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Talk:Deadhead

Dr Oliver Sacks
The British neurologist includes in his book "An Anthropologist on Mars" (1995) a chapter entitled "The Last Hippie" [sic] in which he describes a man who has suffered blindness and memory loss caused by a brain tumour. The patient is a devoted Deadhead, but is mentally and emotionally stuck in 1969, twenty-five years earlier. When Dr Sacks takes him to hear The Grateful Dead, the patient is convinced that although blind he can see Garcia's Afro, and describes seeing Pigpen on stage. Dr Sacks tells him gently that Pigpen is dead, but a few minutes later the patient describes seeing Pigpen again, due to his short-term memory loss. He knows classic Dead songs by heart and sings along, but more modern songs confuse him. Dr Sacks mentions towards the end of the chapter that he now sends concert tapes to the patient, is good friends with several band members and that when they meet, the patient "greets [him] like a true Deadhead"

Is Dr Sacks a Deadhead? --Simon (talk) 12:03, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Please remove the section Celebrity Heads
What's the point of this section? Is it a joke? Or someone seriously wish to promote individuals like Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, etc, into (ex-)Dead Heads?!? As about Mr. Clinton, his contribution to the community is really legendary: "When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it. I didn't inhale and never tried it again." –Bill Clinton

I like the general idea of a section on "celebrity Deadheads," but I think there ought to be a distinction between "Deadheads" and "Dead fans." I do not think it is the place of Wikipedia to judge whether or not a person (famous or otherwise) represents the "spirit" of being a Deadhead. However, I think the same general standard should apply to famous people as to the non-famous.

Examples -- Ann Coulter actually called herself a Deadhead in interviews. I do not remember Clinton or Tony Blair applying that term to themselves. Bill Walton is an avowed Deadhead and friend of the band themselves. Joseph Campbell saw some shows and admired the Dead, but every quote of his I've read about the Dead read like he saw the Deadheads as "them", and didn't consider himself one of them. Etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.191.139.128 (talk) 00:08, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

 * The point of the section seems fairly self-explanatory--the article itself is about a fandom and the section in question is about famous people within the fandom. I don't see it as an attempt to "promote" any of the named individuals but if you have a legitimate objection to the section, feel free to post your reasoning here. Seelie 08:02, 29 November 2006

I'll post my reasoning instead, while I am still ambivalent about this section, I will promptly remove mentions of Clinton, Blair and the Gores, these guys fit nicely with the trilater commision, the bilderberg and other "think tanks" but they sure don't fit with the dead heads. Just because someone supposedly attended a concert or smoked pot but didn't inhale, or played for a year or two in a band "influenced" by the dead, is not an avid fan. And having as a reference an illustrated book some publisher got out to serve whatever reasons they might wish to serve is not a citation. If arch conservative, elitist and powerful rulers would very much like to appropriate the dead heads, essentially a peacefull hippy crowd, for publicity reasons they should try a little harder. But they can't have it both ways, bilderberg and non inhalation don't really mix with the spirit of the dead, it's actually a blasphemy. 195.134.69.186 00:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC) I think it is inaccurate to conflate the Dead and/or all Deadheads with "peaceful" "hippies." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.103.33.69 (talk) 01:35, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
 * They are included because they are mentioned in two official Grateful Dead books. -- moe.RON   Let's talk  02:05, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can see, there's only one book being mentioned as a citation, and that is not an official deadhead book, whatever the term official means in this context. The afforementioned book is unfortunately not available or browsable in the internet, and because I have not found a single source responsibly and verifiably claim on the internet that these people where ever part of the mass of people following the dead, a direct quote from the book, as well as the sources from where this book makes this supposition I believe are required before we include them in this list. And since we are talking here about heads of states, very prominent for whatever the deadheads DID NOT stand for, namely having been against or oblivious of the counterculture, it'll surely have to be more than a quote of saying say "they attended a couple of concerts" to qualify for that. So, to sum up, if you can point me to sources I can read, and others can too, on the net that make such claims, or to a quote on this book along the lines of "bill clinton on a sabatical, not inhaling, but trailing the dead for the better part of a year in 1969" I will have to accept it. But like I said, claims made by the people themselves appropriatting a counter culture that they were never a part of, but has now become an accepted, even praised part of american mainstream culture, or someone's notion that to go to a couple of concerts and a slip a cd in your player a few times whilst driving is for me, and I think for most insufficient proof. I 'd be inclined to take Bill Clinton's elligibility more seriously than the rest, despite his mass bombing and murdering of the Serbs being a move not as much aligned with the spirit of the dead, if he had only saved us from that ludicrous non inhalation statement, because, let's face it, at a deads concert not inhaling actually means not breathing for a few hours. 195.134.69.97 23:24, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * This people are mentioned, discusses, and sourced properly. It you need, check your local books store. Also, the direct links to Amazon.com are here:, The pages are sourced in the article after their names. --  moe.RON   Let's talk  00:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me, you are introducing this material, the bourden of proof lies with you. I am not the one who should try to unearth these books to see where, how and under what terms this people are considered deadheads and according to whose testimony, it's, let me break it to you, it's you who has to do that, and present the relative justification to the rest of the community here. Moreso, since like I 've already mentioned and won't go into again, since these people where never associated with the hippy culture and there inclusion here is highly contested, and controversial. The links to the amazon bookstore, as well as the "clarification" that the sources are afterr their names (oh really?) are pointless too. If you are so sure that they merit mention, and since you seem to be the owner of both the books you mention, why don't you enlighten the rest of us here with whatever verification is required? Because it seems that this vast knowledge pool that is the internet has somehow ommited this ANY pages that you can source. 213.170.207.36 21:44, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Not all books are going to found in their entirety for free on the internet because their are copyright issues. I have placed the reliable sources, that is the proof. What you are essentially saying is that these people are too controversial, in your eyes, even though they are sourced? That may be true, but that would be a conflict of interest. As for internet sourcing, I suggest you try any available internet search engine. Heck, even the archives of the New York Times has articles mentioning then if you look. Al Gore, in particular, has a lot of information with his relationship to the GD and their culture. -- moe.RON   Let's talk  22:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry but last time I checked reliable sources required besides posting a book, page no. and a link from the main article, to elaborate on WHY they are reliable sources, and in what way are they referenced in the source you claim. Otherwise everyone here would be "reliably sourcing" their claims and the rest of us would just have to take their word for it. For the time being you have provided no verification of why these arch figures of the establishment, these arch conservatives are or have ever been members of the couter culture of the deadheads other than point us to a page in a book and you are unwilling to share with the rest of the community here what specific proof or verification this book provides. This, to the discerning reader who goes into the extra lenghts of reading the talk pages too, makes it obivous that the inclusion of these people is both bogus and agenda driven, but wikipedia should cater for the casual reader too, and it's an injustice to them if these people remain here. 91.140.56.54 23:41, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Redirect to Grateful Dead?
Redirect to Grateful Dead? --Robert Merkel 22:34, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I disagree. Deadheads (or Dead Heads, in the band's own spelling) now exist even though the band itself as a touring entity does not. Therefore, I think the fan-base, as a group merits its own entry.

Further, the Grateful Dead article itself would be far too long if a comprehensive explanation of "Deadhead" were included.

 * I also disagree. Deadheads are a separate if linked phenonemon and is notable enough to deserve its own article.  Also noted that WP has a separate article for Trekkie, rather than a redirect to Star Trek.   Wasted Time R 20:35, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

"I also disagree. Deadheads are a separate if linked phenonemon and is notable enough to deserve its own article. Also noted that WP has a separate article for Trekkie, rather than a redirect to Star Trek."

Dead Heads exist regardless of whether the Grateful Dead exists. It's an extremely diverse culture that does not need the members of the band to survive. "The Boys" might have created this monster, but they can't control it.

Subcultures
BTW: perhaps there should be a separate article on all the subcultures that have sprung out of the Dead's odd experiment. There are queer Dead Heads who organized themselves, there are Orthodox Jewish Deadheads, The Merry Punsters (picky Dead Heads with a comical bent), Deafheads (Heads who enjoyed the music via a volunteer interpreter in their own special section that the band provided), the Net Heads, you name it.

Not all of these subcultures still exist, but it was still a fascinating cultural phenomenon.

"Deadhead subcultures" shoould remain subordinate to "Deadhead." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.191.139.128 (talk) 00:00, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Testimonial
This is completely not relevant, but hear me out; this is one generous group of people.

I met a man one time who simply could not stand Grateful Dead music, but he heard that the parking lot was a good place to score marijuana. ;-( (just the kind of Dead Head no one likes.).

He went to the lot with no money, no car, no ticket and no dignity. Well, he kept a tiny bit of dignity: he decided he would not beg. He borrowed a sheet of paper, a pen and cardboard six-pack holder from a woman, and then he rooted around in the dirt, making balls out of the turf. Then he walked through the crowd, yelling:

"Mud balls! Get your mud balls! Only one dollar!"

People were so charmed by his refusal to beg that by the end of the evening, he had a ticket, a full pack of assorted cigarettes, several beers, dinner, $15 and a place to sleep. He didn't get the drugs he wanted, but by that time, he was so overwhelmed by generosity that it didn't matter.

Sorry, this isn't related to the article, but I just wanted to let people know that America can be very wonderful place.

