Although I don't have my Firefox open up on the Wikipedia Homepage like my husband does, I do find myself going there first for an answer. It is tricky trying to balance the ease of getting an answer (I'm amazed at how comprehensive it is) and accuracy. When writing an essay I will start with wikipedia for ideas and possible references, but I'll never quote and/or reference a wikipedia entry for fear that it would denigrate the quality of my work.I've never looked at the history tab so I looked up something rather controversial: climate change and noticed that there had been an act of vandalism:" 16:06, 15 January 2010 ClueBot (talk | contribs) m (33,995 bytes) (Reverting possible vandalism by Jamesb1995 to version by Closedmouth. False positive? Report it. Thanks, ClueBot. (524884) (Bot))"
What could this act of vandalism have been? I clicked on the Jamesb1995 hyperlink and found:
(←Created page with ' == FART ZONE == Vandalize this page! [http://www.cooljunkofdoom.piczo.com CLICK!]') followed by:
(←Replaced content with 'FART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!') See below:
This vandalism seems to have happened quite frequently so that:"This article has been placed on article probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be blocked temporarily from editing the encyclopedia, or subject to other administrative remedies, according to standards that may be higher than elsewhere on Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation for full information and to review the decision." Democratisation of knowledge has its limits.
So are wikis a good way for a dispersed group to virtually get together and create documents such as library use guides; or would members with obessive-compusive tendencies drive the rest mad, Mad, MAD with frequent alterations?
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