User:William M. Connolley/Whats-wrong-with-wikipedia

Lots of people rant about whats wrong with wikipedia (probably... I wonder who they are?) so I thought I would as well. This page can also function as a sort of to-do list for me.

Science

Wiki isn't brilliant at removing junk science from articles. Most of the climate stuff is fairly clean because I watch it. But here are some examples from elsewhere:

• Gravity - gets fairly poor at section "How curvatures of spacetime simulate gravitational force". I fought this for a bit then gave up - I really don't know GR well enough.

Hmmm... I really ought to have more examples than that if I am to complain. I'll add them as I remember.

Sometimes people get obsessed with a character and build her up too much. The obvious example is Nikola Tesla. I've hacked this down a bit but more is required I'm fairly sure. I rather suspect that some of the dodgy stuff in Albert Einstein - the over emphasis on Mileva - is part of this.

The science/philosophy interface can be a problem too... see the slow motion train crash that is scientific method. Or some of free will. But I don't have much time for philosophers so perhaps its just my bias showing.

Misc

The Michael Crichton article probably comes into the no-personal-research category... which is a problem, on occasion. One of my failures.