Unsourced information
Sorry to do it, but I have removed a mass of unsourced, POV claims that contain only original research. I will be fine re-adding these in if viable sources can be found. Cheers! -- MOE .RON   talk  02:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

 * You seem to be clueless about Dead culture. See http://groups.google.com/groups/search?q=rec.music.gdead+%22miracle+seeker%22&qt_s=Search for many references to "Miracle seekers", for example.   Wasted Time R 02:45, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

 * I am not "clueless" of the culture. I know most of this is true. The problem is sourcing the information. Please see WP:OR and specifically Reliable_sources and Reliable sources. -- MOE .RON  talk  02:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Yeah, I know all about WP:OR. Its rationale in WP is to keep physics cranks out; beyond that, it gets applied in cases where it doesn't really make sense.  Like this one.  If you know, and I know, and a couple dozen writers in rec.music.gdead knew, and a whole bunch of other people know about miracle seekers, then what is the purpose of pretending that they didn't exist just because no newspaper (whose archives are easily available) wrote about them at the time?  Since the miracle seekers bit was added to this article, no one has objected to it on factual grounds, only you on pedantic grounds.   Wasted Time R 03:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Then it would be considered original research on your part. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. This means that we only publish material that is verifiable with reference to reliable, published sources. as found at Verifiability. As long as you follow the policy, I have no problem with its inclusion. -- MOE .RON  talk  03:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

 * So why pray tell did you leave in the stuff about the Lot? Shakedown Street?  The subcultures?  Tapers of "on nights"?  It's all just as unverified.   Wasted Time R 03:50, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

 * I am waiting to remove it while I work on a cited article, using Garcia: An American Life by Blair Jackson, Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip Jake Woodward, et al, and Phil Lesh: Searching for the Sound by Phil Lesh as my sources. -- MOE .RON  talk  03:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

 * There's nothing in your precious WP:blah about "waiting to remove" unverified material until cite research is done, so I've removed it all for you.  Wasted Time R 04:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, it looks relatively WP:NPOV now and the original research stuff has been removed. If there are any qualms about material still in the article, please feel free to remove. If anyone finds sources on stuff that was removed that are reliable, make sure to replace it. There is a bit more from the books I will likely add soon (I just have been a bit busy). Cheers! -- MOE .RON   talk  21:34, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Anyone think we should mention something about the Live Music Archive problems from last year? I know there were one or two articles run in major publications about it that I can scrounge up. -- MOE .RON   talk  21:36, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

>Sorry to do it, but I have removed a mass of unsourced, POV claims that contain only original research. I will be fine re-adding these in if viable sources can be found...

Here's one for you from http://members.aol.com/tedalvy/ts.htm:

 * Excerpt from the book by Grateful Dead Bass Player Phil Lesh:

 * The unique organicity of our music reflects the fact that each of us consciously personalized his playing: to fit with what others were playing and to fit with who each man was as an individual, allowing us to meld our consciousnesses together in the unity of a group mind.

 * For us, the philosophical basis of this concept was articulated by the science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon in his novel More Than Human, wherein the protagonists each have a single paranormal talent – telepathy, psychokinesis, teleportation – and are joined by a quadruple paraplegic who acts as a central processing unit. The process by which they become one is called bleshing, from a combination of mesh and blend. (Today’s archetype would be the X-Men.)

Now I'm going to put the page back the way it was. And I'll add this reference to it.

Moeron, you might want to consider discussing this with us before you go ahead and try to change it again. No one that I know of appointed you Keeper Of The Deadhead Page.

Michael Trigoboff
 * That is fine for the reference (do you have a page number for it? If not I will just flip through the pages), but the following comment still is riff with WP:POV:
 * "The band and Deadheads also had "off" nights which wasn't surprising given the large number of shows and tremendous travel schedule the group and its fans maintained over the years. An "off" night might be characterized by low energy, mumbled words, Jerry Garcia singing the wrong lyrics or forgetting the lyrics, Donna Godchaux singing way out of key, short set lists, or even a rare missed encore."
 * So I am going to remove it until we have a source (even though I know that you mean, it still goes back to my above reference to "verifiability, not truth"). As far as your last comment Michael, remember to assume good faith and that we are asked to be bold here on Wikipedia when it comes to editing. I saw an article that needed some work, so I edited it. There were differences between editors and we have talked them out (and will continue to do so). I really appreciate yours and Wasted's time on the article in an effort to make this better. -- MOE .RON   talk  01:16, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Reading the quote and then reading the reference exert in the article don't really seem to match up. I will look for other sources about the "X-Factor", but it may have to be removed. -- MOE .RON   talk  01:20, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Part 2 Hey guys, just checking in on the page. I took some time off because it seemed like people were getting "hot under the collar" about having verifiablity for the article. I like the information User: Fuhghettaboutit provided! Anyway, I wanted to let people know my train of thought way before hand so there won't be any problems and it will give people some time to work things out. I will return to the page again in a week and a half (about) and at that time I will combine the "X-Force" paragraph (if someone doesn't before then) and removed those statements that still have "" with them. As part of official policy at WP:V, "any edit lacking a source may be removed" and I am giving editors ample time since "some editors may object if you remove material without giving people a chance to provide references." Since "the burden of evidence lies with the editors," we can't leave these in and just tell people to go look them up. Again, this will be three weeks since I first added the "" tags, which should be enough time to verify this, since we need to "be careful not to err ... by leaving unsourced information in articles for too long." Cheers! --- MOE .RON   talk  19:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

 * This is one case where WP's rigid notion of "verifiability not truth", meaning relying on the straight press's coverage of a culture rather than the collective testimony of the participants in the culture, is never going to do justice to the subject, so I'm going to sit this one out.  Wasted Time R 22:23, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Being bold
''As mentioned above, Wikipedia encourages us to be bold. Here goes...''

Grateful Dead concerts were psychedelic phenomena. They were explorations into the nature of consciousness, performed by a dedicated band of researchers. They were also Major League Fun, which did not detract from the seriousness of the endeavor. I'm a Deadhead. I participated in the psychic events at Grateful Dead concerts. Did you, Moeron?

My hopes for this topic page are that Deadheads will come along and add their perspectives and produce better and more interesting descriptions of the phenomenon. What you are doing instead is to apply a rule without any regard to the appropriateness of that rule to the topic. Most of the important things that happened at Grateful Dead concerts are "recorded" in the minds of the Deadheads, not in books . Restricting this page to what got published on paper will eliminate the main point of why there were Deadheads at all.

The rigid application of an inappropriate rule is totally incompatible with the spirit that animated Grateful Dead concerts, which was to find out what human consciousness could do when it was freed of the usual constraints.

You say things like "may have to be removed," which makes it sound like you're speaking with the voice of some disembodied higher authority. But you're not. You have no more authority in this matter than I do (and possibly less, if you weren't there at the concerts).

I say it's not appropriate to limit this topic to what's printed on paper. This isn't an article about physics. It's an article about metaphysics. I haven't seen any controversy about what's written in this article. No Deadheads have weighed in to say, "No, that's not the way it was at the concerts." It's just you attempting to insist that a rigid and irrelevant rule be applied to this article.

I don't see any reason why I should let you do that. You don't outrank me or anyone else around here. You don't speak with any "voice of authority," just with your own voice - as do I.

Michael Trigoboff 22:40, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

 * I agree whole-heartedly with the above; I made a similar argument in the earlier section above, but Michael Trigoboff makes it even better.  Wasted Time R 22:42, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Nothing is wrong with the X-Factor stuff and the fans being a part of it, that is cited in the paragraph above the one you replace, making the information redundanct. The problem comes with the on-off nights senario: "The band and Deadheads also had "off" nights which wasn't surprising given the large number of shows and tremendous travel schedule the group and its fans maintained over the years. An "off" night might be characterized by low energy, mumbled words, Jerry Garcia singing the wrong lyrics or forgetting the lyrics, Donna Godchaux singing way out of key, short set lists, or even a rare missed encore." I understand totally what you mean because we Deadheads can pick up on these things. But Wikipedia has two policies that are explicit about this sort of thing.
 * The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. This means that we only publish material that is verifiable with reference to reliable, published sources.
 * Articles may not contain any previously unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas.
 * There is nothing I would like more than to include this information, but we need a source in order to do it. I will keep looking through the six books on the Dead I have and see what I turn up. My best suggestion, though, is to check for newspaper articles that state something about the band having an "off-night". I will be checking the LA Times archive and see if Rolling Stone has anything. Again, thanks for all of your hard work on this article. Cheers! -- MOE .RON   talk  01:12, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I am in the process of seeking outside assitance on this issue (hopefully from an admin) through either WP:RFC, WP:3O, or WP:WQA. Cheers! -- MOE .RON   talk  01:20, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * In the meantime, I will continue to restore what you continue to insist on deleting. Michael Trigoboff 01:27, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, though I am baffled why you are including the relatively same information in a paragraph as the preceeding one. Thanks! -- MOE .RON   talk  01:30, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, do you want to discuss it, or do you just want to fight an edit war with me? I'll do it either way, but I'd prefer the discussion.  What I won't do is cede to you the authority over this page, or the authority to be the arbiter of how to appropriately apply Wikipedia's rules to this page.  In my view, the way you're applying those rules is absolutely inappropriate. Michael Trigoboff 01:36, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Sounds great to me. We need an open dialogue. Ok, so first the duplicate X-Factor paragraphs. What do you suggest? -- MOE .RON   talk  01:39, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The paragraphs could be combined, I suppose, if that were to be done without losing any of the concepts. Michael Trigoboff 01:56, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Some editors just don't get it. They act as persistent revert-bots until they drive people away. More from Verifiability: "You may remove any material lacking a reliable source that directly supports it (although an alternate procedure would be to add a citation needed tag). Whether and how quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. It has always been good practice to try to find and cite supporting sources yourself." Try that on for size, editors who count your "contributions" instead of helping. Many of those "contributions" are not contributions at all, but unwarranted removals. If the number of pointless, wrong edits could be subtracted from the number of positive edits, many editors would come up way negative. The worst among them have protected User pages, because they raise so many objections unnecessarily. The ones who use the word "per" a lot, and say "Cheers!" and "Thanks!" a lot. (Code for "Fvrh you!"?) If they knew how to live, they would know how to let live. A876 (talk) 05:31, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Applying The Rules
Moeron, here's a quote from one of the rules you cited, reliable, published sources:

 * This page is considered a guideline on Wikipedia. It illustrates standards of conduct that many editors agree with in principle. Although it may be advisable to follow it, it is not policy. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

So this rule is a guideline, not an absolute rule. It's not "policy." And you're supposed to discuss it if there's some disagreement about applying the rule.

