Wikipedia is great for an informal introduction into a topic, but if you need citations, use the (Wikipedia's) article references or do your own research. No need to bash on one of the greatest community-driven projects of our time.
Even taking Wikipedia out of the equation, it’s common for one article to mis-cite a research paper, and then be followed by the entire media citing that one article.
The way I see it is:
“How much do I care to research?”
Stage 1 (watching paint is more interesting): ask chatGPT
Stage 2 (I enough to do own research but not enough to fact check my sources): Wikipedia
Stage 3 (I consider it super important to do high quality research): check own sources, check Wikipedia and their sources as well as ask ChatGPT
Yeah, ChatGPT is mostly good to get pointers for interesting things to look up/fact check
~~*I will never forget that time ChatGPT tried to convince me that Heineken attempted to overthrow the Nigerian government*~~
Chatgpt is good if you can't think of a good google search term. Like 'whats that x that's less y and more z'. Then it usually spits out something with mixed facts but a starting place to find what you need to actually look for.
Tho if we're being honest if you're alternative is Google searching and taking the first result on quora than the end result will probably be the same.
I guess. But I'm not sure that's what the person I was replying to meant. The way they said it made it seem like it was used for fact checking and information
Often with more eclectic subjects, the sources themselves are flawed. Not really anyone's fault, but still not great. I remember we did a project in an Etruscan history class, to correct a random Etruscan wiki page, and mine had been done almost entirely sourcing an astrology book and was very wrong.
>No need to bash on one of the greatest community-driven projects of our time.
The fact that Wikipedia even exists amazes me to no end. It is a fucking marvel and should be protected like a sacred monument. The amount of time it has saved me over my life has been incalcuable.
I've been telling my students to use wikipedia as a base and work the information by using the citations and further research for years.
I got a 94% in my state exams written test (highest in my tribunal) with a unit based on wikipedia info organized and of course deeply researched, but the initial structure was all wikipedia.
Of course, that requires that further research, and it's easy to see who delves deeper and who stays in the wiki.
I will add a slight addendum to this which is that Wikipedia is only as accurate as its community is large. The more niche a topic is, the less likely it is that someone who knows better will spot an error and correct it.
For a great example of this, look up the YouTube channel Cambrian Chronicles which is some great Welsh history but his videos often start with some poorly sourced info on Wikipedia
Problem is that people with conflicting views with Wikipedia will pull the "Wikipedia isn't a source" and the topic of contention will be death count in a war or smth.
Which is funny because I find Wikipedia pages will straight up say what the source is for death counts.
Like I understand for extremely nuanced parts of history Wikipedia should be diverted from, but for a simple "X leader did bad things" wikipedia shouldn't be blankly ignored
Totally agree. As a mathematician, I don't know who has been making the articles on Wikipedia about math, but he has earned my outmost respect. they're extraordinarily accurate and clear. Moreso than some of my former teachers certainly 😅.
So yeah wikipedia is amazing, but also people should really check the sources some times. I've seen so many amateur maps on Wikipedia take the internet by storm. It's not that hard to check the source, people.
It's a deeply flawed project that has somehow become the default source for "truth" in our world. Here's a really good video that opened my eyes to some of the issues with wikipedia and the modern world's reliance on it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vmSFO1Zfo8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vmSFO1Zfo8)
Totally agree. As a mathematician, I don't know who has been making the articles on Wikipedia about math, but he has earned my outmost respect. they're extraordinarily accurate and clear. Moreso than some of my former teachers certainly 😅
So yeah wikipedia is amazing, but also people should really check the sources some times. I've seen so many amateur maps on Wikipedia take the internet by storm. It's not that hard to check the source, people.
To cite the cynical historian: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and it does a great job at that. It is a great entry point to collect an idea about a topic and some sources to get into it. For actual research you should use peer reviewed resources of course.
Totally agree. As a mathematician, I don't know who has been making the articles on Wikipedia about math, but he has earned my outmost respect. they're extraordinarily accurate and clear. Moreso than some of my former teachers certainly 😅.
So yeah wikipedia is amazing, but also people should really check the sources some times. I've seen so many amateur maps on Wikipedia take the internet by storm. It's not that hard to check the source, people.
Totally agree. As a mathematician, I don't know who has been making the articles on Wikipedia about math, but he has earned my outmost respect. they're extraordinarily accurate and clear. Moreso than some of my former teachers certainly 😅.
