicks on "Random article" and see what turns up. In this case, an article plagiarised from a self-published book a hundred years old giving a ludicrously out of date description of the subject. I'm not in the slightest bit interested in actually improving the so-called encyclopaedia: an Augean task at best.

Fair enough, but there are many people who do correct articles when they are mentioned here, and if enough people do so then eventually (in theory at least) there won't be many crap articles left. In practice, of course, people will keep generating new ones.

[Renée Bagslint]

Since these little experiments suggest that something like 20% of all articles are crap, it will take them about thirty thousand years to correct them if they rely on this website to point them out. And that's the point -- to emphasise that there is no viable plan to remove the crap. However often they wave their hands and recite such reassuring matras as SOFIXIT and NOTFINSHED and NOTIMELIMIT, Wikipedia will never be anything better than crap.

[Renée Bagslint]

Phi Sigma Phi (T-H-L), a fraternity. I'm sure it's an awfully well-meaning organisation, but the article is sourced entirely to its web sites and social media pages.

Fie!

[Renée Bagslint]

Let's! TV Play Classic (T-H-L) is a series of Japan-only plug & play devices developed and distributed by Bandai programmed on XaviX software created by SSD Company Limited in 2006 that contain arcade games from either Namco or Taito, with Namco's being called "Namco Nostalgia" while Taito's are called "Taito Nostalgia" with, as a tag politely puts it "an excessive amount of intricate detail that may only interest a specific audience", namely long lists of the games available. No references. Obsessive gamefancruft.

Found after 1 click on "Random article".

The Sleepover Club (T-H-L), a series of children's books by authors Rose Impey and nine others. Lists the 54 titles in the series and that's it. No sources.

Found after 1 click on "Random article".

Breach and clear (T-H-L) is the name for a common tactical room clearing method and a little more detail. No references

Found after 3 clicks on "Random article".

List of diplomats of the United Kingdom to Romania (T-H-L). Illiterate title: the head of mission is the amabassador to, or a diplomatic representative to Romania, but the diplomats are in Romania unless they are temporarily recalled, and accredited to it. Probably the title meant was "List of diplomatic representatives of the UK to Romania", or maybe "List of UK diplomatic posts in Romania".

Found after 3 clicks on "Random article".

[CrowsNest]

I did a thing with it.

Jolly good. Only umpteen thousand articles to go before this thread can be closed.

As far as I'm concerned, the purpose of the thread is to illustrate just how easy it is to find crap articles and give examples of new and exciting forms of craptitudinacity. My personal rule is to take ten clicks on "Random article" and see what turns up. In this case, an article plagiarised from a self-published book a hundred years old giving a ludicrously out of date description of the subject. I'm not in the slightest bit interested in actually improving the so-called encyclopaedia: an Augean task at best.

Fair enough, but there are many people who do correct articles when they are mentioned here, and if enough people do so then eventually (in theory at least) there won't be many crap articles left. In practice, of course, people will keep generating new ones.

It's a question of article importance. Some mathematical modelling would help establish if there's any actual route to success for the Wikipediots here. Simple common sense seems to suggest that only listing low importance articles here, is a win-win situation for us. Although on the flip side, it does allow the Wikipediots to claim we're only finding the cruft, and so this somehow proves the important bit of the encyclopedia is not crap (it doesn't, but they're not above this sort of nonsense). But even then, as well as pointing out it is nonsense, we can also point out that encyclopedias worthy of the name simply aren't meant to contain crud. If they state the Melide causeway is notable and thus worthy of including in their compendium of knowledge, then the reader deserves to be served with a non-crap version of it, even if they can only manage Start class. Or at the very least, be given an estimate of how long it will take to fix it, and the millions of articles like it.

[Renée Bagslint]

I think CN makes a good point here. Wikipedians are effectively congratulating themselves on already having written the encyclopaedia. Even if they had a plan to write an encyclopaedia -- and I maintain that they do not -- and even if it were likely to be in any real sense finished within the lifetime of anyone alive today -- which we are showing over and over again is impossible -- then they cannot even begin to award themselves the credit today for something they haven't done yet. But this is one of the treblethink aspects of the cult: to proclaim in public that it is done, and yet to admit in private that it is not done, while suppressing the knowledge that it never will or can be done.