You, Wasted Time R, and I seem to be the interested parties. I say you're applying the rules in a way that's too rigid for this topic.

Michael Trigoboff 01:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, what sources are in contention? -- MOE .RON   talk  01:58, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry but I don't understand exactly what you're asking me here. Can you provide a bit more detail/context/information? Thanks...  Michael Trigoboff 02:00, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, I guess we are both confused. Why did you start this section and point out WP:RS? What "point" are you trying to make? -- MOE .RON   talk  02:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * It says right there in that rule that it's not mandatory. It's a guideline.  I do not think that your application of these rules is appropriate to this topic.  I think that is what we need to discuss.  You are claiming that every single thing in this article must have some source in published material.  To repeat myself, I do not think that's appropriate in this case. -- Michael Trigoboff 02:12, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, that applies to pointing out which sources are reliable, but Wikipedia still doesn't allow original thought or original research (ie, statements about on-off nights without sources). -- MOE .RON   talk  02:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I think I finally understand what you were trying to point out. You thought that the rule I stated was a guideline, but it is in fact an official policy. I shall provide the correct Wikilink now: Also, WP:V and WP:NOR combine to provide the first standing point of Five pillars. -- MOE .RON   talk  05:09, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * From WP:V:Information on Wikipedia must be reliable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
 * Further from WP:V: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader must be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, because Wikipedia does not publish original thought or original research.
 * From WP:NOR: Articles may not contain any previously unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas; or any new analysis or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas that serves to advance a position.
 * Further from WP:NOR: the only way to demonstrate that you are not doing original research is to cite reliable sources which provide information that is directly related to the topic of the article, and to adhere to what those sources say.

 * As Trigoboff has pointed out, you are obsessing over rules that are designed to keep crank scientific theories and libelous biographical articles out of WP. Neither is at play here. There are jillions of articles in WP that don't reference every fact according to the above rules. Many of these articles are full of non-truths, distortions, and the like, and deserve to be gone over. You've never claimed that one thing in this article was untrue, just that it was unverified. I'd suggest you find a more serious article, where your attentions would make a much more positive contribution.  Wasted Time R 05:36, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * No way! I want to help make another article a good article and as close to fact as possible. Again, Wikipedia articles are about verifiablity, not truth. This is a particular high interest of mine, so I will continue to make this article better with yours and Trigoboffs help and I appreciate it a lot. Thanks! -- MOE .RON   talk  05:39, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Problem is, it won't be a "good article." It will be a useless and boring article that captures nothing important about the Deadhead phenomenon.  See my comments in the "sources" topic below. Michael Trigoboff 21:28, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

A picture
I was thinking, one thing this page needs (other then working out the unsourced, POV statements, haha) is a picture of some sort. I am going to look around for a picture of the "Dead Freaks unite" statement. If not, I was thinking a "steal your face" skull. Thoughts? -- MOE .RON   talk  05:34, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Pictures would be great, assuming you get them past the (legitimate) copyright/fair use rules.  Wasted Time R 05:37, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

rec.music.gdead postings as a source
I'm going to use Usenet rec.music.gdead postings as a source for some of what needs sourcing. Now yes, I know that Reliable_sources says no to this. And for any one posting, they are right; there's no way to know its authenticity. However, taken en masse, Usenet posts are a valuable primary source. If there are, say, several hundred posts from several dozen different posters over the course of several years, and all say that some Deadhead subculture or practice exists, then you'd have to be a full-on conspiracy theorist to think all those posts were fabricated. Deadheads were one of the first groups to form virtual communities, and it would be silly to ignore such a valuable historic record.

And I am sure there are academic papers that mine Usenet archives to draw sociological conclusions about all sorts of topics. Indeed, academic researchers have always drawn on personal diaries, newspaper letters to the editor, and other forms of public statement by ordinary people; any one instance can be suspect, but if examined in large enough numbers, they form the basis for reasonable conclusions. So Moeron, does this avenue for sourcing seem legitimate to you? Wasted Time R 05:54, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

And I should point out that such a resource is verifiable; everyone has access to the same Google groups archive. Wasted Time R 05:57, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

An example of such a cite would be http://groups.google.com/groups/search?q=rec.music.gdead+%22miracle+seekers%22&qt_s=Search, which gives 193 posts for "miracle seekers". There are also two additional advantages of using Usenet archives: they tend to be more contemporaneous, and they don't throw up false positives from cloned versions of earlier Wikipedia articles (a constant problem with regular Google searches). Wasted Time R 06:02, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

 * This is not a reliable source. If there are no reliable secondary sources, then the statement may be original research and should not be included.  Wikipedia is not a fansite; documenting what is said on Usenet is the job of a fansite.  Just zis Guy you know? 11:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

 * JzG, I don't think you're understanding the point here. This is an article that describes a particlar set of notably famous and unusual fans.  As such, the volume of writings by these fans is a useful source.  Any  one particular writing is, of course, inherently unreliable.  If I find a 1992 post that says someone ran into Bob Weir in the supermarket, and Weir said that he was embarrassed by the band and that they hadn't put out a really good album in 20 years, then of course that's unreliable and unusable.  But if I find hundreds of postings across multiple posters and multiple time periods that say that a certain behavior among this fan group existed, then on what grounds are you doubting this?  I don't think WP:RS was formulated with this usage of Usenet in mind, which is why I don't think it's appropriate to apply WP:RS here.   Wasted Time R 12:04, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

 * And I don't think you're understanding the point here. Anything whihc can only be substantiated from Usenet, is functionally unverifiable.  From what I can see Dead Heads was originally an official or semi-official fanclub (a point not made in the article) and much of the rest is trivia. We do not exist to document the tremendously exciting things which go on in a Usenet group. Just zis Guy you know? 13:49, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

 * If you think Deadheads were just a fan club, then obviously this article has not done its job well :-(   Wasted Time R 14:36, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Quite possible - . With references from reliable sources.  NME is fine. Just zis Guy you know? 19:33, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

 * From the Wikipedia page describing "reliable sources":

 * Articles related to popular culture and fiction must be backed up by reliable sources like all other articles. However, due to the subject matter, many may not be discussed in the same academic contexts as science, law, philosophy and so on. Therefore, the most reliable material available is expected, but sources for these topics should not be held to as strict a standard.

 * Applying strict rules of scholarship to a topic like this is going to result in losing all of the actually interesting and useful material about this topic.

 * Replying to JzG: No, the Deadheads are not and never were a "fan club."  The Deadheads were the audience part of the group phenomenon that was led by the band.  At a certain point in time, the band got curious about who the Deadheads were, so they put notices on their albums and put together a mailing list.  But the Deadheads existed before the notices and the mailing lists.

 * If you insist on the rigid application of these rules to this topic, then you might as well just delete the whole topic -- because all you're going to have here is a useless compendium of irrelevant (but highly documented) "facts" that won't provide an accurate description of the phenomenon.

 * Michael Trigoboff 21:26, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Remember the bit about not what is "true" but what is verifiable? The problem here is that we can't take each other's word for it - every Wikipedia article suffers from editorial bias, because people rarely write about things for which they have no strong feelings.  Wikinfo has a very different approach.  Just zis Guy you know? 19:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Kind of following on from this, but am I correct in thinking that a subsection of Deadheads actually lived a nomadic lifestyle, making them a precursor of Britain's new age travellers? The article doesn't seem to mention it so perhaps my memory fails me? --kingboyk 14:24, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

riot at deercreek
I think it is a glaring omision to leave out any mention of the riot that took place at Noblesville IN in 94. It was a major news story and showed a Definite change in the group dynamic.--The Emperor of Wikipedia & Protector of Wiktionary 14:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Major news story? Change in the group dynamic? This seems like original research as does most of chronilogical portion of the article. --Tom 13:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

This event was covered by NBC, CBS and ABC. It was featured on the cover of USA today. Was it a major event from a world perspective? No. It was a major event in terms of Deadhead culture. --The Emperor of Wikipedia 14:41, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

 * I must have been high or already inside at the time since it doesn't even really even ring any bells all these years later :). If you can dig up some references and post them here I guess it can be included as long as its in some kind of context. What do others think? It just seems that there is so much original research/commentary in this article, but thats just my small opinion. Cheers, --Tom 16:14, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

You don't remember the july 4th show being canceled? The end result was that Nobelsville bared the Dead from playing at Deercreek again, not that it mattered much as Jerry died a few months later. --The Emperor of Wikipedia 16:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