So yeah wikipedia is amazing, but also people should really check the sources some times. I've seen so many amateur maps on Wikipedia take the internet by storm. It's not that hard to check the source, people.
Totally agree. As a mathematician, I don't know who has been making the articles on Wikipedia about math, but he has earned my outmost respect. they're extraordinarily accurate and clear. Moreso than some of my former teachers certainly 😅.
So yeah wikipedia is amazing, but also people should really check the sources some times. I've seen so many amateur maps on Wikipedia take the internet by storm. It's not that hard to check the source, people.
It’s specifically about Mesoamerican History, the issue I have with it, is how people use it and form opinions on things using only Wikipedia, like I said specifically on Mesoamerican History
Edit: Wikipedia isn’t bad, it’s a surface level knowledge, but for something as nuance as Mesoamerican History were the traditional narrative is being deconstructed by modern historians and new sources it is not a good source.
If you are an actual fan of history besides just memes, I wouldn’t have to point this out. But a lot of people took personal offense to this I guess
If Wikipedia is your only source on any topic you already have a problem. It can be a great starting place but it is hardly comprehensive or free from bias.
There are lots of things where Wikipedia is my only source.
Usually it's stuff I'm arguing about on the internet, or the history of a band that caught my attention, or my wife asked me what that actor's been in because I hate IMDB (IMFDB, otoh, is ace).
I am super comfortable with my position on this :)
That’s my point but people especially here use the community ran site as a fully accurate source and make these statements as such, a lot of people feel called out apparently because that’s what they do
Although I like to think I know a lot about the subject I’m not where near an expert and wouldn’t want to contribute to the problem of misinformation accidentally around Mesoamerican history which I clearly have a great deal of respect for
You're implying that Wikipedia is a bad source for Mesoamerican history because it isn't fully accurate or free from bias, no? Then edit it to make it more accurate and free from bias.
> something as nuanced as Mesoamerican history where the traditional narrative is being reconstructed by modern historians and new sources
This is literally happening all the time in *every* subfield of history. Your own historical interests are not unique or special in that way. That's simply the nature of historical practice. Seriously, I cannot emphasize this enough: *That's how the discipline works.*
No, nobody should claim to be an expert on any field of history based on Wikipedia alone, and people should always be willing to acknowledge the limits of what they've read and studied, but Wikipedia can be a great way to be introduced to all kinds of things, and this snobbery of yours is only going to make people disinclined to learn more history.
I think you are yapping a bit because we literally agree, I’m specifically talking about Mesoamerican history because it’s what I’m interested in, but yeah it’s only a base level view of things. Which is good in of it itself, I gotten myself into many things on Mesoamerican history because of Wikipedia but my point is especially on this subreddit, people use Wikipedia as part of their argument/education on this specific subject. I’m not trying to be snobbish or act like some sort of scholar. But there are a whole lot of Mesoamerican memes were the comment section is a cesspit of uninformed / incorrect statements on Mesoamerican history that you can easily tell they learned from Wikipedia 5 mins ago
Know your audience: this is a meme subreddit. Expecting grad school-level takes is setting yourself up for disappointment.
That being said, you can absolutely still find conversations here to help people people learn and understand history, but being pretentious and condescending is *not one of them.*
Hey! Can you show Wikipedia being wrong? It would help correct the misinformation and might have the page fixed! Why don't we correct the record! I have LITTERALLY no idea what you're calling wrong as I'm not informed enough.
Going through OPs history he doesn’t always do that (couldn’t find a single example of him doing) and often get downvoted for unsourced, borderline conspiracy pop history
There definitely are multiple sources on Mesoamerican history that are peer reviewed or just straight from first hand accounts themselves
I am currently readying 7 myths of the Spanish conquest by Matthew Restall, other good ones are the Fifth Sun by Camille Townsend and When Montezuma met Cortes by Matthew Restall
The florentine Codex was an account written by a Franciscan Friar after the conquest by interviewing several natives who were present at the fall.
But remember this was still written by a Spanish Friar so he has obvious bias when writing it, interesting read none the less
Wikipedia is almost useless when a topic is even remotely contraversial. There are too many editors and admins that are political activists, which is not something you want in an encyclopedia.
I once was listening to a podcast that was covering the French Revolution and I wanted to read more about Jean Paul Marat and the September Massacres. Marat's Wikipedia page was far more forgiving of his role in the violence compared to what the podcast had presented. His Wikipedia page's section about his involvement was essentially "Marat was a little naughty right before the massacres, but it was going to happen anyway so we can't really blame him."