[Renée Bagslint]

Napaea (butterfly) (T-H-L), a genus in the butterfly family Riodinidae present only in the Neotropical ecozone. The only reference is to a site on FUNET which is presumably reliable, and supports the list of species. It does not appear to support the semiliterate description

Napaea contains strong butterflies with a robust body. The margin of the forewings is not projecting so far, the apex not so very falcate (sickle shaped), the costal of the forewing is not connected with the subcostal. They have a distinctive pattern of metallic blue or white or yellow comma-shaped marks, chevrons or punctiform spots, although in some species the markings are greatly reduced.They found in primary and degraded forest. The butterflies perch with the wings outspread in bushes near the skirts of the forests, out of which they may be beaten. They are not common.

This looks as if it has been mechanically plagiarised translated from some other language, presumably a source which is not credited in the article

Found after 2 clicks on "Random article".

Pavel's Seram mosaic-tailed rat (T-H-L) a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is found only on the south coast of the island of Seram in Indonesia. Unfortunately this is not what the reference [1] says, which is that "This species is known only from the type locality, on the south coast of Seram island, Piliana, (3°15'S, 129°30'E at 400 m) (Helgen 2003, Musser and Carleton 2005). It is likely to occur more widely in the lowlands than current records suggest (K. Helgen pers. comm)." So the reference contradicts the text as written by Cwmhiraeth (T-C-L), whose accuracy in reporting what sources say has been the subject of criticism in the past.

Found after 1 click on "Random article".

Orissa Baptist Evangelistic Crusade (T-H-L). Tagged as a potential copyright violation over two years ago. Presumably there is no plan to investigate and remedy such issues in a timely fashion, or, indeed, at all.

Found after 1 click on "Random article".

[Poetlister]

Some mathematical modelling would help establish if there's any actual route to success for the Wikipediots here.

Quite correct, and it was a pretty easy model to construct.

[CrowsNest]

Some mathematical modelling would help establish if there's any actual route to success for the Wikipediots here.

Quite correct, and it was a pretty easy model to construct.

Mathematical models typically have data associated with them, no? You'll have to forgive me, I'm no statistician. Well, not that I know of. I've used plenty of models in my field, does that count?

[Renée Bagslint]

Brithwine I (T-H-L), a medieval Bishop of Sherborne. The reference is to Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.222. What a shame, then, that we see on that page that the man's name is Brihtwine. It gives two sets of dates: accession and death or translation. Wikipedia assumes death, although David Knowles, C. N. L. Brooke, Vera C. M. London, "The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales, I 940–1216", 2 ed, CUP 2001 p.15 ("the puzzling case of Bishop Brihtwine") makes it clear that there is considerable confusion about whether he might also have been bishop of the neighbouring diocese of Wells a few years later, and dates his tenure at Sherborne to a different set of dates.

So how to resolve all this? I don't know, not being a mediaeval historian. But inaccurate, uninformed and uncomprehending copying from a tertiary source does not seem to work.

[Poetlister]

Mathematical models typically have data associated with them, no? You'll have to forgive me, I'm no statistician. Well, not that I know of. I've used plenty of models in my field, does that count?

Obviously, to implement a particular model to produce forecasts you need data to calibrate it. However, it is pretty evident that rubbish articles are being created faster than ones mentioned in this thread are being fixed. Not much sophistication is needed to draw the obvious conclusion.

[Renée Bagslint]

Martin Rogers (T-H-L), an Australian bioentrepreneur. The article is almost entirely about the companies that he has been involved with.

Found after 1 click on "Random article".

Veauche (T-H-L), a commune in the Loire department in central France. Unreferenced.

Found after 1 click on "Random article".

Apororhynchus amphistomi (T-H-L), a species of bird parasite. The second reference is a bare URL, but points to an online copy of Elon E. Byrd and J. Fred Denton, "The Helminth Parasites of Birds. II. A New Species of Acanthocephala from North American Birds", The Journal of Parasitology 35 (1949) 391-410 -- from the first paragraph of which the article is plagiarised.

Found after 1 click on "Random article".

Quiddler (T-H-L), a commercially produced card game. The article is devoted to how to play it, and the only reference is the manufacturer's rules for playing.

Found after 2 click on "Random article".

Lingshou County (T-H-L), a county of Hebei, China. Unreferenced.

Found after 2 click on "Random article".

[CrowsNest]

Mathematical models typically have data associated with them, no? You'll have to forgive me, I'm no statistician. Well, not that I know of. I've used plenty of models in my field, does that count?

Obviously, to implement a particular model to produce forecasts you need data to calibrate it. However, it is pretty evident that rubbish articles are being created faster than ones mentioned in this thread are being fixed. Not much sophistication is needed to draw the obvious conclusion.

