Proof positive that Wikipedia doesn't always get the best calibre of submitter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_action_heroes
But not for the reason you think!
Male action heroes and Female "action heroes"?!
What?? Honestly, sexism is alive and well as proved above.
Everyone who knows me knows I could/would talk underwater if I had to but this made me speechless.
So I turned to the ever-patient Lifeless and sputtered out my disgust.
Hence my complaint to Wikipedia directly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_action_heroes) and to you who may read this blog.
...And then I read who had set up the page.
(Copied verbatim)
WikiProject Gender Studies (Rated list-Class)
This article is part of WikiProject Gender Studies. This WikiProject aims to improve the quality of articles dealing with gender studies and to remove systematic gender bias from Wikipedia. If you would like to participate in the project, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.
Uh huh. I get it. The comments on this page are bait. And I fell for it. Drat.
But if they wanted a reaction, well they got one. But only one it seems! So either no one else has picked it up, or they did and took up the offer to edit the page without comment, or no-one has seen this page at all (highly likely).
Personally I find this heavy-handed attitude towards Wikipedia readers as off-putting as the implied sexism.
If it's a test or for information gathering I really think the page should come with a caveat on the top of it (THIS IS A PROJECT PIECE AND NOT AN ACTUAL ARTICLE) would be a great start.
I don't feel comfortable using Wikipedia again for a little bit now because being stung by a page that is not legitimate makes me question what other misdirection and/or misleading information Wikipedia will allow.
I had thought to edit the page myself, however since it is obviously BAIT that means whoever is running this scam will change my edit back. Which in itself raises a whole mess of issues (for example does that mean my edit, even though requested, is less important or valid than the page controller's? And doesn't that then defeat one of the original purposes of Wikipedia?)
So instead I'm going to request the page be marked for deletion instead.
Don't be annoying the Bear!
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)