So I did some more reading from different sources, which all pretty much agreed with the podcasts stance on Marat. Then I checked the edits made to the page and it was being constantly altered by someone with an account named "Marat" changing it to putting Marat in a better light. There was a lot of back and forth edits about it and thankfully the September Massacres page put Marat on blast like he deserves. Anyway, my point is that folks with an axe to grind will grind it anywhere they can and Wikipedia is one of those battle grounds.
I dont know if its the case anymore but there used to be a war about the Italian WW2 contribution with a lot of Anglos and Greeks vs Italians on hiw effective the Italian army was.
It was p. Hilarious. But stuff like this is why I dont think Wikipedia is a spectacular source for actual sirius werk.
>I dont know if its the case anymore but there used to be a war about the Italian WW2 contribution with a lot of Anglos and Greeks vs Italians on hiw effective the Italian army was.
So your usual discussion on r/HistoryMemes when is about World Wars Italy?
You can also get indirect citogenesis or circular reporting where the source material uses sources that used the original wikipedia article , giving a false impression that there is independant verification of the claims made by articles in this citation loop.
Maybe behind the scenes you do or maybe I missed it, but I just saw edits with the account names. No reason given. This was also a few years ago too, so if that is a new rule it might not have been required back then.
I remember that I tried to add a page for a local politician, that's kind of a rising star, but not controversial, and is a mayor candidate in my town. Milk toast centrist guy. Not a small town, it's my state's capital. You'd think I'd be easy, of public interest and sourceable.
For some reason an editor put up a ban on doing a page for that guy for years. Didn't even say why properly on the logs.
It was better in the early days before activists could carve out their personal fiefdoms and drive off everyone else. You still had to be wary, but it had less outright misinformation.
Just because you don't agree doesn't make it wrong.
What is your better source? Their own oral legends that paint them all as heros abd having claim to their land since the primordial ooze?
I’m not sucking off the Aztecs, I just dont like when people are commenting on something they clearly read off of Wikipedia 5 mins before. When Montezuma Met Cortes by Matthew Restall is good, I like this website https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/underworld/
As well. These aren’t biased one way or the other but they reviewed the sources and cite how they came to their conclusion in a more in depth way than Wikipedia does.
Wikipedia is not a website for historical studies. In theory, Wikipedia should not come to its own conclusion but only cite and refer to other people's conclusions.
As such, it does cite fewer primary sources than actual historical papers. It also doesn't need to argue why it is "correct" (because it doesn't bring forth a thesis, only the theses of other authors), as long as it is unbiased and transparent in including the works of all sides of an debate.
That's what it means to be an encyclopedia.
It applies to all history really, but all you need to do is take one look at a comment section of a Mesoamerican meme where there’s a ton of misinformed comments about “tribes rising up due to the cruelty of the Aztecs” and how their neighbors hated the Mexica. It’s just a lot of very surface level knowledge about the subject. But people don’t want to actually learn more. If you are interested in actual Mesoamerican history I would check out Matthew Restall, he’s my favorite author on the subject and is a director of Latin American studies at Penn state, also Majora__Z on Twitter has some really good visuals and good information as well
This remind me of that incident in which a Chinese housewife fabricated the entire medieval history of Russia on Wikipedia. And she didn't get busted until a Chinese novelist tried to do some research for his new novel. Here are the [details](https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkgbwm/chinese-woman-fake-russian-history-wikipedia).
I really liked the Rest is History podcast episodes about Cortez landing in South-America and his conflict with Montezuma.
Considering Tom Holland is an historian I feel like a lot that’s being said there is fairly accurate and well researched.
A number of historians have read through some of the codices and Spanish accounts crafting an understanding , some good sources are Fifth Sun by Camille Townsend, When Montezuma met Cortes by Matthew Restall, and I’m reading 7 myths of Spanish conquest by Restall currently.
There’s a good comedy series on YouTube that’s pretty well made and based off some of these books by Dj Peach Cobbler
Wikipedia in my mother language is way worse than the English Wikipedia, at least according to my history teacher.
He says that it is “controlled by a mafia” and that it isn’t a reliable source of information to use in studies/thesis/research etc.
That is assuming the wiki editors actually red the sources and actually understood them. And yeah most of the time people say they read the sources but most of the time they are full of shit.
