NationStates Jolt Archive

Just for kicks, look at your browsing history. What articles have you looked at on Wikipedia recently?

For me, the list is rather impressive...

1948 Arab-Israeli War
2006 in Golf
A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness
Annika Sorenstam
Blaster (flamethrower)
Ben Hogan
Browning machine gun
Browning Arms Company
Champions Tour
Caddyshack
Caddyshack II
Communist Party of Iraq
Churchill Crocodile
Counterculture
Driving range
Dostoyevsky
FN Model 1910
Flamethrower
Flame tank
Flammenwerfer 35
Federal Assault Weapons Ban
Federal Firearms License
Flex-fuel vehicle
Finnish Civil War
Flop shot
Fore (golf)
Firearm Owners Protection Act
Form 4473
Fourth International
Goetta
Grenade launcher
Greek fire
Golf shafts
Golf handicap
Golf
Gun Control Act of 1968
Gun law in the United States
Gopher
Hugo Chavez
Hooters
Happy Gilmore
Iran-Iraq War
Inbreeding
Incest
Israel
Jack Daniel's
John Daly
Liberation of Khorramshahr
Lambroghini Murceliago
Long drive
M60 machine gun
Minigun
M240 machine gun
M249 Squad Automatic Weapon
Mk 19 grenade launcher
Mulligan
Mark I tank
Mercenaries 2
Matilda tank
Nineteeth hole
Neoconservatism
Napalm
P-51 Mustang
Pocket gopher
Persimmon
Patton tank
R-35
RPK
Right wing authoritarianism
Right to bear arms
Rana Hussein
SOSUS
Spessard Holland
Scots language
Scratch-off
Sturmgewehr 44
Six-Day War
TEC-9
The Greatest Game Ever Played
The Price is Right
T.C. Chen
Tin Cup
Uzi
Valentine tank
Vanessa Bryant
Wendy's 3-Tour Challenge
Wesley Clark
Yom Kippur War
Yips




Your guy's turn...

Not a big wikipedia fan.

Adrenochrome
Aluminum Chloride
Aluminum Nitrate
Copper Chloride
Copper(I) Chloride
Copper(II) Nitrate
Faster-than-light travel
Frankfurt
Gas
Gottingen
Harzer
Internal Monologue
Nitric Acid
Nitrogen
Rust
Silver Nitrate
Sodium Nitrate
Subconscious
Tilsit
Unsolved problems in Egyptology
Unsolved problems in physics


I'm currently upgrading High school chemistry, hence all the chemistry -related items.

Anal-sex
BDSM
Blow-jobs
Copulation
Cunnilingus
Cuban cigars
Depravity


No, not really, but you get the picture.

don't remember. Should I count that were visited only so I could vandalise them?

No idea.

Wikipedia logs what I search for?

don't remember. Should I count that were visited only so I could vandalise them?

Only if the vandalism stays up for a few months.

Only if the vandalism stays up for a few months.

And besides, the articles you chose to vandalise tells us as much about you as the articles we chose to visit does.

Wikipedia logs what I search for?

OP said your browsing history. It's in your browser.

OP said your browsing history. It's in your browser.Dammit.

Dammit.

Someone been lookin' up Wiki-porno? :p



Because such porno exists.

Someone been lookin' up Wiki-porno? :p



Because such porno exists.Seems you know well..

Wow... I use this a lot.

AFI's 100 Years, 100 Laughs; Aflac; Aftermath of WW1; Age of Enlightenment; Airmail etiquette; AL Franken; All Quiet on the Western Front; American Gladiators; Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria; Asia (Band); Automatic tranmission, Aviation in WW1... Thats just the A's. I have about 100 articles looked at from the past 9 days.

The only thing I ever vandalized was on Conservapedia when they opened it for new submissions... http://www.conservapedia.com/George_W._Bush . I changed his margin of winning in 2004 from "millions of votes" to "tens of votes", and it hasn't been changed in months.

You know Wikipedia has just been proven to be not academically sound.

However, it is not too bad to look at the referencwes some sources do have, and it does have many articles including NS.

You know Wikipedia has just been proven to be not academically sound.

Proof please.

It is on all the major news channels. Talk to any academic and they will also say it does pass the academic 'burden' to be viewed as fact because it is just some guy getting on the internet and writing what he or she believes is fact on a particular topic and sometimes they throw in academic references to back up their rant.

You know Wikipedia has just been proven to be not academically sound.So has every other encyclopedia.
It's not meant to be academic, it's not a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Arguably it's peer reviewed, but as it's not scientific, the peers aren't in general scientists.

Reminds me of Babbage's quote
Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple.

Wikipedia isn't meant as an academic resource. So you can hardly fault it for not being one.

It is on all the major news channels. Talk to any academic and they will also say it does pass the academic 'burden' to be viewed as fact because it is just some guy getting on the internet and writing what he or she believes is fact on a particular topic and sometimes they throw in academic references to back up their rant.

