Broadway runs east of Seventh Avenue north of 45th Street. Donald Trump owns an office building on Sixth Avenue. Lee Brown, the early 1990s police commissioner who presided over the highest murder rate in the city's history, was a hero in the war against crime.

In what otherwordly New York City can this be true? In the wacky world of Wikipedia, the engine of ignorance "compiled by volunteers" and masquerading as a legitimate reference work. Its unreliability is not exactly news - it's the bane of educators who must teach pupils not to trust it.

A New York Post columnist has written a highly critical article about the state of Wikipedia and New York City. I wonder: how many of the errors he lists are actually our errors, and not his? In any event, the best response of Wikipedia to an article claiming errors is to fix the errors, so I hope bringing it to your attention is helpful and will provide a fun project for a couple of days. :-)

If someone makes a tally of the errors he mentions, and how many (a) we have now corrected and ( we have determined to have been right all along, and sends it to me, this would be much appreciated... --Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

If someone makes a tally of the errors he mentions, and how many (a) we have now corrected and ( we have determined to have been right all along, and sends it to me, this would be much appreciated... --Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Dear Jimbo,

Actually, what is more worrying is that Jimbo clearly believes his own propaganda, that Wikipedia is accurate. And if it isn't accurate, it was just about to be fixed. And what do experts know anyway?

No, it is worse. If someone complains that Wikipedia has an error then Jimbo's logic is that it is the complainer's fault because the complainer didn't go and fix the error. Hence, there is no need for anyone to ever complain about errors in Wikipedia. Experts are nasty people for unfairly withholding their knowledge from the project.

Jimbo says, "our" errors?

That sounds like a publisher, taking responsibility for content! Alas, we know that he and his WMF are not accountable for the errors, but take full credit for the accuracy comparisons that show Wikipedia ahead of any other encyclopedia.

Some guy at the New York Post figures out that Wikipedia is full of errors and makes fun of it in an amusing article....

This is a pretty scathing article, and should probably be pinned somewhere.

Dear Jimbo,

I have a thousand errors for you to fix, and that's only the start...

This is a pretty scathing article, and should probably be pinned somewhere.

Who takes the New York Post seriously, though?

I honestly used to buy it to read over lunch sometimes for the comedy value. It's one of the worst newspapers published in America, consistently loses money, and is floated by Rupert Murdoch personally. It's like Fox News EXTREME PRINT EDITION.

A New York Post columnist has written a highly critical article about the state of Wikipedia and New York City. I wonder: how many of the errors he lists are actually our errors, and not his? In any event, the best response of Wikipedia to an article claiming errors is to fix the errors, so I hope bringing it to your attention is helpful and will provide a fun project for a couple of days. :-)

If someone makes a tally of the errors he mentions, and how many (a) we have now corrected and ( we have determined to have been right all along, and sends it to me, this would be much appreciated... --Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Same response when you point out plagiarism of GFDL license violations. Oh, there's not much of it, we were just about to fix it, yadda yadda yadda.

That dastardly New York Post should be shut down for running such a story.

How dare they criticise Wikipedia!

I am surprised nobody has yet nominated New York Post for deletion. It's clearly a troll site.

Well, the current headline does make sense; everything about tonight's Obama coronation sounds like the 2008 version of "Triumph of the Will".

It's all the other stuff that Murdoch gets his Aussie fingers on that stink … typical front page:



Look at today's front page: http://www.nypost.com/ lol, what a joke. Wait for it to cycle back to Obama.

Who takes the New York Post seriously, though?

I honestly used to buy it to read over lunch sometimes for the comedy value. It's one of the worst newspapers published in America, consistently loses money, and is floated by Rupert Murdoch personally. It's like Fox News EXTREME PRINT EDITION.

Like the provberbial buses (wait for ages and then 3 come along at once) the same week there's this one too in the British academics weekly, the Times Higher Education

...Encyclopedia Idiotica

If you read it carefully, though, its sort of 'constructive' criticism - isn't it?

Ummm... You are aware who owns The Times, aren't you?

Even so, the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES to its friends) is as solid, authoritative and usually mind-numbingly boring as they come.

Doubtless the articles themselves are the very model of solid, authoritative (if mind numbingly boring) journalism, but the editorial decision to place such an article - given that another Murdoch paper on another part of the planet both geographically and in target audience has also run a piece with the same conclusions - is surely open to suggestion?