History according to WikiAnswers
I’m going to rename my blog. I’m going to call it “Stupid things I’ve found on WikiAnswers”. They have a motto over there “There are no stupid questions”. I used to believe this… before I began looking around W/A. After reading a number of the answers I’ve given up on that faint hope.
Now don’t get me wrong, there are great people over there that labour valiantly against the tide of illiteracy, ignorance and arrogance. Unfortunately a few of the worse offenders of misinformation are the supervisors themselves. Sometimes there is a hint of the truth buried in the details of their answers which gives the answers a air of legitimacy. But bad information is still bad, no matter how hard you try to twist the facts to fit your personal take on history. I write this primarily as a cautionary tale for people to be careful where you get your information. Have faith, but not in what you find on the Internet.
I had a running battle with one of the supervisors over the origins of baseball and for the final time “NO ABNER DOUBLEDAY DID NOT INVENT IT!!” The first documented game occurred in Beachville, Ontario on June 4, 1838 long before Doubleday came on the scene. But this supervisor relentlessly posts it was good ole’ Abner despite being shown evidence this was a fiction that no baseball historian believes.
This self-confessed historian also insisted that the participants in the Boston Tea Party were “Smugglers of Dutch tea. They didn’t like it because the British had lowered the tax on tea and would cost them money.” I can’t even begin to understand this answer. She repeatedly inserts the tea was too cheap argument into answers. High school history was a couple of decades ago, but if memory serves me, it was high taxes (among a number of other issues) that sparked the Tea Party, not cheap tea. She has this fascinating take on the Revolution, that it was basically a plot by tea smugglers to keep the price of tea artificially inflated to maximise profits. She often calls the smugglers Dutch tea smugglers, which implies the Dutch themselves were involved in the Revolution.
She loves to write answers that are partially correct and erase additional information made by other people. Here is an excellent example:
Who were the Sons of Liberty and Daughters of Liberty?
There was only the Sons of Liberty and they comprised 12 men before the American Revolution.
The answer was partially correct. The words Sons of Liberty and the American Revolution were good. Other than that … no. There were Sons and Daughters of Liberty, their existence is well documented.
She isn’t content to tamper with just American history, she revises … well … just about every bit of history:
Where did the medieval people get clothes?
Here answer was: Clothing was made by hand either from wool or linen. Most people wore a wool tunic in the Roman fashion.
This is partially correct. But it doesn’t deal with nobility. Someone added much more detail but she erased it. So now we have people wandering around thinking Kings and peasants wore the same clothing.
What were medieval teachers called?
There weren’t schools or teachers in the middle ages. So, they weren’t called anything. About 90% of the population couldn’t read or write.
Well, I guess that answers that. Just don’t tell any of the Universities that were formed during the Medieval period. She is correct about the illiteracy, but to erase centuries of intellectual history because you don’t either pick up a book or use Google to verify your statement, is baffling. A quick search on the Internet called up dozens of credible links dealing with the history of Medieval Universities.
What kind of animals would be killed in a middle ages butcher shop?
There was no butcher shop and people caught or grew the animals that they killed. You have to remember there was no good method to keep meat fresh, so it was killed and eaten the same day. Types of meat eaten were beef, lamb, goat, chicken, fowl of all sorts, hare, rabbit, deer, eels, boar, pork.
This isn’t just wrong, it’s nonsense. They ate what they killed the same day? There were methods of preservation and NO people did not eat an entire deer in one day. For the record, butchers have been around a long, long time. Butchers Guilds were formed as early as the 1300′s, with many of the records still around. This was an honoured profession. The guilds broke down butchering into various levels of skill and types of meat/preservation etc required. Yet again, a quick search will take you to pages and pages on the history of the Guild of Butchers.
Did medieval explorers have ships?
There were no middle age explorers. Exploring didn’t start until the late 1400′s.
So much for the Portuguese explorers and Marco Polo. Oh well, they don’t count I guess.