The good, popular articles- of which there are many thousands- are furiously debated among users down to the use of words such as 'many' and its connotations. Nobody has ever claimed that Wikipedia is a perfect academic source. But for things such as find info for debating on NS, or if something on TV sparks your curiosity, or as background research for an essay, it is reliable (unless you are an idiot who can't tell the difference between a well written article and one that isn't) and it is an invaluable resource.

Example: For a subject last year we had to take a test on the uni's website online. It was of 40 multiple choice questions. It was a cultural literacy test and just asked questions such as "Who discovered whatever" and the like. Using Wikipedia, I got 38 right, and the two I got wrong were because I guessed them.

You know Wikipedia has just been proven to be not academically sound.

Just now? Really. That's been the case for quite some time, so why has it taken so long to prove?

And why in the Abyss would you expect Wikipedia to be the perfect paragon of knowledge?

Arg...

OP said your browsing history. It's in your browser.

My history clears every day.

My history clears every day.
My history clears every time I close my browser.

My history clears every time I close my browser.

How fancy.

My history clears every time I close my browser.

Are you running Windows 2000 by chance? Because if so I had the same problem.

Adrenochrome
Aluminum Chloride
Aluminum Nitrate
Copper Chloride
Copper(I) Chloride
Copper(II) Nitrate
Faster-than-light travel
Frankfurt
Gas
Gottingen
Harzer
Internal Monologue
Nitric Acid
Nitrogen
Rust
Silver Nitrate
Sodium Nitrate
Subconscious
Tilsit
Unsolved problems in Egyptology
Unsolved problems in physics


I'm currently upgrading High school chemistry, hence all the chemistry -related items.

A fellow chemist!

I helped write the "Ligand Field Theory" article. Though someone came in recently and did some high quality writing.

Are you running Windows 2000 by chance? Because if so I had the same problem.
Linux, and I choose it to be that way.

Linux, and I choose it to be that way.

*Groans*

Linux killed my external hard drive. All I did was play music off it while running Linux, and then when I tried to plug it back into a Windows PC, it won't register.

Advanced Idea Mechanics
Ajax the Lesser
Alchemy
American Top 40
Amethyst
Archon
Artemis
Beast of Gevaudan
Bureau of Sabotage
Cadmium
Casey Kasem
Chromium
Cobalt
ConSentiency
Conure
Corvidae
Dalek Empire
Dire Wolf
Distillery District
Drax the Destroyer
Erigenia bulbosa
Game theory
Gaudiya Vaishnavism
Globster
Godhead (Christianity)
God Object
Gowachin
Head louse
Hermes Trismegistus
Immanuel Velikovsky
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Krishna Janmaashtami
Lapis lazuli
Little Titch
Lovebird
MODOK
Mongolian Death Worm
Mutualism
Nikita Khrushchev
Negativland
Pluto
Roland Barthes
St. Lawrence Market
Stan Ridgway
Stettin Palver
Ununoctium
What'll We Do With Ragland Park?

In no particulary order those of the last 2 days:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail_packing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReiserFS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetchmail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kami
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qmail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xjump
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_Problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-Demand_Mail_Relay

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolar
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kami
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ujigami
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halteproblem

It is on all the major news channels. Talk to any academic and they will also say it does pass the academic 'burden' to be viewed as fact because it is just some guy getting on the internet and writing what he or she believes is fact on a particular topic and sometimes they throw in academic references to back up their rant.

General encyclopedias are not considered academic sources either ... how is this any worse then the Encyclopedia Britannica? Both are useless in an academic sense but incredibly useful to get a general overview of a topic to figure out how to approach it

General encyclopedias are not considered academic sources either ... how is this any worse then the Encyclopedia Britannica? Both are useless in an academic sense but incredibly useful to get a general overview of a topic to figure out how to approach it

Because Britannica tries to present a quality overview.

Wikipedia's so called NPOV policy fails miserably whenever some self declared expert comes in thinking that their points of view must be at least as valid as any others. I looked up an article on Samsung Electronics the other day, and to my utmost surprised it claimed that Samsung is the world's largest consumer electronics company.

Apparently whoever wrote that in thinks being placed third on the rankings makes Samsung the largest. As if you can make such a conclusive claim about company sizes based solely on grounds of revenues.

That said, Wikipedia is definitely better than the Britannica when it comes to topics that the latter doesn't even cover...

Because Britannica tries to present a quality overview.

Wikipedia's so called NPOV policy fails miserably whenever some self declared expert comes in thinking that their points of view must be at least as valid as any others. I looked up an article on Samsung Electronics the other day, and to my utmost surprised it claimed that Samsung is the world's largest consumer electronics company.

Apparently whoever wrote that in thinks being placed third on the rankings makes Samsung the largest. As if you can make such a conclusive claim about company sizes based solely on grounds of revenues.

That said, Wikipedia is definitely better than the Britannica when it comes to topics that the latter doesn't even cover...

I agree but in the end neither are considered "Academic" sources by any institution I have ever been affiliated with.

You would have to go to a pretty low quality school for them to accept any encyclopedia as a source in academic work.

