“If you see something in WP that needs to be corrected, the best thing to do is to go into the page and correct it. Its not like book or even a blog where you appeal to the powers-that-be for assistance.”
If only this were true. I have engaged in trying to correct some obscure but highly biased pages about political events, with the result being only frustration, and the “editor” who closely watches those pages actually making it worse with each revert of my corrections.
The Wikipedia rule on “reliable sources” is useless – especially since the main stream media is itself strongly biased in certain areas. One source I was unable to get removed was a quote about a historical event from a far-left newspaper movie review, as if a movie review is news rather than opinion! But since it was from an edited source, the reliable sources folks considered it within the guidelines.
At the same time, I was unable to use information about an event in which I participated and help organize, because my information was first person, and hence not from an edited source. I can understand the frustration of subject experts in this regard.
Wikipedia is doomed to fail at its supposed goal of achieving accuracy through open editing. The reason is that leftists, especially, have lots of time (they are often educators) and love to play games with bureaucratic rules – heck, they’re the ones that dream up all our bureaucracies. Furthermore, the ones I have encountered have no regard for truth or fair play – only for making sure their propaganda wins out.