In other words....it wasn't a model.

[Poetlister]

Mathematical models typically have data associated with them, no? You'll have to forgive me, I'm no statistician. Well, not that I know of. I've used plenty of models in my field, does that count?

Obviously, to implement a particular model to produce forecasts you need data to calibrate it. However, it is pretty evident that rubbish articles are being created faster than ones mentioned in this thread are being fixed. Not much sophistication is needed to draw the obvious conclusion.

In other words....it wasn't a model.

How do you work that one out?

[Renée Bagslint]

In the spirit of this little spat, let me draw to your attention Mathematical modeling of mercury thermometers (T-H-L). Probably a homework exercise, almost certainly not based on anything in the single source cited.

[CrowsNest]

Mathematical models typically have data associated with them, no? You'll have to forgive me, I'm no statistician. Well, not that I know of. I've used plenty of models in my field, does that count?

Obviously, to implement a particular model to produce forecasts you need data to calibrate it. However, it is pretty evident that rubbish articles are being created faster than ones mentioned in this thread are being fixed. Not much sophistication is needed to draw the obvious conclusion.

In other words....it wasn't a model.

How do you work that one out?

The lack of data. Like I said, I'm no statistician, but I'd be amazed if guesswork or obviousness was part of any of their modelling. AFAIK Wikipedia is adding 600 or so new articles each day. It seems to me a good guess that that de-crapping 600 articles a day is realistic, if not the reality. Perhaps we need a new crap articles thread, and then revisit each entry on an annual basis.

[Poetlister]

In the spirit of this little spat, let me draw to your attention Mathematical modeling of mercury thermometers (T-H-L). Probably a homework exercise, almost certainly not based on anything in the single source cited.

Definitely this should be deleted as original research. However, it does illustrate to some extent what a mathematical model could look like.

[Renée Bagslint]

John Henley (priest) (T-H-L), an eccentric preacher of the 18th century.

On 3 July 1726 Henry [sic] opened his so-called 'Oratory', a meeting room built over the shambles in Newport Market (T-H-L).

Oh dear. The linked article is about a market in Newport, the town in South Wales. Unfortunately, as the context makes clear, the Newport Market where the Revd Henley set up shop was in an part of London then called "Newport Market", since demolished, in the Seven Dials area, as reported by The London Survey, vols 33-34, pp.360-379. This little misunderstanding is probably caused by having plagiarised the text uncomprehendingly from the 1910 Britannica.

[AndyTheGrump]

John Henley (priest) (T-H-L), an eccentric preacher of the 18th century.

On 3 July 1726 Henry [sic] opened his so-called 'Oratory', a meeting room built over the shambles in Newport Market (T-H-L).

Oh dear. The linked article is about a market in Newport, the town in South Wales. Unfortunately, as the context makes clear, the Newport Market where the Revd Henley set up shop was in an part of London then called "Newport Market", since demolished, in the Seven Dials area, as reported by The London Survey, vols 33-34, pp.360-379. This little misunderstanding is probably caused by having plagiarised the text uncomprehendingly from the 1910 Britannica.

I think you may have underestimated the number of ways that Wikipedia can cock-up 'Wikilinks'. This one is apparently down to one of the more subtle ones: the link to 'Newport Market' was added to the Henley article in 2003 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... did=728566). The 'Newport Market' article itself wasn't written until 2008 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =255835365). It is actually Wikipedia policy to encourage redlinks to prospective articles, on the offchance that someone will create one later, and in the hope that they will actually cover the same subject. Which is of course stupid. Though not as stupid as the perennial problem of halfwits who conduct searches for article title phrases, and Wikilink them all, without even bothering to check whether they are remotely relevant. Such morons should, in my opinion, not only be banned from Wikipedia, but banned from the entire internet, and obliged to use a quill pen (or possibly a stylus on a wax tablet) for all written communication until they can learn the difference between 'editing' and 'improving'.

If you haven't guessed already, I have a thing about Wikilinks. Given their potential for humongous misdirects (including outright libel, which isn't difficult), the encyclopedia might well be improved by removing them entirely.

[CrowsNest]

I'd wager the policy of allowing red links has ensured Wikipedia has grown faster than if someone back in the day really had taken the view it was "stupid". The only apparently stupid assumption in it was that Wikipedia would eventually mature to the point it was so successful that there would always be sufficient (competent) eyeballs to detect such screwups, or latterly, that there would be sufficient interest in Wikipedia from the coding community that by now, all common errors like this would be detectable and fixable either directly or with the help of automation.