 * Oh i am sorry, i was thinking of an earlier show at Deercreek. At that point, I had actually slowed down the number of shows i was attending. Also, Jerry died in 1995 not 1994?? Can you link some cites to the riot events? I vagely remeber mention of it? I do remember Bill Graham yelling at a bunch of dead heads (myself included) outside of the SF civic center for not having tickets on NEW YEARS EVE of all nights. That was one of the few shows I did have to "sneak" into :). The problem with gate crashers was a problem, but providing sources is an issue. anyways, --Tom 17:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It looks like it took place on 7/2/95. Google didn't help. --Tom 17:57, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Bill Clinton was a deadhead
Do you have to have attended a show to be a deadhead? Did Bill ever see the boys perform? Just curious. Thanks, --Tom 21:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

 * Yes, I know for sure he was at RFK in 94 or 95 (i dont remember) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.47.128.202 (talk) 20:15, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Major original research, commentary, POV, cruff, whatever the hell you want to call it
It seems that there needs major work here. Is it Moeron?, could you chime in, not that you own it, but you seem pretty involved, thanks --Tom 13:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I see that the touchheads and minglewood council ect was added back with an edit summary about me not liking it. It really isn't about whether I like it or not since I really don't care one way of the other, it just seems like original research and not really notable. Who is doing this research and what makes them an authority on this subject? It seems that alot of the cites are from the same source? Anyways, --Tom 16:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Black Flag fans of the Dead?
It's common knowledge that Greg Ginn and Henry Rollins are publically anti-hippy, and the source given for their supposed appreciation of the band is some kids high school presentation uploaded to a media-sharing site. I can find no solid evidence for this entry, unless anyone pipes up to the contrary I'll remove it in a weeks time - Al.locke (talk) 04:41, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

 * You didn't check the Henry Rollins article in Wikipedia? Hmm, I understand it's quite a widely used source for references to verifiable information.

The source given on that presentation is an entry from Rollins' book "Get In the Van". I don't have a copy of the book, but it should be easy enough to check.

Rollins has certainly mocked the various excesses of hippie-dom in that some hippies (trustafarians come to mind) can embody the hypocrisy he has spent most of his life battling, but I do not believe that he is "anti-hippie" so much as he is anti-dogma, and specifically hates dogma bred of ignorance. As such, much of the knee jerk liberalism and soft-minded platitudinalism of the hippie scene would greatly offend him. But that does not make him anti-hippie. Just anti-d*&^chebag. UncleCheese (talk) 17:14, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with you, and the quote from the book is correct. My point is that enjoying a Dead show doesn't make one a deadhead - Al.locke (talk) 16:44, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Enjoying one show does not make one a Deadhead, but being "anti-hippie" doesn't disqualify one from being a Deadhead either. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.103.33.69 (talk) 01:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Not sure about Rollins, but Ginn was definitely Grateful Dead fan. It is mentioned in Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life. 140.192.81.69 (talk) 21:19, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Rollins recorded a not very good cover of Franklin's Tower on an albyoom (really an ee-pee) with a band called Wartime.

The Origins Of The "Dead Head" Tag - 1960s, Not 1970s?
I'm uncertain that the writers of the article are correct in stating that the "Dead Head" tag came about in the 1970s. It is absolutely correct to cite the first mention of the term in the album blurb, but I have spoken to several Grateful Dead fans who have informed me that the term was coming into being in the late 1960s and the album appeal for Dead Headers was simply an acknowledgement of an established term. I believe the term was also prevelant for at least part of the 1980s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.166.244.255 (talk • contribs) 01:31, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

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Orphaned references in Deadhead
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Deadhead's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "auto": From Ann Coulter:  From Steve Bannon:

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. Feel free to remove this comment after fixing the refs. AnomieBOT ⚡ 00:32, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Deadhead


text:
Lancelot Addison

Lancelot Addison (1632 – 20 April 1703) was an English writer and Church of England clergyman. He was born at Crosby Ravensworth in Westmorland. He was educated at the Queen's College, Oxford.

Addison worked at Tangier as a chaplain for seven years and upon his return he wrote "West Barbary, or a Short Narrative of the Revolutions of the Kingdoms of Fez and Morocco", (1671).

In 1670 he was appointed royal chaplain or Chaplain in Ordinary to the King, shortly thereafter Rector of Milston, Wilts (from 1670 to 1681), and Prebendary in the Cathedral of Salisbury. In 1681 Milston Rectory burnt down. In 1683 he became Dean of Lichfield, and in 1684 Archdeacon of Coventry.

Among his other works was "The Present State of the Jews" (1675), a detailed study of the Jewish population of the Barbary Coast in the seventeenth century, their customs, and their religious behaviour. Scholars have pointed out that part of Addison's book simply repeats material found in the English translation of Johannes Buxtorf's work Synagoga Judaica: The Jewish Synagogue, or an Historical Narration of the State of the Jewes (London, 1657).

He died in 1703 leaving three sons, the essayist Joseph Addison (1672–1719, eldest child), Gulston Addison, who became Governor of Madras, and the scholar Lancelot Addison (1680–1710), and two daughters: Dorothy Addison (1674–1750) and Anne Addison (1676-Unknown).

Addison was buried in Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Lancelot Addison


text:
Seán Doherty (Roscommon politician)

Seán Doherty (29 June 1944 – 7 June 2005) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann from 1989 to 1992, Minister for Justice from March 1982 to December 1982 and Minister of State for Justice from 1980 to 1981. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1977 to 1989 and 1992 to 2002. He was a Senator for the Administrative Panel from 1989 to 1992.

Background
Born and raised in Cootehall near Boyle, County Roscommon, he was educated at national level in County Leitrim and then at University College Dublin and King's Inns.

In 1965, Doherty became a member of the Garda Síochána and served as a Detective in Sligo before joining the Special Branch in Dublin in the early 1970s.

Doherty came from a family which had a long tradition of public service and political involvement in County Roscommon. In 1973, Doherty took a seat on Roscommon County Council, which was vacant after the death of his father.

Doherty married Maura Nangle, who is the sister of Irish musician Carmel Gunning. Together they had four daughters, Rachel Doherty was a councillor on Roscommon County Council.

Political career
After serving for four years as a local representative on Roscommon County Council, Doherty was elected as a Fianna Fáil TD for the Roscommon–Leitrim constituency at the 1977 general election.

Support of Charles Haughey
In 1979, Doherty was a key member of the so-called "gang of five" which supported Charles Haughey's attempt to take over the leadership of the party. The other members were Albert Reynolds, Mark Killilea Jnr, Tom McEllistrim and Jackie Fahey.

Haughey was successful in the leadership contest and Doherty was rewarded by being appointed Minister of State at the Department of Justice from 1979 to 1981. In the short-lived 1982 Fianna Fáil government, Doherty entered the Cabinet as Minister for Justice. In this post, he became involved in a series of controversies.

Dowra affair
The brother of Seán Doherty's wife Maura, Garda Thomas Nangle, was charged with assaulting James McGovern, a native of County Fermanagh, in a public house in December 1981. On 27 September 1982, hours before the case was due to be heard in the District Court in Dowra, a small village in northwest County Cavan, McGovern was arrested by the Special Branch of the RUC on the basis of entirely false Garda intelligence that he was involved in terrorism. The case against Nangle was dismissed because the principal witness, McGovern, failed to appear in court. The solicitor representing Nangle was Kevin Doherty, Seán Doherty's brother. This 'questionable' use of Garda/RUC Special Branch liaison, set up under the 1985 Hillsborough Anglo-Irish Agreement, prevented meetings between the Garda Commissioner and the RUC chief constable for almost three years.

Phone tapping
After Doherty left office it was revealed in The Irish Times that he ordered the tapping of three journalists' home telephones. The newspaper also disclosed that he had been interfering in the workings of the Garda and the administration of justice for both political and personal reasons. He immediately resigned from the party; however, he rejoined in 1984. At the 1989 general election, he lost his seat in Dáil Éireann to the independent candidate Tom Foxe.

Seanad Éireann
He was also an unsuccessful candidate in the elections on the same day to the European Parliament, but he was later elected instead to Seanad Éireann as a Senator for the Administrative Panel and became the Cathaoirleach (Chairman) of the 19th Seanad.

End of Haughey term

In January 1992, the phone tapping scandal returned to haunt Fianna Fáil. Doherty announced in a television interview that he had shown transcripts of the conversations to Charles Haughey while Haughey was Taoiseach in 1982. Doherty had previously denied this. Haughey denied the claim also, but was forced to resign from office, and then resigned as leader of Fianna Fáil. Doherty then regained his seat at the 1992 general election and held it until his retirement at the 2002 general election.

Death
Seán Doherty died at Letterkenny General Hospital as a result of a brain haemorrhage on 7 June 2005 while on a family holiday in County Donegal.

title: Seán Doherty (Roscommon politician)


text:
User talk:Ffabris

I see that your '0th Dynasty' update to the list of rulers of ancient Egypt in Conventional Egyptian chronology contains 'Scorpion' and 'Crocodile'. Is this really serious? If so I think it needs some explanation. Andrewa 18:37, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)

title: User talk:Ffabris


text:
Gideon Welles

Gideon Welles (July 1, 1802 – February 11, 1878), nicknamed "Father Neptune", was the United States Secretary of the Navy from 1861 to 1869, a cabinet post he was awarded after supporting Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election. Although opposed to the Union blockade of Southern ports, he duly carried out his part of the Anaconda Plan, largely sealing off the Confederate coastline and preventing the exchange of cotton for war supplies. This is viewed as a major cause of Union victory in the Civil War, and his achievement in expanding the Navy almost tenfold was widely praised. Welles was also instrumental in the Navy's creation of the Medal of Honor.