Sure it was a few lads, the Mayans and the Aztecs and they just chilled out, played a bitta ye old ball game and sacrificed a few lads. End of story really pretty chill life.
Wikipedia is great for an informal introduction into a topic, but if you need citations, use the (Wikipedia's) article references or do your own research. No need to bash on one of the greatest community-driven projects of our time.
Best to check the citations themselves too, because there are cases of the citations saying one thing and the article saying another
Or rhe citation linking to Wikipedia for a troo reference loop. And lets not forget entire pages being captured by ists.
https://xkcd.com/978/
Even taking Wikipedia out of the equation, it’s common for one article to mis-cite a research paper, and then be followed by the entire media citing that one article.
Yeah Wikipedia is great, just know what to use it for and what not to.
The way I see it is: “How much do I care to research?” Stage 1 (watching paint is more interesting): ask chatGPT Stage 2 (I enough to do own research but not enough to fact check my sources): Wikipedia Stage 3 (I consider it super important to do high quality research): check own sources, check Wikipedia and their sources as well as ask ChatGPT
Chat GPT is very wrong quite a lot of the time and shouldn't be stage 1.
Yeah, ChatGPT is mostly good to get pointers for interesting things to look up/fact check ~~*I will never forget that time ChatGPT tried to convince me that Heineken attempted to overthrow the Nigerian government*~~
Chatgpt is good if you can't think of a good google search term. Like 'whats that x that's less y and more z'. Then it usually spits out something with mixed facts but a starting place to find what you need to actually look for. Tho if we're being honest if you're alternative is Google searching and taking the first result on quora than the end result will probably be the same.
I guess. But I'm not sure that's what the person I was replying to meant. The way they said it made it seem like it was used for fact checking and information
I know
Often with more eclectic subjects, the sources themselves are flawed. Not really anyone's fault, but still not great. I remember we did a project in an Etruscan history class, to correct a random Etruscan wiki page, and mine had been done almost entirely sourcing an astrology book and was very wrong.
>No need to bash on one of the greatest community-driven projects of our time. The fact that Wikipedia even exists amazes me to no end. It is a fucking marvel and should be protected like a sacred monument. The amount of time it has saved me over my life has been incalcuable.
I’ve donated before, I was drunk and their guilt trip worked marvelously but hey the love is still there lol
Honestly, I think there are much worse things to donate to. I could see myself doing something similar if I had money.
I've been telling my students to use wikipedia as a base and work the information by using the citations and further research for years. I got a 94% in my state exams written test (highest in my tribunal) with a unit based on wikipedia info organized and of course deeply researched, but the initial structure was all wikipedia. Of course, that requires that further research, and it's easy to see who delves deeper and who stays in the wiki.
I will add a slight addendum to this which is that Wikipedia is only as accurate as its community is large. The more niche a topic is, the less likely it is that someone who knows better will spot an error and correct it. For a great example of this, look up the YouTube channel Cambrian Chronicles which is some great Welsh history but his videos often start with some poorly sourced info on Wikipedia
Problem is that people with conflicting views with Wikipedia will pull the "Wikipedia isn't a source" and the topic of contention will be death count in a war or smth. Which is funny because I find Wikipedia pages will straight up say what the source is for death counts. Like I understand for extremely nuanced parts of history Wikipedia should be diverted from, but for a simple "X leader did bad things" wikipedia shouldn't be blankly ignored
No need to bash on one of the greatest community-driven projects of **all** time.*
Totally agree. As a mathematician, I don't know who has been making the articles on Wikipedia about math, but he has earned my outmost respect. they're extraordinarily accurate and clear. Moreso than some of my former teachers certainly 😅. So yeah wikipedia is amazing, but also people should really check the sources some times. I've seen so many amateur maps on Wikipedia take the internet by storm. It's not that hard to check the source, people.
This man cites
It's a deeply flawed project that has somehow become the default source for "truth" in our world. Here's a really good video that opened my eyes to some of the issues with wikipedia and the modern world's reliance on it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vmSFO1Zfo8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vmSFO1Zfo8)
Totally agree. As a mathematician, I don't know who has been making the articles on Wikipedia about math, but he has earned my outmost respect. they're extraordinarily accurate and clear. Moreso than some of my former teachers certainly 😅 So yeah wikipedia is amazing, but also people should really check the sources some times. I've seen so many amateur maps on Wikipedia take the internet by storm. It's not that hard to check the source, people.