There are pages and pages of this type of nonsense. I make jokes about them, but periodically I become stressed because I know people take the answers as the truth. It’s becoming easier for historical revisionists to rework history, because they have a ready and eager audience who will believe whatever you post on the Internet. Just sound like you know what you are saying and Voila! Instant history remake. The inherent problem with WikiAnswers, it has a large student audience. I shutter to think of some of the homework being handed in. If you have supervisors, the gatekeepers of information, posting nonsense, how can we trust the source.
I think my will to live is being sapped out of me. As I said in a previous post “my pain is your pain”. Here are a random sampling of some of the more ludicrous answers given to legitimate questions. For the record, none of the answers were supplied by my favourite bugaboo supervisor. These are just random folks piping in with their answers.
After ww2 what countries did Russia take over?
none except the country of Georgia and Georgia is free after fighting. East Berlin is still controlled by Russian Government.
Are stasi the secret German police?
The Stasi, known as SS, are the secret German (Nazi) police and bodyguards for Hitler. They were the feared warriors of the Nazis. They had a fighting group that was considered one of the best fighting groups the Allied Forces had ever encountered. They were also called The Waffen SS. The SS would kill a person without provocation. So the general populous really feared them.
Do you want to sigh now? Go ahead, get it out of your system. It will only get worse as you read on.
How were wounded soldiers treated after returning home from world war 1?
Harry Houdini saved money and donated it to help the wounded soldiers after world war I
Actually, I rather liked this answer. It was so, divinely cockeyed. Didn’t answer the question, but it was fun.
WHEN did Russia leave the war war in world war 1?
When the Soviet Union was formed, Russia was to busy capturing small closer nations to make themselves stronger the signed treaty with the Allies and later on allied with Germany. It was until world war 2 when there allies were broken with the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
This was a real potpourri of inaccurate information cloaked in misinformation, hidden under a kernel of truth.
Is religion a big part of england’s people?
… Many claim they are believers but they do little with that belief to the consternation of the spiritual leaders and the Queen of England. She is a very devout and devoted born again Christian.
Elizabeth, born-again Christian? Do you want to call Number 10 and warn them or shall I?
Who did the Germans attack in1939?
The Germans attacked Poland in 1939 then kicked the Poles out of their own country and next he moved his own Germans into Poland. He put the Polish Jews into concentration camps.
Ah that old mistruth cloaked in a kernal of truth. I’m not sure which is worse, the incorrect information or the idea that there is a hint of legitimacy to it that makes it so hard to put down.
Did winston churchill have syphlis?
No, Winston Churchill did not have syphillis. He was a family man and did not contract STDs.
Oh yea, no one has ever, ever cheated on their spouse and brought home an unwanted souvenir from their dalliances. No married man has ever contracted syphillis. Randolph Churchill was supposed to have contracted syphillis although there are some reports that have cast doubt on this.
What year did the Holocaust happen?
1941 until 1945
This is so wrong. So terribly wrong. So very, very wrong. No wonder Holocaust deniers are having a field day. So much misinformation is being passed off as fact, it is making it more difficult to stem the tide of denial.
Be very careful where you get your information from. If you have a child in school, for the love of all education, vet the places they are getting their “facts” from. Check and then triple check the information. Better yet, a quick trip to the library might provide a reliable way of checking the information gathered.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
Banging my forehead on the keyboard for fun & entertainment
Trolling through WikiAnswers again and having a field day with the incoherence of both the questions and answers. I landed there by accident today (for a change) while looking for something else. This caught my eye:
What is the culture of Canada?
Intriqued, I clicked on the link. Here’s the answer: Canadian people mostly eat foods from other places around the world. They mostly eat British foods for their health in Canada.
Oookkkaayy… do you want to correct this or should we just move along and ignore the obvious problems with the answer?
Once I start, it’s like I’m infected with a weird virus. I can’t stop looking and sighing.
Who is the prime minister for Ontario?
The prime minister of Ontario since 2010 is Dalton McGuinty
(For non-Canadians, the term is Premier. Prime Minister is the head of the entire country. Provinces are led by Premiers. Dalton McGuinty was elected October 23, 2003)
What is cranberry capital Ontario canada?
The capitol of Ontario is Toronto.
