Cool Geography Facts

[eaglesrule]

there is a lot to be said about the wisdom of crowds, and wikipedia is a very good example of that. The law of averages is such that it's probably accurate, since things do get caught. But it's really only one piece of the pie, and isn't the be all and end all.

[portisfan24]

Wikipedia is a good place to start. Yes, you, me and the guy down the street can edit most articles, but people watch the edits and correct obvious wrong information.

Case in point - I took it upon myself to deface the Wiki page of my hometown by inserting the sentence, "Fremont is commonly known as 'The Armpit of Nebraska.' " The most "success" I've had doing that is when it lasted about three days before someone changed it. Then there was a battle that lasted about three weeks where I would put that line back in and within a few hours each time it would get taken back out, until some yutz banned me from editing the page for 30 days.

So yes, you can find erroneous information there, but for the most part it's reasonably legit. But you should always use a second reference other than Wikipedia itself.



And just so you all know, Fremont really is the armpit of Nebraska. It's a crappy little town that I'm glad I don't have to live in anymore.

I too have felt the wrath of some Wikipedia dork that resulted in a block. All I did was go to my hometown's page, delete all the information about our local sports teams and replace it with information about my beer-league road hockey team. Apparently he didn't find it as funny as I did.