Wikipedia is crap not because it is possible for the average editor to screw up in a million different ways. It is crap because the number of people who understand how it works in sufficient depth to fix their screw ups is so small, their only use to society is not in fixing Wikipedia, but in explaining the genesis of faults which have gone undetected for years, if not a decade in this particular case.

[Ming]

Well, for a long time list articles full of red links were used in various projects to keep track of things to be written. Ming bets that's still happening over in the taxonomy articles.

[Poetlister]

John Henley (priest) (T-H-L), an eccentric preacher of the 18th century.

On 3 July 1726 Henry [sic] opened his so-called 'Oratory', a meeting room built over the shambles in Newport Market (T-H-L).

Oh dear. The linked article is about a market in Newport, the town in South Wales. Unfortunately, as the context makes clear, the Newport Market where the Revd Henley set up shop was in an part of London then called "Newport Market", since demolished, in the Seven Dials area, as reported by The London Survey, vols 33-34, pp.360-379. This little misunderstanding is probably caused by having plagiarised the text uncomprehendingly from the 1910 Britannica.

I think you may have underestimated the number of ways that Wikipedia can cock-up 'Wikilinks'. This one is apparently down to one of the more subtle ones: the link to 'Newport Market' was added to the Henley article in 2003 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... did=728566). The 'Newport Market' article itself wasn't written until 2008 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =255835365). It is actually Wikipedia policy to encourage redlinks to prospective articles, on the offchance that someone will create one later, and in the hope that they will actually cover the same subject. Which is of course stupid. Though not as stupid as the perennial problem of halfwits who conduct searches for article title phrases, and Wikilink them all, without even bothering to check whether they are remotely relevant. Such morons should, in my opinion, not only be banned from Wikipedia, but banned from the entire internet, and obliged to use a quill pen (or possibly a stylus on a wax tablet) for all written communication until they can learn the difference between 'editing' and 'improving'.

If you haven't guessed already, I have a thing about Wikilinks. Given their potential for humongous misdirects (including outright libel, which isn't difficult), the encyclopedia might well be improved by removing them entirely.

Newport Market has been unlinked by our friend Mangoe, who also fixed a silly typo. Anyway, the error was not the fault of the original author (who deserves an apology for that, although there may have been plagiarism) but of the editor who saw and misunderstood the redlink.

[AndyTheGrump]

...the error was not the fault of the original author... but of the editor who saw and misunderstood the redlink

The person who created the article on the Welsh market will very likely never have seen the article on the London priest at all. The real fault lies with the fundamentally flawed Wikipedia policy on speculative Wikilinking, which makes such misdirections inevitable, making allocation of individual responsibility rather pointless. Unfortunately the structural flaws in the Wikipedia model (which is built around the premise that all edits made in good faith are 'improvements') make it very difficult to get anyone to admit there is a real problem, never mind do anything about it.

[Renée Bagslint]

A quick check shows that John Francis Hobler (T-H-L) also contains this fallacious link.

A watch and clock maker based in Soho Square, he worked with his son Jean Paul Hobler. The Hobler & Son workshop was based in Porter Street in Newport Market.

You would think that the author might have noticed that someone who lived in Soho, London, would not have a workshop in Newport, Wales, but the level of attention to detail exhibited is exemplified by the quotation "HOBLER, Francis, for many years chief clerk to the lord mayor of Loudon, was the son of a Swiss watchmaker, and was born in Sohn, London" which manages to contain two rather obvious misprints.

[AndyTheGrump]

A quick check shows that John Francis Hobler (T-H-L) also contains this fallacious link.

A watch and clock maker based in Soho Square, he worked with his son Jean Paul Hobler. The Hobler & Son workshop was based in Porter Street in Newport Market.

You would think that the author might have noticed that someone who lived in Soho, London, would not have a workshop in Newport, Wales, but the level of attention to detail exhibited is exemplified by the quotation "HOBLER, Francis, for many years chief clerk to the lord mayor of Loudon, was the son of a Swiss watchmaker, and was born in Sohn, London" which manages to contain two rather obvious misprints.

Do you actually bother to read other peoples' posts in this thread, Renée? Because, as I have already pointed out, the article on the Welsh market was created in 2008. Which means that the author of a 2006 article was in no position to 'notice' anything. The problem isn't carelessness of individuals, it is the result of flawed assumptions about the whole editing process.