Early political career
Gideon Welles, the son of Samuel Welles and Ann Hale, was born on July 1, 1802, in Glastonbury, Connecticut. His father was a shipping merchant and fervent Jeffersonian; he was a member of the Convention, which formed the first state Connecticut Constitution in 1818 that abolished the colonial charter and officially severed the pre-American Revolution political ties to England. In contrast to the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the successor constitution of 1818 provided for freedom of religion. He was a member of the seventh generation of his family in America. His original immigrant ancestor was Thomas Welles, who arrived in 1635 and was the only man in Connecticut's history to hold all four top offices: governor, deputy governor, treasurer, and secretary. He was also the transcriber of the Fundamental Orders. Welles was the second great-grandson of Capt. Samuel Welles and Ruth (Rice) Welles, the daughter of Edmund Rice, a 1638 immigrant to Sudbury and founder of Marlborough, Massachusetts.

He married on June 16, 1835, at Lewiston, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, Mary Jane Hale, who was born on June 18, 1817, in Glastonbury, Connecticut, the daughter of Elias White Hale and Jane Mullhallan. Her father, Elias, graduated from Yale College in 1794 and practiced law in Mifflin and Centre Counties, Pennsylvania. She died on February 28, 1886, in Hartford, Connecticut, and was buried next to her husband in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford. Gideon and Mary Jane were the parents of six children.

He was educated at the Episcopal Academy at Cheshire, Connecticut, and earned a degree at the American Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy at Norwich, Vt. (later Norwich University). He became a lawyer through the then-common practice of reading the law, but soon shifted to journalism and became the founder and editor of the Hartford Times in 1826. After successfully gaining admission, from 1827 to 1835, he participated in the Connecticut House of Representatives as a Democrat. Following his service in the Connecticut General Assembly, he served in various posts, including State Controller of Public Accounts in 1835, Postmaster of Hartford (1836–41), and Chief of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing for the Navy (1846–49).

Welles was a Jacksonian Democrat who worked very closely with Martin Van Buren and John Milton Niles. His chief rival in the Connecticut Democratic Party was Isaac Toucey, whom Welles would later replace at the Navy Department. While Welles dutifully supported James K. Polk in the 1844 election, he would abandon the Democrats in 1848 to support Van Buren's Free Soil campaign.

Mainly because of his strong anti-slavery views, Welles shifted allegiance in 1854 to the newly established Republican Party and founded a newspaper in 1856 (the Hartford Evening Press) that would espouse Republican ideals for decades thereafter.

Secretary of the Navy
Welles' strong support of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election made him the logical candidate from New England for Lincoln's cabinet. In March 1861, Lincoln named Welles his Secretary of the Navy.

Welles found the Naval Department in disarray, with Southern officers resigning en masse. His first major action was to dispatch the Navy's most powerful warship, the USS Powhatan, to relieve Fort Sumter on Lincoln's instructions. Unfortunately, Secretary of State Seward had just ordered the Powhatan to Fort Pickens, Florida on his own authority, ruining whatever chance Major Robert Anderson had of withstanding the assault. Several weeks later, when Seward argued for a blockade of Southern ports, Welles argued vociferously against the action but was eventually overruled by Lincoln. Despite his misgivings, Welles' efforts to rebuild the Navy and implement the blockade proved extraordinarily effective. From 76 ships and 7,600 sailors in 1861, the Navy expanded almost tenfold by 1865. His implementation of the Naval portion of the Anaconda Plan strongly weakened the Confederacy's ability to finance the war by limiting the cotton trade, and while never completely effective in sealing off all 3,500 miles of Southern coastline, it was a major contribution towards Northern victory. Lincoln nicknamed Welles his "Neptune."

After Lincoln's assassination, Welles was retained by President Andrew Johnson as Secretary of the Navy. In 1866, Welles, along with Seward, was instrumental in launching the National Union Party as a third party alternative supportive of Johnson's reconciliation policies. Welles also played a prominent part in Johnson's ill-fated "Swing Around the Circle" campaign that autumn. Although Welles admitted in his diary that he was dismayed by Johnson's behavior on the trip, particularly the president's penchant for invective and engaging directly with hecklers, Welles remained loyal to Johnson, and supported him during his impeachment. On April 17 and 18, 1868, Welles testified in the impeachment trial of Johnson, having been called as a witness by Johnson's defense team. His son Edgar also testified that day.

Later life and Death
After leaving politics, Welles returned to Connecticut and to writing, editing his journals, and authoring several books before his death, including a biography, Lincoln and Seward, published in 1874.

He was a Third Class Companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. While the Loyal Legion did consist predominantly of Union officers who had served in the American Civil War the Order's constitution provided for honorary members (i.e. Third Class Companions) who were civilians who had made significant contributions to the war effort. Welles was also instrumental in the Navy's creation of the Medal of Honor.

Towards the end of 1877, his health began to wane. A streptococcal infection of the throat killed Gideon Welles at the age of seventy-five on February 12, 1878. His body was interred at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford, Connecticut.

Legacy
Two ships have been named USS Welles in his honor. The Dining Commons at Cheshire Academy and the Gideon Welles School in Glastonbury, Connecticut, are also named after him. In the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago, Welles Park was dedicated in honor of Gideon Welles in 1910, and more recently, an adjacent restaurant, opened in 2014, has also been named after Gideon Welles.

He was not an ancestor of Orson Welles as the actor had claimed on The Dick Cavett Show.

title: Gideon Welles


text:
Wikipedia:Criticisms

''This page is intended to list quotations from critics of Wikipedia, especially in publications, whose criticisms may be contested. Please cite sources of the quotations. (Contradicting evidence may also be appropriate to list under a given quotation.)''

See also the testimonials page for the positive reactions, and the replies to common objections page for responses to common criticisms. See also External peer review for reviews of Wikipedia's accuracy by external sources.

Notice that much of the criticism is based on how they perceive the process of Wikipedia and not the actual quality.

See also Why Wikipedia is not so great for a list of Wikipedia limitations.

Charles Arthur

 * Charles Arthur, "Online, it's us or them", The Sydney Morning Herald (17 Dec. 2005).
 * What I realised - perhaps it was the mention of Scientology - is that Wikipedia, and so many other online activities, show all the outward characteristics of a cult. There is a quasi-religious fervour surrounding the "rightness" of Wikipedia, or Apple's products. To outsiders, it makes little or no sense. To those inside, it is the most important topic they can imagine. [...] They also use the most charming of debating techniques, which is to allow you to make a long list of salient points and pull in a wide range of empirical observations to back up your argument, and then ignore them completely. Then they respond with something along the lines of "Are you being paid to say that by Microsoft, or just doing a mate a favour?" (to quote one email received this week on the topic of open source software development).

Hiawatha Bray
By Hiawatha Bray, "One great source — if you can trust it", The Boston Globe (12 July 2004).

 * For it lacks one vital feature of the traditional encyclopedia: accountability. Old-school reference books hire expert scholars to write their articles, and employ skilled editors to check and double-check their work. Wikipedia's articles are written by anyone who fancies himself an expert.

 * "I think it's exactly the right price," said Michael Ross, senior vice president of corporate development at Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. in Chicago. Major articles in Britannica are signed by the author; all articles are vetted by an experienced team of editors and scholars. The libraries that pay $1,500 for a set of bound volumes or the family that pays $60 a year for an Internet subscription are buying confidence as well as information. [...] Ross admits to reading and enjoying Wikipedia, and has even gotten ideas there for future Britannica articles. But the absence of traditional editorial controls makes Wikipedia unsuited to serious research. "How do they know it's accurate?" Ross asks. "People can put down anything."

 * This realization forced the Wikimedia Foundation to start work on a formal editorial process for Wikipedia. Wales isn't sure how it will work yet; contributors might still be anonymous. But there will probably be an editorial board staffed with experts in various fields. They'll be identified by name with the Wikipedia, and stand behind the accuracy of its contents.

On the other hand, he also writes:

 * A few years ago, Microsoft Corp. scoffed at free software; today the company is running scared. Britannica's Ross seems a lot more relaxed about his company's future. It's difficult to see why.

Nicholas G. Carr

 * Nicholas G. Carr, "The amorality of Web 2.0", Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog (3 Oct. 2005)
 * In theory, Wikipedia is a beautiful thing—it has to be a beautiful thing if the Web is leading us to a higher consciousness. In reality, though, Wikipedia isn't very good at all. Certainly, it's useful—I regularly consult it to get a quick gloss on a subject. But at a factual level it's unreliable, and the writing is often appalling. I wouldn't depend on it as a source, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it to a student writing a research paper.