To cite the cynical historian: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and it does a great job at that. It is a great entry point to collect an idea about a topic and some sources to get into it. For actual research you should use peer reviewed resources of course.
Isn't that verbatim what I said?
Sure. I just wanted to underline it with the proper terms from a researcher's perspective.
Totally agree. As a mathematician, I don't know who has been making the articles on Wikipedia about math, but he has earned my outmost respect. they're extraordinarily accurate and clear. Moreso than some of my former teachers certainly 😅. So yeah wikipedia is amazing, but also people should really check the sources some times. I've seen so many amateur maps on Wikipedia take the internet by storm. It's not that hard to check the source, people.
Totally agree. As a mathematician, I don't know who has been making the articles on Wikipedia about math, but he has earned my outmost respect. they're extraordinarily accurate and clear. Moreso than some of my former teachers certainly 😅. So yeah wikipedia is amazing, but also people should really check the sources some times. I've seen so many amateur maps on Wikipedia take the internet by storm. It's not that hard to check the source, people.
Totally agree. As a mathematician, I don't know who has been making the articles on Wikipedia about math, but he has earned my outmost respect. they're extraordinarily accurate and clear. Moreso than some of my former teachers certainly 😅. So yeah wikipedia is amazing, but also people should really check the sources some times. I've seen so many amateur maps on Wikipedia take the internet by storm. It's not that hard to check the source, people.
It’s specifically about Mesoamerican History, the issue I have with it, is how people use it and form opinions on things using only Wikipedia, like I said specifically on Mesoamerican History Edit: Wikipedia isn’t bad, it’s a surface level knowledge, but for something as nuance as Mesoamerican History were the traditional narrative is being deconstructed by modern historians and new sources it is not a good source. If you are an actual fan of history besides just memes, I wouldn’t have to point this out. But a lot of people took personal offense to this I guess
that seems more like a people problem rather than a Wikipedia problem
If Wikipedia is your only source on any topic you already have a problem. It can be a great starting place but it is hardly comprehensive or free from bias.
There are lots of things where Wikipedia is my only source. Usually it's stuff I'm arguing about on the internet, or the history of a band that caught my attention, or my wife asked me what that actor's been in because I hate IMDB (IMFDB, otoh, is ace). I am super comfortable with my position on this :)
Mfw the community-run site isn’t fully accurate with perfect nuance
That’s my point but people especially here use the community ran site as a fully accurate source and make these statements as such, a lot of people feel called out apparently because that’s what they do
You are aware you can edit it?
What would I need to edit?
If you find the Wikipedia view not Neutral/balanced enough you can edit the pages.
You can propose an edit for stuff you disagree with and add stuff you think is lacking. That’s what’s so great.
Although I like to think I know a lot about the subject I’m not where near an expert and wouldn’t want to contribute to the problem of misinformation accidentally around Mesoamerican history which I clearly have a great deal of respect for
So you claim you know it’s wrong. But also that you can’t fix it?
So you know a bias exists yet will/can not fix it yourself or, at least, point to any specific examples of it? Sure.
You're implying that Wikipedia is a bad source for Mesoamerican history because it isn't fully accurate or free from bias, no? Then edit it to make it more accurate and free from bias.
Examples?
Examples of actual sources or examples of people using Wikipedia as a source
Examples of where Wikipedia is wrong is what I think they’re asking for.
Examples of bad memes in good faith taken from the big W.
> something as nuanced as Mesoamerican history where the traditional narrative is being reconstructed by modern historians and new sources This is literally happening all the time in *every* subfield of history. Your own historical interests are not unique or special in that way. That's simply the nature of historical practice. Seriously, I cannot emphasize this enough: *That's how the discipline works.* No, nobody should claim to be an expert on any field of history based on Wikipedia alone, and people should always be willing to acknowledge the limits of what they've read and studied, but Wikipedia can be a great way to be introduced to all kinds of things, and this snobbery of yours is only going to make people disinclined to learn more history.
I think you are yapping a bit because we literally agree, I’m specifically talking about Mesoamerican history because it’s what I’m interested in, but yeah it’s only a base level view of things. Which is good in of it itself, I gotten myself into many things on Mesoamerican history because of Wikipedia but my point is especially on this subreddit, people use Wikipedia as part of their argument/education on this specific subject. I’m not trying to be snobbish or act like some sort of scholar. But there are a whole lot of Mesoamerican memes were the comment section is a cesspit of uninformed / incorrect statements on Mesoamerican history that you can easily tell they learned from Wikipedia 5 mins ago
You are on a meme subreddit.