Erp.. right answer, wrong question. Toronto is the capital of Ontario, but the only cranberries you’ll find are in the grocery stores and on the dinner table. For the record, the answer is Bala, Ontario.
Where did italy settled in Canada?
I read this question to my mum and she just whimpered “Oh god”. I’m hoping the person meant Where did Italians settle in Canada? But you never know.
Why are all Canadians Canadian?
I’m tempted to type in – Because we aren’t Mongolian?
What is the capital of Montreal?
Questions like this make me glad I don’t teach. Oh the answer was correct by the way: Montreal is a city in Quebec. It does not have a capital.
The answer to this question just makes me cry:
How did democracy come to canada?
Democracy came to canada by means of the Domino Theory. The Domino Theory is a theory implemented by Franklin D. Roosevelt which stated that if one country has a type of government, the neighboring countries will change to that government. The U.S had a republic type of government, and Canada watched as the U.S became the world’s superpower.
That has to be the most seriously f*cked up answer I’ve ever read. What makes me cry is the idea some kid cut and pasted this into their homework and believing Canada became a democracy only through US interference. Like I said, I’m glad I don’t teach. It must be crushing to be a teacher sometimes.
Here are a couple of questioners who need geography lessons:
Where does the Mississippi River begin in Canada before it enters the Gulf of Mexico?
What would cause a civil war between Canada and America?
Who has the longest border with the US mexico canada or alaska?
You know, I never knew Alaska was a country. Now that I’ve begun to think about it, Alaska doesn’t even border the US. That pesky country Canada gets in the way. Maybe that will cause the civil war.. no wait Canada and the US are not the same country. Damn there goes the civil war.
Does british columbia use cars?
Some smartass Canadian answered with this: No we use snowmobiles and atvs.
Do giraffes live?
What the answer should be? Nope.. strictly a figment of our imaginations.
This came from another q&a site:
Borde crossing headache?
Is there any other way to go the us beside crossing the borders, i hate the headache, it’s like they looking for Obama in your car, i hate air plan, train is wost, that’s why i drive but its an headache
Do you ever wonder what happened to punctuation? Spelling as well… and coherence … and well clear thinking?
What are some bad points about birds?
Ok make sure it has plenty of water and food. Check both everyday.
Always make sure the bird speaks clearly in bird language of course. (LOL)
If you dont want is flying clip its wings about every 3 to 4 months no often otherwise it will get misable.
Make sure the bird has a wood stick going from one end of the cage to the other.
Do you think we are missing something? Seriously, am I reading this correctly or did some wires get crossed with this question?
Why is a vampire like a sugar glider?
I had to look at this question twice before I figured out I wasn’t reading it quite the way the asker intended. I watch way too many cheesy monster movies and thought the person was comparing vampires to … well never mind. I’m embarrassed now. Let’s just say I’m going to lay off the Dracula movies for awhile.
I think I’ll stop now. I think I’ve given myself a bit of a headache.
Scrapping the bottom of the barrel… yet again
Every once in awhile, the fashion industry does something that makes even my jaw drop. Hard to believe, given my utter contempt for it, but recently they didn’t just hit rock bottom with their desperate attempt to garner attention, they dug themselves all the way to Hell.
In an ode to bankrupt ideals, South Korean fashion label Lewitt commissioned a short film (now yanked from every site I checked) that featured model Abbey Lee Kershaw fleeing from an unidentified danger and throwing herself off a roof. She is then shown falling over and over, in slow motion, wearing a different outfit with each fall. It’s done in a dreamy, romanticized way that is supposed to evoke a sense of “Ohh I want that”.
The problems with this are many fold. First, it is another attempt by the fashion industry to glamorize violence against women… again. Somehow this poor waif-like creature who commits suicide to escape whatever peril she is in, is supposed to be envied because she’s wearing must-have outfits. Hmm yes I want to wear what a dead woman is wearing – tres chic! We’ve seen this over and over in the past. The most egregious was the “murder as fashion” segment of an America’s Top Model episode.