Paulo Correa

 * With Alexandra Correa and Malgosia Askanas (User:Helicoid)
 * Paulo Correa, Alexandra Correa, and Malgosia Askanas,

 * This brings us squarely to the question of the uses of Wikipedia, and in particular, those that concern protection of the interests of Big Science. For Wikipedia is at the intersection of this Knowledge Warfare. Its cult of the sanctity of mainstream peer-review, and its determination to brand bona fide non-mainstream scientific efforts as Pseudoscience, lumping them together with doctrines or ideas that would disgust any good scientist, all point in the direction of a gigantic disinformation act. Tyrannized by fanatical lefto-facho bureaucrats and by zealots of Official Science surrounded by an always-ready supply of zombified adolescents, Wikipedia has become a supplement to the imaginary 'peer-review system' that supposedly rules the secretion called Official or Big Science.  The unconscious entente of Wikipedia proves the collective adherence of its participants to the brave new concept of Official Science: if it does not occur within those institutions which embody the powers of the State (Academia), the Military Mechanism and Capital, it is NOT science, nor worthy of the Media (including mainstream peer-reviewed publications), not worthy of being endorsed for the strategizing of mass-control.

 * "Thousands of people, all over the world, from all cultures, working together in harmony to freely share clear, factual, unbiased information… a simple and pure desire to make the world a better place."

 * "Oh please???. What a shameless crock. Look at any Wikipedia Talk page on any controversial subject, and, instead of "people working together in harmony", you will typically and unsurprisingly see a bunch of mediocre nerds with too much time on their hands and with rather uninformed opinions on too many subjects, bickering among themselves in an attempt to forge an entry that will represent a "consensus" of their uninformed opinions."

Brian Cubbison
Brian Cubbison, "How Syracuse became a test of online credibility," The Post-Standard, Syracuse NY (15 September 2004).

 * After the free, online Wikipedia got a favorable mention in a Dr. Gizmo column, then a letter from Liverpool High School librarian Susan Stagnitta, technology writer Al Fasoldt questioned whether the do-it-yourself encyclopedia is authoritative. [...]

 * From Techdirt.com came this challenge: Add a mistake to the encyclopedia's entry on Syracuse, N.Y., and see how long it takes for someone to fix it. [...]

 * Alex Halavais [...] inserted the error that abolitionist Frederick Douglass once lived in Syracuse and was the first African-American elected to the city council. That lasted about an hour and a half before it was removed. Another contributor added Al Fasoldt, journalist, to the entry's list of famous Syracusans. That lasted about 45 minutes. Seeking a more difficult test, Halavais announced in his blog that he had made 13 errors in 13 subjects. All were caught and fixed within hours. [...]

 * One side said the experiment showed that Wikipedia is self-healing, even from a fraudulent attack. The other side said that for those hours, the encyclopedia was wrong. [...]

 * ''At Wikipedia, in spite of the game of Truth or Dare and the flurry of attention paid to Syracuse, there are still at least three mistakes on that page, one of which has been there since the reign of Louis XIV in France."

John C. Dvorak

 * "The absolute deterioration of the wiki concept is just a matter of time. Once spam mechanisms are developed to eat into these systems, the caretakers will be too busy to stop the public-driven deterioration."

 * "This means that the wiki will go the way of the rest of the Net: downhill. Fictitious posts, spam, grudge pages, lies, politically motivated opinions, online vandalism, and all the rest will inevitably ruin the wiki concept, since the whole idea is utopian. And utopianism never works except in the lab or with religious zealots, and that's only for moments at a time. "

 * Dvorak, John C. (2005). The Wikification of Knowledge. Retrieved July 15, 2005.

Al Fasoldt
By Al Fasoldt, "Librarian: Don't use Wikipedia as source", The (Syracuse, NY) Post-Standard (25 August 2004).

 * In a column published a few weeks ago by my companion Dr. Gizmo, readers were urged to go to the Wikipedia Web site at Main Page, an online encyclopedia, for more information on computer history. The doctor and I had figured Wikipedia was a good independent source. Not so, wrote a school librarian who read that article. Susan Stagnitta, of the Liverpool High School library, explained that Wikipedia is not what many casual Web surfers think it is[...]
 * If you know of other supposedly authoritative Web sites that are untrustworthy...

Willard Foxton

 * Willard Foxton, "Tory MPs fiddling with their Wikipedia entries: Grant Shapps is just the tip of the iceberg", The Telegraph (10 September 2012)

This happens because Wikipedia has become a magnet for political nerds who want to fight proxy battles. With a general election two and a half years away, some think the best way to damage the other side is to use Wikipedia as a vehicle for smears. Equally, many see it as nothing more than an online CV service. You may question if it matters whether Shapps is reported as having four or five O-levels. The trouble is that ease of access to articles on Wikipedia means they're often used as sources for the media. Wikipedia has mutated from an encyclopedia into the central source for information on public figures. An untrue fact can cascade through a person's life, causing all manner of problems for them. Self-editing is forbidden is to stop self-promotion; however, it can lead to frustrating situations when false information appears. For example, Philip Roth complained recently that Wikipedia would not accept him as a reliable source on his own novels. However, Wikipedia allows anonymous editing. Thus those who honestly correct incorrect information are penalised, whereas those willing to edit anonymously, or create sinister false online personas, are given free rein. Johann Hari used Wikipedia as a weapon to attack other journalists, and puff his own achievements. Since then, plenty of others have adopted Hari's tactics.
 * ''A quick browse through the profiles of MPs reveal that a huge number have entries which tortuously detail trivial events in their political lives. For example, Damian Green's Wikipedia entry devotes well over 1,000 words to his 2008 arrest alone; for comparison that's more than three times as much wiki-ink as any of Disraeli's governments.

Michael Fraley

 * Michael Fraley, "Wikipedia needs to take greater precautions," KPCNews.com (18 Dec. 2005).
 * It's just my opinion, but I that the people who run Wikipedia are being lax in regulating the process their contributors have to go through in order to add their edits to the site. It's a bit like living in a community in which you assume that everyone is trying to coexist in a spirit of good will — but you're still a fool if you don't lock and bolt your door at night. Wikipedia has generally taken the position that their community of contributors should protect, patrol and correct themselves. The site backs up each different version of an article, so in theory nothing can be irreparably damaged or vandalized beyond rescue. While there has been talk of making Wikipedia contributors register with the site before they can perform edits on the encyclopedia's articles, I recently made an edit on an article myself and was asked for no information at all. Wikipedia is a fantastic resource, but I urge a more aggressive guarding of the gates — for its own sake.

Péter Jacsó
By Péter Jacsó, "Peter's Picks & Pans," ONLINE Magazine 26(2), 79-82 (March/April 2002).

 * "Now we have the latest endeavor that is a joke at best, Wikipedia. I am afraid it is meant to be a communal encyclopedia of the people, by the people, and for the people, which shall not perish from the earth, even if it looks like a prank."

 * "You can even forgive the error- and typo-ridden articles; grammar is just an old-fashioned convention."

 * "Another page says that 'Wikipedia is a collaborative project to produce a complete encyclopedia from scratch. We started in January 2001 and already have over 16,000 articles. We want to make over 100,000.' That's ambition. There is no way to verify the number, but for perspective, the 6th edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia has 51,682 articles, so this is quite a tall order."

 * "Many of the entries of Wikipedia consist of a single sentence, typically a third or fourth the size of a comparable entry in the totally free Columbia Encyclopedia, a time-honored scholarly resource."

 * "Wiki is part of the Hawaiian word wikiwiki, meaning quick or fast—as in fast buck. [...] Jimbo expects advertisers by mid-2002, and then you know who is going to be laughing all the way to the bank."

Jaron Lanier
Digital Maoism criticizes epistemic collectivism in Wikipedia:

 * The hive mind is for the most part stupid and boring. Why pay attention to it?

 * The problem is in the way the Wikipedia has come to be regarded and used; how it's been elevated to such importance so quickly. And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it's now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn't make it any less dangerous.

Lanier's essay triggered easily the most, and most informed, responses of any single article, most notably by Cory Doctorow who is familiar with its process firsthand. Other responses to Lanier's essay came from Douglas Rushkoff, Quentin Hardy, Yochai Benkler, Clay Shirky, Kevin Kelly, Esther Dyson, Larry Sanger, Fernanda Viegas & Martin Wattenberg, Jimmy Wales, George Dyson, Dan Gillmor and Howard Rheingold.

From Doctorow's response:

 * Wikipedia isn't great because it's like the Britannica. The Britannica is great at being authoritative, edited, expensive, and monolithic. Wikipedia is great at being free, brawling, universal, and instantaneous.

 * Wikipedia entries are nothing but the emergent effect of all the angry thrashing going on below the surface...if you want to really navigate the truth via Wikipedia, you have to dig into those "history" and "discuss" pages hanging off of every entry. That's where the real action is, the tidily organized palimpsest of the flamewar that lurks beneath any definition of "truth."

 * The Britannica tells you what dead white men agreed upon, Wikipedia tells you what live Internet users are fighting over.

 * So Wikipedia gets it wrong. Britannica gets it wrong, too. The important thing about systems isn't how they work, it's how they fail. Fixing a Wikipedia article is simple. Participating in the brawl takes more effort, but then, that's the price you pay for truth, and it's still cheaper than starting up your own Britannica.

Mike Langberg

 * Mike Langberg, "Wikipedia needs safeguards that work," The Mercury News (11 Dec. 2005).