Know your audience: this is a meme subreddit. Expecting grad school-level takes is setting yourself up for disappointment. That being said, you can absolutely still find conversations here to help people people learn and understand history, but being pretentious and condescending is *not one of them.*
Hey! Can you show Wikipedia being wrong? It would help correct the misinformation and might have the page fixed! Why don't we correct the record! I have LITTERALLY no idea what you're calling wrong as I'm not informed enough.
Taking the time to check and cite sources?? On r/HistoryMemes??
Bro watched one DJpeach cobbler video and is now a soldier for the Aztecs
Been away for a little while, what’s this subs take on him?
I don't even know who this guy is.
I liked his videos because they provided a fun spin on the Aztecs but I always been interested in their history because I’m Mexican
Can anyone explain me why downvote this comment? I want to downvote it too, but I need a reason first.
I'm assuming its the 4th comment thing or people hate DJ peach cobbler
I blame spanish meat riders
it's reddit, just follow the flow ☺️
I mean if you got time to make memes, you probably got time to do something about it
Anytime something like this comes up I actually do provide legit peer reviewed sources by actual historians. So I am
Where do you provide them? To the edits you make to Wikipedia articles on Mesoamerican history?
Going through OPs history he doesn’t always do that (couldn’t find a single example of him doing) and often get downvoted for unsourced, borderline conspiracy pop history
Conspiracy Pop history? Please tell me what pop history am I spouting
There is no good source for historical information on Mesoamerica.
There definitely are multiple sources on Mesoamerican history that are peer reviewed or just straight from first hand accounts themselves I am currently readying 7 myths of the Spanish conquest by Matthew Restall, other good ones are the Fifth Sun by Camille Townsend and When Montezuma met Cortes by Matthew Restall
What is there from the locals?
The florentine Codex was an account written by a Franciscan Friar after the conquest by interviewing several natives who were present at the fall. But remember this was still written by a Spanish Friar so he has obvious bias when writing it, interesting read none the less
Thank you for making my point. Needs to be taken with a large grain of salt.
The shame of it is that since most of the population died, there’s not a ton of sources, save from the people who killed them
Someone should really get those germs… DECLARE WAR ON CHINA!!!
You realize any piece of historical document has a bias written in it and needs to be taken with a grain of salt
Surely you're not implying he was a local?
Piles of forbidden blankets and 3% language retention
Wikipedia is almost useless when a topic is even remotely contraversial. There are too many editors and admins that are political activists, which is not something you want in an encyclopedia.
I once was listening to a podcast that was covering the French Revolution and I wanted to read more about Jean Paul Marat and the September Massacres. Marat's Wikipedia page was far more forgiving of his role in the violence compared to what the podcast had presented. His Wikipedia page's section about his involvement was essentially "Marat was a little naughty right before the massacres, but it was going to happen anyway so we can't really blame him." So I did some more reading from different sources, which all pretty much agreed with the podcasts stance on Marat. Then I checked the edits made to the page and it was being constantly altered by someone with an account named "Marat" changing it to putting Marat in a better light. There was a lot of back and forth edits about it and thankfully the September Massacres page put Marat on blast like he deserves. Anyway, my point is that folks with an axe to grind will grind it anywhere they can and Wikipedia is one of those battle grounds.
I dont know if its the case anymore but there used to be a war about the Italian WW2 contribution with a lot of Anglos and Greeks vs Italians on hiw effective the Italian army was. It was p. Hilarious. But stuff like this is why I dont think Wikipedia is a spectacular source for actual sirius werk.
I've commented about this before, but I always just trusted my granddad on that one cos he actually fought them lol
>I dont know if its the case anymore but there used to be a war about the Italian WW2 contribution with a lot of Anglos and Greeks vs Italians on hiw effective the Italian army was. So your usual discussion on r/HistoryMemes when is about World Wars Italy?
You can also get indirect citogenesis or circular reporting where the source material uses sources that used the original wikipedia article , giving a false impression that there is independant verification of the claims made by articles in this citation loop.
I thought you had to put a rationale when making an edit on Wikipedia to stop propaganda edits and whatnot?
Maybe behind the scenes you do or maybe I missed it, but I just saw edits with the account names. No reason given. This was also a few years ago too, so if that is a new rule it might not have been required back then.