300(film)
Abolhassan Banisadr
Achaemenid Empire
Akkad
Al Hilah
Alexander the Great
Ali Khamenei
Ali Mansur
Ancient Egypt
Arses of Persia
Artaxerxes I of Persia
Artaxerxes II of Persia
Artaxerxes III of Persia
Assyria
Babylon
Babylonia
Battle of Plataea
Battle of Salamis
Battle of Thermopylae
Belarus
Belarussia
Birmingham City Council election 1998
Birmingham local elections
Borough (New York City)
Brain
Brain cell
British National Party
British Raj
Caligula
Cambyses II of Persia
Canaan
Canada
Catograhpic relief depiction
Centre Party (Germany)
Christian Democratic Union (Germany)
Cinematography
Claudius
Color Revolution
Commonwealth of Independent States
Companies House
Conservatism
Consul
Cyrus the Great
Darius I of Persia
Darius II of Persia
Darius III of Persia
David Hume
Diacritic
Dominate
Ebrahim Yazdi
Eridu
Francois Bayrou
Gallery of sovereign-state flags
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
Haj Ali Razmara
Halal
Hancock's Half Hour
Hechsher
Helots
Hephthalite
Hittites
Hossein Ala'
I Love Lucy
Ice Sheet
Ice Shelf
Immanuel Kant
Infinite Monkey Theorem
Iran
Irving Kristol
Keratosis pilaris
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Kosher foods
Kushano-Hephthalite
Levant
List of countries and outlying territories by total area
List of Kings of Persia
List of Prime Ministers of Iran
London borough
London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
Mahatma Gandhi
Mahmud Jam
Medes
Mehdi Bazargan
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
Mohammed Sa'ed
Mohammed-Ali Rajai
Mohammed Mosaddeq
Names of the Levant
NATO
Negative liberty
Nero
New York
New York City
Nimrud
Nineveh
Nummular Dermatitis
Organ Donation
Ottoman Empire
Pakistan
Parthia
Persian Empire
Positive liberty
Prime Minister of Iran
Principate
Ptolemaic Egypt
Puli
Punjab insurgency
Rafael Correa
Relief map
Reza Shah
Roman consul
Roman Emperor
Roman Empire
Roman Republic
Sassanid Empire
Satire
Satyr
SAVAK
Scottish Enlightenment
Seleucid Empire
September 11, 2001 attacks
Shah
Shapour Bakhtiar
Situation Comedy
Skinny Puppy
Smerdis of Persia
Sogdianus of Persia
Switzerland
Syr Darya
Tail Packing
The Power of Nightmares
The Trap (television documentary series)
The Young Ones (TV series)
Thermoregulation
Tiberius
Tilde
Tittle
Topographic map
Umayyad
Umlaut (diacritic)
Uncertainty principle
Union of Russia and Belarus
United States
Ur
Waldorf salad
Weimar Republic
Windows Vista
Xerxes I of Persia
Xerxes II of Persia

Jeebus, I didn't realise just how much I'd been reading up on Persia.

I refuse to use Wikipedia since they booted the n00b (http://www.thenoobcomic.com/)
Who are they to censor what's "worthy"?

I agree but in the end neither are considered "Academic" sources by any institution I have ever been affiliated with.

You would have to go to a pretty low quality school for them to accept any encyclopedia as a source in academic work.

Yeah, but I could read Britannica happy with the knowledge that I won't go very wrong from there; Wikipedia has me constantly looking behind my metaphorical b ack.... :p

Not much, it would appear.

65daysofstatic
Iran
Minesweeper (computer game)
Pioneer Anomaly
Ripple
The Ripple (newspaper)
The Rippple (newspaper) talk page
Slap-Happy
Softpedia
The Destruction of Small Ideas
The Slash Years
Three Mile Island accident

if you find yourself with some free time on your hands, why don't you play my wiki game. Get a friend (or yourself if you have none) to suggest an article to get to. Then you click on random article and you have to get from the initial random article to the suggested final article in no more than twenty wiki pages. its a great way to pass the time and its amazing what random crap you come upon on the way there

A fellow chemist!

I helped write the "Ligand Field Theory" article. Though someone came in recently and did some high quality writing.
Hats off to you. :)
It's not what I'm planning on doing for a career, actually. I find it very interesting (and physics), but my passion is languages. I want to work as a translator for the United Nations.

You know Wikipedia has just been proven to be not academically sound.

When would you use an encyclopaedia for academic work anyway? Surely you'd use a book specifically written about the subject at hand?

Personally I use Wikipedia to get an overview of a topic, or simply to remedy boredom.

I have written a few Wikipedia articles that are academically 'sound':

Panzer I (still going through the writing process and soon to be put through A-class Review)
T-26 (featured article; on queue for main page)
Second Battle of Kharkov
Ch'onma-ho tank
Electrothermal Chemical technology

I've written others, but not the same level of quality.

Personally I use Wikipedia to get an overview of a topic, or simply to remedy boredom.

Also, if the article is good than you can also use it for sample sources if you're are interested in purchasing them.