 * Wikipedia keeps getting in trouble because its open model—where anyone can write and edit entries—is an invitation for character assassination, ideological crusades and outright vandalism, as well as legitimate scholarship. [...] The result of Wikipedia's open editing system is predictable: Most contributors provide useful material, while a small number of "trolls" repeatedly deface the encyclopedia. Wikipedia is also plagued by endless "revert wars," where dueling groups keep reversing each other's changes to controversial articles. This undermines the credibility of Wikipedia, which now offers an unprecedented 857,000 articles in English, along with versions in more than 100 other languages. Wikipedia is becoming a first reference stop for millions of people, from schoolchildren to journalists, including me. But many of these users don't realize a small percentage of articles are flawed. Even more troubling, there's no way to know when you've hit one of those defective entries. That's why I never put a fact from Wikipedia into one of my columns without first double-checking it elsewhere. [...] Wikipedia is now big enough, with a core group of 13,000 active volunteers, to pre-screen all of its contents. New entries and edits could still be submitted—even anonymously—by any visitor to the Wikipedia site but would be placed in a kind of holding pen until one of the trusted volunteers took a look and said OK.

Robert McHenry
Robert McHenry is Former Editor in Chief of the Encyclopædia Britannica, and author of How to Know (Booklocker.com, 2004).
 * Robert McHenry, "The Education of Gesture", Tech Central Station (25 Oct. 2005).
 * Same day. The Wikipedia, an online project to create an encyclopedia by means of contributions and editing by volunteers, irrespective of their knowledge of their subjects or ability to write coherently, has just lately begun to come to grips with the fact that some substantial proportion of the articles thus generated are substandard. They have therefore launched "Project Galatea," whose aim is to have still more self-selected volunteers impose "large-scale, sweeping stylistic improvements." Note that the improvements hoped for are stylistic, not a matter of accuracy or adequacy. In the "Philosophy" of the project, prospective stylists are told this:
 * "While there is no need to be an expert on the article you're working on (in fact, there are some advantages to being completely ignorant of the subject to start with), by the time you're done, you will have at least a working knowledge of the topic."
 * Another point, spang on my line. [sic] How worried ought I to be? How worried are you?
 * Here is what I wonder: Whence this notion that citizens, especially those who aspire to careers of informing the rest of us, need not bother with what once would have been considered the common body of knowledge? And where on earth did the idea arise that knowledge might actually be a hindrance?
 * I do not blame computers or the Internet. Well...except for one thought that gives me pause. How is it that these tools that were to make achieving our lofty goals easier have instead been commandeered to move the goal posts?

The real bias in Wikipedia

 * He notes that the Countering Systemic Bias project to "improve the coverage of the encyclopedia... needs to begin with a clear distinction between "bias" and "imbalance"... The Wikiproject seems to concern itself with topics that are treated in insufficient detail or not at all; to me, this is addressing imbalance. "Bias" denotes a lack of objectivity or fairness in the treatment of topics. Thus, when a writer called Joseph McCabe alleged in a widely distributed pamphlet that certain articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica had been unduly influenced by the Catholic church, he was charging bias. (That was in 1947, and he was quite wrong, by the way.)''

 * Is imbalance in Wikipedia "systemic"? I should rather say that it results inevitably from a lack of system. Given the method by which Wikipedia articles are created, for there to be any semblance of balance in the overall coverage of subject-matter would be miraculous. Balance results from planning. As an example, the planning of the coverage of the fifteenth edition of Britannica took an in-house staff and dozens of advisers several years to complete. That was forty years ago; it would be harder now... imbalance is a judgment, not a fact, and... it cannot be reduced to numbers.

 * ...something that Wikipedia and Wikipedians steadfastly decline to do today, and that is to consider seriously the user, the reader.

 * One simple fact that must be accepted as the basis for any intellectual work is that truth – whatever definition of that word you may subscribe to – is not democratically determined. And another is that talent, whether for soccer or for exposition, is not equally distributed across the population, while a robust confidence is one's own views apparently is. If there is a systemic bias in Wikipedia, it is to have ignored so far these inescapable facts.

See also his comments in the Orlowski article, below, and
 * Robert McHenry, "The Faith-Based Encyclopedia Blinks," TCS Daily (14 Dec. 2005).

John McIntyre

 * John McIntyre, "Sham editing at Wikipedia", The Baltimore Sun (10 September 2012)

I remain convinced that Wikipedia's confidence in its self-correction mechanism is an illusion, that the editing it does is inadequate, and that the outright errors and constant manipulation of entries by interested parties make it an unreliable reference.
 * ''In addition to the numerous errors introduced by ignorant or careless contributors, it is widely known that some public figures employ interns or staff members to monitor their Wikipedia entries to edit out unfavorable information.

Andrew Orlowski

 * Andrew Orlowski, "Wikipedia founder admits to serious quality problems"
 * Criticism of the project from within the inner sanctum has been very rare so far, although fellow co-founder Larry Sanger, who is no longer associated with the project, pleaded with the management to improve its content by befriending, and not alienating, established sources of expertise. (i.e., people who know what they're talking about.)

 * Andrew Orlowski, "Wikipedia: magic, monkeys and typewriters," The Register (24 Oct. 2005).
 * But something is changing since we last wrote about Wikipedia a year ago. Even project founder Jimmy Wales has been obliged to admit its entries are "a horrific embarrassment". Readability, which wasn't great to begin with, has plummeted. Formerly coherent and reasonably accurate articles in the technical section have gotten worse as they've gotten longer. And most interesting of all, the public is beginning to notice.
 * What they don't like to talk about is that on Wikipedia, the truth is determined in the end by a physical contest: whoever has the endurance to stay awake at a keyboard and maintain his version of the edits wins.

 * Andrew Orlowski, "Why Wikipedia isn't like Linux," The Register (27 Oct. 2005).

This article is mainly quotations from others in response to the earlier article, e.g.:
 * "Some people need scrupulously accurate information, and some people are happy with myths and misinformation. Sometimes you just need some information, and sometimes you need accurate information." (Tom Panelas, Britannica spokesperson)
 * "It was always a doomed idea. It was bad from the start. But it's got the public playing the encyclopedia game. To extend the analogy, it's also like playing a game in the sense that playing it has no consequences. If something goes wrong, you just restart. No problem!" (Robert McHenry, Britannica editor)
 * "They are huge fans of the most conspicuous success story in the history of Internet-based collaboration: the Linux kernel. Which is not produced by a radically-democratic value-neutral mob, but rather by a pyramidal hierarchy of maintainers - experts, so judged by their peers - who exercise strong control over what code is allowed in the kernel tree. It's worth reflecting on the reason Wiki-kernel would never fly: code actually has to work, not merely be written." (Carlo Graziani, in a letter to Orlowski).

 * Andrew Orlowski, "There's no Wikipedia entry for 'moral responsibility'", The Register (12 Dec. 2005).

 *  [...] Wikipedia's proliferation owes much to the fact that we're currently in a temporary, but very familiar blip in history—one we've been in many times before. Wikipedia has sprung up to fill a temporary void. [...] So I'm very privileged right now, as a member of the San Francisco public library, to be able to tap into expensive databases I couldn't otherwise afford. In ten years time, these "member's societies" will be the norm, and most of us won't even realize we're members. The good stuff will just come out of a computer network.

 * [...] The first, and the most immediately absurd of these two defenses, is that since nothing at all can be trusted, er, "definitively", then Wikipedia can't be trusted either. This is curious, to say the least, as it points everyone's expectations firmly downwards. [...] Only a paranoiac, or a mad person, can sustain this level of defensiveness for any length of time however, and to hear a putative "encyclopedia" making such a statement is odd, to say the least. This defense firmly puts the blame on the reader, for being so stupid as to take the words at face value. Silly you, for believing us, they say.

 * [...] Wikipedia's defenders point to the open model, where anyone can make changes, as another example of shrugging off responsibility. [...] So Wikipedia's second defense rests heavily on the assumption that everyone in the whole world is participating, watching, and writing at every moment of the day, and so that a failure to pay attention represents negligence on the part of the complainer. Seigenthaler, the argument goes, was clearly being an idiot when he failed to notice that day's piece of web grafitti. Instead of taking his dog for a walk, or composing an email to his grandchildren, he should have been paying ceaseless attention to ... his Wikipedia biography. To which the only honest answer is, "we don't owe you anything".

 * [...] Involvement in Wikipedia has taken its toll on a significant number of decent, fair minded people who with the most honorable intentions, have tried to alert the project to its social responsibilities and failed. Such voices could be heard on the Wikipedia mailing list, speaking up for quality. Wikipedia is losing good editors at an alarming rate, but who can blame them for leaving?

 * Note: This article actually induced some Wikipedians to create the Wikipedia entry on moral responsibility in the attempt to invalidate the claim in the title (in a literal sense).

 * Andrew Orlowski, "Wikipedia science 31% more cronky than Britannica's", The Register (16 Dec. 2005)
 * Science journal Nature chose 42 science articles from both Encyclopedia Britanica [sic] and gave peer reviewers a blind test to find mistakes. That gave the free-for-all web site a fighting chance — as it excluded the rambling garbage and self-indulgence that constitute much of the wannabe "encyclopedia" social science and culture entries. [...] Britannica turned up 123 "errors", and Wikipedia 162. In other words, the quality of information coming from Wikipedia was 31 per cent worse. [...] Who could possibly hail this as good news? Two camps, we think. People with a real chip on their shoulder about authority, as we saw earlier this week. People with a contempt for learning, many of you say. But more broadly, only someone more obsessed by process than by the end result can regard this as any kind of victory — something all the popular press missed in their anxiety to gives us an upbeat, good news story from Planet Wikipedia yesterday. [emphasis theirs]

 * Andrew Orlowski, "Wikipedia founder 'shot by friend of Siegenthaler'", The Register (17 Dec. 2005)
 * The news of the "shooting" even made the venerable London Times, yesterday. The Times noted that after the first Seigenthaler scandal broke, the now "deceased" Jimmy Wales had, as he has so often, promised to tighten up a few nuts and bolts in the "encyclopedia's" editorial processes. He certainly had his work cut out. "A cursory search today suggested that these procedures - which require contributors to register basic details before posting articles - were being defeated by a relentless wave of vandals, apparently co-ordinating their assaults from a series of chatrooms dedicated to its demise. The loss of credibility has caused commentators to question whether Wikipedia is destined to follow the LA Times's doomed experiment in unrestricted internet comment, Wikitorial, which had to be closed down after just two days under a bombardment of pornographic postings." Is nothing sacred? So is Wikipedia a source of reference, or just a great big game?
 * Note: The Times article mentioned is:
 * Simon Freeman, "Wikipedia hit by surge in spoof articles", The Times (15 Dec. 2005).
 * With regards to Wales' "death", The Times and Orlowski apparently refer to this version or this version of the "Jimmy Wales" article by User:Ben E. Rande, who was subsequently banned. Each of these vandalized versions was visible for one minute or less, according to the article history log.

