I would like to stress that the wikipedia is an unreliable source of information because a majority gets the final word, in stead of an educated individual with proper sources. The wikipedia is nice to get a general idea (and even that is sometimes too much to expect), but usually worthless if you are looking for a good insight. Uneducated people usually have not read the cited sources and misquote often by using google books for instance. If indeed they would read the whole page their quote is on they would usually understand that the quote is inappropriate. However, this is usually too much to ask of the great majority.
The wikipedia entry a “load of crap”? Have you actually read it? Anyway, I beg to differ. As I said, it is a well-balanced text, written by many different people who all seem to be very educated and knowledgeable about the subject. If you don’t believe me, just have a look at the “talk page” of the article, where those contributors discuss about the proper definition of “morality”, “amorality” and “immorality”. Mustering incredible patience and showing deep insight they succeed in preventing another “user” from making unsound changes to the article. I mean, they wouldn’t have been able to do that if they didn’t know their stuff.
Having looked at the discussion, I see one user trying to prevent unsound changes. That user had trouble finding the proper sources, but presented the sources eventually. The other, SEEMING educated parties presented unsound sources, which can be seen by actually READING the sources. All sources point to the fallacy of the change. So, what happened was that a group of people, who can be proven (by checking their user history and their words) not to have been involved with the wikipedia, nor morality studies ever before, changed a solid article into a mockery of itself, seemingly only to harass a specific user who was interested in improving the article. Strange that you, like all of those users who used unsound sources and had never before been interested in the wikipedia and morality, seem to think that the denial and misquoting of sources is an improvement. If anything, especially the distinctions made between morality, immorality and amorality made prove the fallacy of the changes made.
So, why do you think this is solid information, while what is presented is easily refuted on a linguistic basis and by checking the sources? Why do you use sophistries to ‘prove’ your claim that it is ‘solid’ information like that THE MAJORITY was in favor of this, being FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, claiming it to be WELL-BALANCED, while the intro is as subjective as they come, claim people SEEM to be eductaed and knowledgeable, while actually reading the sources proves they are not? The article was vandalised by that majority, while that one user was trying to restore the undisputed version?
I mean, they wouldn’t have been able to do that if they had actually checked what they were saying, or cared about it…or even checked the history of the discussion…
You are wrong, petit objet a. Standing up for the underdog can be a laudable impulse, but considering his inadequate knowledge as well as his arrogant, disparaging discussion style, this particular underdog forfeited the privilege of being defended. He tried to impose his own extremely subjective and biased views on the matter, while all the others did everything they possibly could to preserve the high quality of the article. Moreover, his grammar and writing style were so atrocious as to be simply incomprehensible in a few instances.
Anyway, we tend to take it for granted, but wikipedia really is a great project.
I would appreciate the of topic posts to be removed. This includes all three posts of ‘stalling nerd’ since all three posts of ‘stalling nerd’ concern only ad hominen remarks and are in no way related to any argument in favor or against voting. This request includes this post.
This is hardly a fair account of the actual facts. I replied on topic to another board member’s post about ethics and morality, and decided to add a short reference to the wikipedia entry on morality, which I happen to like and which I thought might be of some relevance. At that point objet petit a came in with two longish off topic post, calling the wikipedia entry a ‘load of crap’ and the people who wrote it ‘unschooled hordes’. But okay, let’s call it quits.