[Poetlister]

A quick check shows that John Francis Hobler (T-H-L) also contains this fallacious link.

A watch and clock maker based in Soho Square, he worked with his son Jean Paul Hobler. The Hobler & Son workshop was based in Porter Street in Newport Market.

You would think that the author might have noticed that someone who lived in Soho, London, would not have a workshop in Newport, Wales, but the level of attention to detail exhibited is exemplified by the quotation "HOBLER, Francis, for many years chief clerk to the lord mayor of Loudon, was the son of a Swiss watchmaker, and was born in Sohn, London" which manages to contain two rather obvious misprints.

I suppose Loudon, New Hampshire (T-H-L) doesn't have a Lord Mayor. But the whole article is sloppily written. Note the sentence starting "Youngest son" rather than "The youngest son", and the lack of referencing for assertions such as "is mentioned in the writings of Charles Dickens and George Augustus Sala."

[Renée Bagslint]

Do you actually bother to read other peoples' posts in this thread, Renée? Because, as I have already pointed out, the article on the Welsh market was created in 2008. Which means that the author of a 2006 article was in no position to 'notice' anything. The problem isn't carelessness of individuals, it is the result of flawed assumptions about the whole editing process.

Yes, Andy, I do. A historically literate author would have known, or found out, that Newport Market was a now-demolished part of London and made that plain in the text.

[AndyTheGrump]

Do you actually bother to read other peoples' posts in this thread, Renée? Because, as I have already pointed out, the article on the Welsh market was created in 2008. Which means that the author of a 2006 article was in no position to 'notice' anything. The problem isn't carelessness of individuals, it is the result of flawed assumptions about the whole editing process.

Yes, Andy, I do. A historically literate author would have known, or found out, that Newport Market was a now-demolished part of London and made that plain in the text.

Possibly. and a 'historically literate author' might even have known that there was also a Newport Market in the Welsh city of that name. What they cannot have known in 2006 was that an article created two years later would concern the Welsh one, rather than the London one. Which is why the policy of adding speculative Wikilinks is fundamentally flawed. This isn't a 'crap article' problem, due to historical illiteracy, it is a 'crap policy' problem due to fundamental structural flaws. Though no doubt it is simpler for some of the contributors to this forum to make snide comments about illiteracy, rather than actually discuss the underlying reasons that even competent contributors making well-intentioned edits can mess things up. Though I suppose that if one makes a hobby of reading Wikipedia just to laugh at the idiots, such actual analysis is unnecessary.

[Renée Bagslint]

I think if you go to the trouble of reading my contriutions to this thread (an exercise you are quick to recommend to others) and to others you will see that I have made numerous attempts to analyse the underlying reasons for the failure of Wikipedia to be anything other than a heap of words, but to give you your tu quoque, I suppose it's simpler to make snide comments about your fellow critics than it is to read and discuss their criticisms, although I suppose if you make a hobby of reading criticial sites to laugh at the idiots, such actual analysis is unnecessary.

This article is crap because it is subliterate both in the historical and the grammatical sense, it was written in ignorance of the historical context and some of the important sources, and a symptom of that it that is provided an opportunity for an idiotic mislink. No project that set out to compile actual knowledge, as opposed to the cargo cult that is Wikipedia, would work in a way that allowed, let alone encouraged, this sort of illiteracy.

[Poetlister]

What they cannot have known in 2006 was that an article created two years later would concern the Welsh one, rather than the London one.

A sufficiently clever editor would have written the link as [[Newport Market (London)|Newport Market]] to guard against that possibility, but maybe that would be too much to hope for.

[Renée Bagslint]

Point-Afrique (T-H-L), a defunct airlne. The only reference is a footnote to a website airlineupdate.com which does not exist.

Found in 3 clicks on "Random article".

The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929 film) (T-H-L). The only references is to an NY Times subdomain that redirects elsewhere.

Found in 1 click on "Random article".

Joel Hallikainen (T-H-L), BLP of a Finnish musician. The only reference supports the discography but not the biography.

Found in 1 click on "Random article".

Proportion of articles found which are inadequately referenced: 30%
Proportion of articles which were tagged: 0%

[Ming]

These strike me as just mediocre, not truly gloriously crappy.