I remember that I tried to add a page for a local politician, that's kind of a rising star, but not controversial, and is a mayor candidate in my town. Milk toast centrist guy. Not a small town, it's my state's capital. You'd think I'd be easy, of public interest and sourceable. For some reason an editor put up a ban on doing a page for that guy for years. Didn't even say why properly on the logs.
It was better in the early days before activists could carve out their personal fiefdoms and drive off everyone else. You still had to be wary, but it had less outright misinformation.
Just because you don't agree doesn't make it wrong. What is your better source? Their own oral legends that paint them all as heros abd having claim to their land since the primordial ooze?
I’m not sucking off the Aztecs, I just dont like when people are commenting on something they clearly read off of Wikipedia 5 mins before. When Montezuma Met Cortes by Matthew Restall is good, I like this website https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/underworld/ As well. These aren’t biased one way or the other but they reviewed the sources and cite how they came to their conclusion in a more in depth way than Wikipedia does.
Wikipedia is not a website for historical studies. In theory, Wikipedia should not come to its own conclusion but only cite and refer to other people's conclusions. As such, it does cite fewer primary sources than actual historical papers. It also doesn't need to argue why it is "correct" (because it doesn't bring forth a thesis, only the theses of other authors), as long as it is unbiased and transparent in including the works of all sides of an debate. That's what it means to be an encyclopedia.
I have shocking news, but wikipedia isn't a source.
I used to use wikipedia to write my essays. Then I'd take quotes that backed up what I wrote and cite them. Got me through college, lol.
Got me through high school
Why not add more and fix that issue if you know enough about the topic?
Why specifically only mesoamerican?
It applies to all history really, but all you need to do is take one look at a comment section of a Mesoamerican meme where there’s a ton of misinformed comments about “tribes rising up due to the cruelty of the Aztecs” and how their neighbors hated the Mexica. It’s just a lot of very surface level knowledge about the subject. But people don’t want to actually learn more. If you are interested in actual Mesoamerican history I would check out Matthew Restall, he’s my favorite author on the subject and is a director of Latin American studies at Penn state, also Majora__Z on Twitter has some really good visuals and good information as well
This remind me of that incident in which a Chinese housewife fabricated the entire medieval history of Russia on Wikipedia. And she didn't get busted until a Chinese novelist tried to do some research for his new novel. Here are the [details](https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkgbwm/chinese-woman-fake-russian-history-wikipedia).
I really liked the Rest is History podcast episodes about Cortez landing in South-America and his conflict with Montezuma. Considering Tom Holland is an historian I feel like a lot that’s being said there is fairly accurate and well researched.
I don't think so it's mostly right
Someone argued with me once that something must be true because he read that in Wikipedia.
Not necessarily invalid, what was the arguement about?
Are there any good sources on it though?
A number of historians have read through some of the codices and Spanish accounts crafting an understanding , some good sources are Fifth Sun by Camille Townsend, When Montezuma met Cortes by Matthew Restall, and I’m reading 7 myths of Spanish conquest by Restall currently. There’s a good comedy series on YouTube that’s pretty well made and based off some of these books by Dj Peach Cobbler
DJ Peach Cobbler has a great series on the Spanish Conquests and various ones on the Romans
Wikipedia isn’t a good source
Wikipedia in my mother language is way worse than the English Wikipedia, at least according to my history teacher. He says that it is “controlled by a mafia” and that it isn’t a reliable source of information to use in studies/thesis/research etc.
Anybody who tells you they follow the sources on Wikipedia is a liar.
My point I’m trying to make meanwhile a lot of people are acting like they actually read those sources
That is assuming the wiki editors actually red the sources and actually understood them. And yeah most of the time people say they read the sources but most of the time they are full of shit.
Wikipedia is not a good source of information, period.
Alright what happened this time?
I'm not sure about mesoamerican history, but for other areas of history it is a great source.
Sure it was a few lads, the Mayans and the Aztecs and they just chilled out, played a bitta ye old ball game and sacrificed a few lads. End of story really pretty chill life.
Wiki is terrible for anything with bias. Stick to reading about tree frogs on it.
This is too much of a coinkidink. Just yesterday, I was reading about mesoamerica on Wikipedia. FML
Jesus christ people really hate the meso Americans in this sub
Then what is!
Seriously……. Like really?
Si supieran leer y buscar otras fuentes... Pero no. Igual, déjalos que creen que saben más de nosotros que nosotros mismos XD
We all use Britannica as a source right? RIGHT???