I’ve known for a long time – in fact ever since my Librarian colleagues brought it to my attention and advised me to use it with great care – that Wikipedia was, and is, not a reliable source for information. Along with the myth of “just google it” to get information on almost anything … and then not subsequently and consciously make a decision on whether the search results returned were reliable, or even the best, the other myth has been “just look it up on wikipedia”.
I’ve subscribed to this myth – quite literally – donating regularly when asked, thinking that a collective is, and was, a good way to collect and curate information – harnessing the power, enthusiasm and knowledge of the crowd to plant, weed and publish articles. Whilst I realised that it could NEVER be an authoritative reference source, I accepted it as a good, quick and easy way of looking things up. My online dictionary/encyclopedia. Not any more.
I’ve written about why this came to my attention on my other blog – “Just thoughts …” in this article – “Well this is fascinating, and very disturbing …” but I thought it important to bring it to your attention on this blog as well. The issue is that reputable professionals are being targeted by anonymous “editors” on Wikipedia and having entries about them taken down.
As I understand it – and please add to my knowledge if incomplete or incorrect – the way Wikipedia works is that once you’ve established the right to create an entry – a page – that article can be modified through voting up or down proposed changes. Beyond that however it would appear that if you have a privileged position – obtained it would seem solely by virtue of the amount of your activity – you can propose deletion of any other entry, and then it’s up to others to vote to keep an article, or indeed support the deletion. It is therefore very easy to co-ordinate an attack on a Wikipedia page to have it removed. In the case of an individual, if they didn’t create the page for themselves, no reference will be made to the person targeted, they do not have any rights to object, they may not even know the page written about them is under discussion for deletion. They can cease to exist on Wikipedia!!!
So we have an extension to our world of fake news; that is the deletion of truth. What is the world coming to!
Organising and tidying-up – Part 2 – 20 Dec 2018
Boot-up
Google and Browser – OK?
“Short for web browser, a browser is a software application used to locate, retrieve and display content on the World Wide Web, including webpages, images, video and other files. As a client/server model, the browser is the client run on a computer or mobile device that contacts the Web server and requests information. The web server sends the information back to the browser which displays the results on the Internet-enabled device that supports a browser.
Today’s browsers are fully-functional software suites that can interpret and display HTML Web pages, applications, JavaScript, AJAX and other content hosted on web servers – this makes a browser a platform for running web-applications (like your banking application) in its own right. This means that some websites stipulate which browser you must use to access their services. Many browsers offer plug-ins which extend the capabilities of the software so it can display multimedia information (including sound and video), or the browser can be used to perform tasks such as videoconferencing, to design web pages or add anti-phishing filters and other security features to the browser. When used like this it is a fully fledged application environment in much the same way as Microsoft Office, or Adobe Photoshop is.
“The three most popular desktop browsers, according to Net Marketshare, are Chrome, followed by Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox and Edge. Other major browsers include Apple Safari and Opera. While most commonly used to access information on the web (or internet), a browser can also be used to access information hosted on Web servers in private networks or intranet.”
I hope that helps. You’ll notice that the word Google isn’t mentioned at all!! However Google does provide us with Chrome. As we discussed (and as I demonstrated) you can decide which search engine to use – this could be Google, or Bing, or Yahoo, or DuckDuckGo – which I am currently using. You decide this in the Settings of your browser.
News
Wikipedia -I won’t be donating to them anymore!
The usual Facebook story – this time about disillusioned journalists employed to fact-check pages …
“They’ve essentially used us for crisis PR,” said Brooke Binkowski, former managing editor of Snopes, a factchecking site that has partnered with Facebook for two years. “They’re not taking anything seriously. They are more interested in making themselves look good and passing the buck … They clearly don’t care.”
Google is above the law – in NZ it seems
Google Lens appears on the iPhone (iOS) – here’s Google’s update report, and Google Maps tells you where to go, not just how to get there.
File Organisation
The problem … duplicates, versions all over the place, unable to find “stuff”. No escape from the problem – it has to be sorted out. However help may be at hand.
Using DupeGuru for both documents and photos – https://lifehacker.com/the-best-duplicate-file-finder-for-windows-1696492476 and https://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/computing/how-to-find-and-remove-duplicate-files-and-photos-on-your-pc-11363985986930and https://dupeguru.voltaicideas.net/