[Graaf Statler]

Oscar van Dillen, in Dutch and English and many other languages. Complete crap. I made a analysis of the sources (In Dutch), and found out they were nothing. Van Dillen is just a music teacher who did a only a few hobby projects. The sources are his one website or wrong interpreted primary sources. His performance on in a young talent show was dramatic, was written in a newspaper, he ended up in last position. (Dutch) Look at the Talkpage, only wikimedia-NL members to defend this complet crap article of there old Wikimedia buddy.

[Renée Bagslint]

These strike me as just mediocre, not truly gloriously crappy.

I selected ten article at random and found that three of them should not, according to Wikipedia's own rules, be there. I've been doing this on and off for a few days and every sample suggests that something like a third of the articles on Wikipedia either should not be there at all or are so seriously defective as to need remedial work. It seems very likely that this adds up to nearly a couple of million articles requiring attention. That is never going to happen, obviously. The Wikipedians among us are in denial over this.

[Poetlister]

It seems very likely that this adds up to nearly a couple of million articles requiring attention. That is never going to happen, obviously. The Wikipedians among us are in denial over this.

They're not in denial. They have their answers: Unfinished! WP:SOFIXIT!!

[Renée Bagslint]

If they think SOFIXIT going to fix their problem, they are in denial. If they know that it's a mere rhetorical tactic designed to deflect criticism, then they are crooked.

[ellie]

When I was active with Afc, I started looking at the list of the 10 most recently created articles that had been moved from user space into article space. At least two out of 10 would be bad enough that I itched to nominate them for production Articles for Deletion. I rarely did it, due to don't-bite-the-newbies and the cranky negative attitude that doing so would suggest. Instead, I just stayed away from Afc.

There are so many crap articles about non-notable figures or neologisms that someone basically made up and turned into a Wikipedia article! Engaging in endless, tendentious deletion discussions, especially with people who have an axe to grind or who are not impartial (for various reasons, not necessarily paid editing) is exhausting. So, what are we to do? Wikpedia is degrading into a huge crap heap of irrelevant stuff, while the valuable articles sit unattended for years.

[Renée Bagslint]

... So, what are we to do? Wikpedia is degrading into a huge crap heap of irrelevant stuff, while the valuable articles sit unattended for years.

My answer would be to bring the whole thing crashing down in ruins, as soon as possible. It cannot possibly be fixed in anything like its present form, as you are no doubt discovering. While it exists, it is damaging the knowledge eco-system. Hence, it needs to be destroyed.

[Graaf Statler]

When I was active with Afc, I started looking at the list of the 10 most recently created articles that had been moved from user space into article space. At least two out of 10 would be bad enough that I itched to nominate them for production Articles for Deletion. I rarely did it, due to don't-bite-the-newbies and the cranky negative attitude that doing so would suggest. Instead, I just stayed away from Afc.

There are so many crap articles about non-notable figures or neologisms that someone basically made up and turned into a Wikipedia article! Engaging in endless, tendentious deletion discussions, especially with people who have an axe to grind or who are not impartial (for various reasons, not necessarily paid editing) is exhausting. So, what are we to do? Wikpedia is degrading into a huge crap heap of irrelevant stuff, while the valuable articles sit unattended for years.

I always liked user Februari on WP-NL. As a modern Bede he created, copy-pasted in his 40.000 complete crap articles I don't know how many new saints. Because, he used everything he found on the internet as a source. And, the brave Dutch Wikipedians never throw an article away, because that's a waste. So, thousands of new wiki saints are now spread over the internet, and if something is on Wikipedia, it's OK isn't it? It can translate and used on other wiki's too. So, a complete unknown person out of Belgium, we never now who he or she was, is the new Bede! Isn't that great? Isn't Wikipedia amazing? I should say yes!

[Poetlister]

If they think SOFIXIT going to fix their problem, they are in denial. If they know that it's a mere rhetorical tactic designed to deflect criticism, then they are crooked.

I'm inclined to think that the first sentence is unlikely.

[CrowsNest]

So, what are we to do? Wikpedia is degrading into a huge crap heap of irrelevant stuff, while the valuable articles sit unattended for years.

How about nothing? If this thread makes anything clear, it is the utter futility of any one single person believing they can stop the rot. Wikipedia has whole task forces with tens of editors working to fix this issue or that, and they invariably get nowhere. Wikipedia is dying, and it will soon be dead. It was a nice idea, but for it to properly work, it needs a hundred times the peak number of editors it attracted back in 2007, and some way of retaining most of them for long enough that they gain enough experience to be really useful. The experiment is a failure, we're just observing the long slow death rattle.