John Podhoretz
John Podhoretz, "From My Wikipedia Bio Last Month," National Review's The Corner (June 12, 2005).

 * "'He is an admitted homosexual, yet still endorses the anti-gay policies of social conservatives.' Somebody, I don't know who, went in and edited the sentence out a few days ago. For the record, I am not an admitted homosexual, nor am I a homosexual, though I do know the lyrics to every show tune ever written, which might perhaps account for the confusion. As for endorsing the 'anti-gay policies of social conservatives,' what I oppose, purely and simply, is affirmative action for homosexuals. But this is what you get for arguing with Wikipedia."

PVPOnline
Scott Kurtz, author of the webcomic PVPOnline began a story arc on August 13, 2006 which comments on the editing of Wikipedia articles: First strip in the sequence.

Mitch Ratcliffe

 * Mitch Ratcliffe, "Socratic Media: Wikinews & Wikiconsequences", RatcliffeBlog (30 Nov. 2005).30 2004]''

 * In a medium defined by timeliness—news, as compared to an encyclopedia article, which can be authored over months or years—collaborative editing is not likely to result in objective reports, but rather a battle of perspectives very much like the starkly partisan George W. Bush articles authors produced at Wikipedia that resulted in the editing interface being locked down. In a situation where the reader needs information quickly in order to make a judgment about events or their role in them, the collaborative approach to authoring information may be too slow.

Larry Sanger
"Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism", http://Kuro5hin.org, Fri Dec 31st, 2004, Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism

 * ...regardless of whether Wikipedia actually is more or less reliable than the average encyclopedia, it is not perceived as adequately reliable by many librarians, teachers, and academics. The reason for this is not far to seek: those librarians etc. note that anybody can contribute and that there are no traditional review processes. You might hasten to reply that it does work nonetheless, and I would agree with you to a large extent, but your assurances will not put this concern to rest.

 * Wikipedia has another sort of credibility problem, mentioned in passing above, and I fear that time is not a solution to this problem, the way it might be to the foregoing one. Namely, one can make a good case that, when it comes to relatively specialized topics (outside of the interests of most of the contributors), the project's credibility is very uneven. If the project was lucky enough to have a writer or two well-informed about some specialized subject, and if their work was not degraded in quality by the majority of people, whose knowledge of the subject is based on paragraphs in books and mere mentions in college classes, then there might be a good, credible article on that specialized subject. Otherwise, there will be no article at all, a very amateurish-sounding article, or an article that looks like it might once have been pretty good, but which has been hacked to bits by hoi polloi.

 * Second problem: the dominance of difficult people, trolls, and their enablers. I stopped participating in Wikipedia when funding for my position ran out. That does not mean that I am merely mercenary; I might have continued to participate, were it not for a certain poisonous social or political atmosphere in the project.

 * This lack of respect for expertise and authority also explains the second problem, because again if the project participants had greater respect for expertise, there would necessarily be very little patience for those who deliberately disrupt the project. This is perhaps not obvious, so let me explain. To attract and retain the participation of experts...

Articles spurred by Sanger's comments include:
 * Clay Shirky, "K5 Article on Wikipedia Anti-elitism", Many-to-Many weblog (3 Jan. 2005).

Jason Scott

 * Jason Scott, The Great Failure of Wikipedia, ASCII: Jason Scott's Weblog (19 Nov. 2004)

 * This is what the inherent failure of wikipedia is. It's that there's a small set of content generators, a massive amount of wonks and twiddlers, and then a heaping amount of procedural whackjobs. And the mass of twiddlers and procedural whackjobs means that the content generators stop being so and have to become content defenders. Woe be that your take on things is off from the majority. Even if you can prove something, you're now in the situation that anybody can change it. And while that's all great in a happy-go-lucky flower shower sort of way, it's when you realize that the people who are going to change it could have absolutely no experience with the subject whatsoever, then you see where we are.

John Seigenthaler, Sr.

 * John Seigenthaler, "A false Wikipedia 'biography'", USA Today (29 Nov. 2005).

 * My "biography" was posted May 26. On May 29, one of Wales' volunteers "edited" it only by correcting the misspelling of the word "early." For four months, Wikipedia depicted me as a suspected assassin before Wales erased it from his website's history Oct. 5. The falsehoods remained on Answers.com and Reference.com for three more weeks.

 * Naturally, I want to unmask my "biographer." And, I am interested in letting many people know that Wikipedia is a flawed and irresponsible research tool.

This article spurred several related stories in other news sources:
 * Katharine Q. Seelye, "Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar", New York Times (4 Dec. 2005).
 * Charles Cooper, "Wikipedia and the nature of truth", CNET News.com (2 Dec. 2005).

 * Katharine Q. Seelye, "A Little Sleuthing Unmasks Writer of Wikipedia Prank," New York Times (11 Dec. 2005).
 * Andrew Orlowski, "Who owns your Wikipedia bio?" The Register (6 Dec. 2005).
 * Steve Johnson, "Wikipedia: Raising perhaps more questions than answers", Chicago Tribune (15 Dec. 2005).

Dan Tynan

 * Dan Tynan. "Winners and Losers of 2005". Tech Tuesday - Yahoo! News. (December 16 2005). Rated as both the "Winner" and "Loser of the Year".
 * You can't do a Web search on any major topic without this wiki popping up near the top of the results page. Heavily linked, authoritative, and constantly updated, the world's largest interactive encyclopedia came into its own this year[...] Popular, yes. Accurate? Not necessarily. Because its entries can be edited by anyone, the Wikipedia can be the source of dubious or biased information. [ ...(citing the Swiftboat controversy and Seigenthaler Incident)... ] [W]ith more than 800,000 articles in English and well over 1 million in 15 other languages, foolproof policing is well nigh impossible.

Veja Magazine (unsigned)
In January 23, 2005, the Brazilian magazine Veja published an unsigned article about Wikipedia entitled "Written by whoever wants to", casting doubts on the encyclopedia's reliability. According to the article, the freedom entailed by Wikipedia is a cause for its success, but "it is also Wikipedia's greatest flaw, because its articles are subject to ignorants and ill-disposed [individuals]". It goes on to draw a comparison with Encyclopædia Britannica, whose first article on psychoanalysis was, according to Veja, written by Sigmund Freud.

The magazine stated that Wikipedia's correction mechanism "works better in subjects in which many people are interested [...], such as technology. It becomes disastrous in obscure or political themes". Veja made a test to try to prove their point. In the article on Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the magazine allegedly inserted the information that he was born in "a big city in the industrial state of Pernambuco". This is incorrect because Lula (as he is better known in Brazil) was born in a small village, and Pernambuco cannot be considered an industrial state by Brazilian standards. Veja claimed the fake info stayed online for 2 days, until they removed it themselves.
 * Veja, edição 1889, 26 de janeiro de 2005

Legio XX

 * I emailed a reenactment group with some images of pretty well-made replicas of Roman equipment, asking if I could add their images to Wikipedia. The full text of their reply is below. WoodenTaco 20:15, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Ave!

 * Thank you for your compliments, and my apologies for taking so long to reply. I'm afraid that I have to refuse your request to use Legio XX images on Wikipedia, and not just because of the commercialism. While I have never consulted Wikipedia myself, others who have looked up the sorts of technical topics that are my main interest have found them to be horribly inaccurate. And attempts to improve those entries by experts and amateurs who have done solid research are wrecked by constant updates by obviously ignorant people. Dr. MC Bishop, an archeologist and world-renowned authority on Roman armor, wrote an article on the Roman lorica segmentata, only to see it mangled beyond recognition.  As long as  well-researched and well-documented scientific information can be replaced by teen-age wargamers, my group and I would rather have no official connection to Wikipedia.

 * You may certainly add links to any page of the Legio XX site, or to my other websites. That's what the Internet is for, after all, and the contents are safe from tampering.  I hope that will help lead people to more reliable information.  Unfortunately, that's probably all I can do for you.

 * All the best,
 * Matthew Amt, Legio XX

Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica on article Wikipedia:
 * Wikipedia uses a collaborative software known as wiki that facilitates the creation and development of articles. Although some highly publicized problems have called attention to Wikipedia's editorial process, they have done little to dampen public use of the resource, which is one of the most-visited sites on the Internet.

Articles about Wikipedia on other online encyclopedias

 * The Wikipedia node at Everything2
 * Wikipedia at h2g2

title: Wikipedia:Criticisms