Second, in doing a bit of research before hitting the keyboard, I discovered South Korea has the 8th highest suicide rate in the world, the second highest (just a hair under Mainland China) in female suicides. You would think, or hope, a company from a country rocked by numerous high profile suicides – including one of the country’s top models, Daul Kim – would show just a bit more common sense. Compassion is never going to happen, common sense is all we can hope for.
Daul Kim’s sad death at the age of 20 seems to have no effect on the people who treat women like nothing more than cattle ready for the slaughter. The fashion industry is not solely responsible for Kim’s death in Nov 2009; she was haunted by many demons that were aggravated by her career. Nor are they solely responsible for the high rate of suicide within South Korea. HOWEVER, they do bear responsibility for exploiting women and creating monumentally unrealistic visions of beauty that push girls and women to extremes to meet this phantom of beauty. The unending stream of warped images from the advertising and fashion industry must have an effect. We can’t simply say don’t watch them or worse don’t pay attention to them because this is hopelessly naive.
Blog after blog exposes the over photo-shopped models who have had limbs moved into positions that are anatomically impossible, breasts air brushed away (or in one case moved so low they were sitting just above the poor woman’s navel), thinned so badly the women look like sick bobble heads, belly buttons removed (just what is the industry’s obsession with belly buttons?), elongating arms and legs to the point the women resemble something out of a sci-fi movie, fingers elongated to such an extreme I wonder if the people doing the work even know what a female body looks like. If they want clothes hangers, stop the hypocrisy and put the damned clothes on hangers. Stop redesigning the human body to suit these warped views, and start showing women that come in all shapes, all sizes.
The industry bears a great responsibility for exploiting the notion that violence and fear is glamorous. That somehow brutalizing the vulnerable and weak is acceptable, even envied. I’ve used the term bankrupt ideals before, but it is the only phrase that can fully explain an industry that celebrates self-abuse and violence. No other industry would get away with promoting this type of agenda. Why do they get away with it? Because the world idolizes everything the industry does. They are the neo-gods of the modern world. Legions of magazines drool over every design, and quote even the most inane blatherings from designers who live in a world where they can abuse the female image and be rewarded for their efforts. They seemed to have forgotten Hubert de Givenchy’s statement on fashion, “The dress must follow the body of a woman, not the body following the shape of the dress.”
We’ve endured “heroin chic”, size zero or go home, designers who show open contempt for the female body in their battle against “plus size” models, murder as a fashion statement and now this. When is enough, enough?
There is nothing wrong with wanting tall, willowy models to showcase your work. There is something wrong with photo-shopping the models until they look like they are about to die from malnutrition or redo their bodies to suit a perverse image of what they think the female body should be. There is something wrong with using violence and emotional desperation to sell a warped image of beauty. There is something wrong with an industry that hectors it’s employees (and yes models are employees) to such an extent that anorexia and bulimia are the bywords for employment.
A remedial course in anatomy should be mandatory before anyone is allowed to work in either the fashion industry or advertising (kissing cousins in maintaining high standards of stupidity). This won’t happen until the world stops treating everything the fashion industry does with such reverence. They are employers who exploit their workers and their audience.
Suicide in South Korea
Frockwriter’s blog on the subject
Photoshop Disasters blog they spotlight the entire advertising industry’s misuse of over-touching photos.
We’d respond but …
Someone let Sarah Palin loose without her keeper again. She posted this on twitter not long ago:
“Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate.”
You have to admire her mental gymnastics. She’s almost as much fun as ole GW was when it comes to verbal crimes.
Sarah Palin – wordsmith extraordinaire.
Well I’ll be darned
Found a link to a website called I Write Like. You cut and paste a bit of your blog and the software compares analyzes your style and pops out who it thinks (does software think?) you write like.
Put a couple of my entries in and voila:
I’m rather flattered.. don’t know if Doctorow would be, but I am….
A lingering question that haunts me
As you already know, I like to troll places like Wiki Answers and Yahoo Answers for questions that baffle me. Some questions are so badly written or so weird, I feel like I’m watching a mental train wreck. This one is a bit of both:
Syphilis: Why has its popularity declined in recent years?
I know the writer meant “why has it declined in recent years” but it’s too late now. The visuals are burned into my brain. My pain is your pain.
