Thursday 21 March 2013

Wiki sites why bother

I've worked on updating wiki sites on numerous occassions to add content or to updates pages where it would benefit others but from time to time there are some edits that are rejected (not by the authors) but by other members and it makes you think why bother?

Where has this happened?
wikipedia (on the odd occassion) and most annoyingly wiktionary

I've recently posted comment on: Blog Asylum (another blogger account)

Here is the content word by word:
I just made some updates on wiktionary and they reverted them back. Their meaning for check is "to check a box"
*To specify a definition you don't use the same word. I changed it to say "to place a tick in a box".

When I asked the user who reverted it back he said "we also cover other Englishes, like US, Canadian, Jamaican, Trinidad, etc. etc". Yet when I questioned him, he couldn't prove this to me. He stayed quiet. They also do not inform people of what is UK, US, Canadian English.

My changes to this page and 2 others were reverted back, so I would be annoyed. To correct a page with a simple sentence and have it reverted back doesn't make sense.

It's all American (not the Queens English). There is no English on there which is why they didn't like my correction. I've also seen comments posted against then within a quick online search:
http://www.ruclip.com/video/zR3I3hcvZhQ/lost-words.html
*Other pages may not be fit for viewing so I've left them out.

I've had my rant so will stop there. It makes you wonder whether there is any value contributing to these sites when they show some bias as simple as this.


We all have our disagreements but it makes you wonder whether to invest time into these sites. If I update any other wiki sites I aim to post the good and bad on here

As for the start of my list:
Good
Wikipedia - has lots of content useful, but register to ensure content is up
CNFolio - has lots of university students projects and university work. Not for public edit but is a valuable resource.

Bad
Wiktionary - don't bother. They don't support English (unless it's American).