By your reasoning, if I went out and burned down a library, I'd be helping society.
No.
If one burns down a library, everything is lost; with wikipedia everything can be restored. That's the difference.
Not necessarily, because books are printed in multiple copies; the library could be rebuilt. My example is still valid. Here, have some more:
GOOD SPRINGTIME OF YOUTH RIVALRYTwo scientists who met in college share the dream of discovering renewable energy from nuclear fusion. They end up at different universities and research centers, and pour their passion into their work, dead-set on succeeding before the other. Their desire to succeed and stay ahead of one another lifts their efforts significantly.
BAD SPRINGTIME OF YOUTH RIVALRYTwo scientists who met in college become famous for something, but one is an arsonist. The one who's not has the dream of creating renewable energy from nuclear fusion, but the arsonist keeps burning down his work. His efforts are lifted and multiplied to stay ahead of the arsonist, but in the end, he barely gets anywhere with his research because he spends all of his time either cleaning up ashes or installing fire alarms.
~
Simple. Every second a Wikipedian spends backpedaling to clean up vandalism is a second they can't devote to actually writing and improving articles. This is like the broken window economic theory paraded by certain idiots in the last century, in which a boy hitting a baseball through a window was held to be a economic stimulus because it employed a window-maker, driver, shop-keeper, etc. and so on to replace the window. Keyword is
replace: the parable was a fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window1) Its a victimless crime.
Wrong: it victimizes the reader by denying them the information they seek, and it victimizes editors by forcing them to undo the vandalism.
2) Its easy to do.
This isn't an argument for anything. Substitute "duhhh lol" if you ever repeat this in the future.
3) No other reason than because it's funny to screw with certain people on the Internet.
Oh, you admit to being a troll. A lot of your recent behavior could make more sense under this light.
Zeality, its already been banned in most educational institutions as a resource. It's a laughingstock at this point, and while Wikipedia can be a good resource to get some very vague background knowledge on a subject, its more advanced information is often questionable at best, as several of my teachers have shown me by example.
Learn how to question authority.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia. The most obvious example is the Nature study that showed Wikipedia hit the mark on par with Encyclopedia Britannica. And for the record,
my professors disclaim their rules against citing Wikipedia usually with "it's probably right, and I personally use it." Wikipedia is disallowed because it's not peer reviewed and professionally published. Doesn't mean it's wrong. It also does things that traditional encyclopedias can't, such as quickly create articles on recent events that are all sourced to reputable news outlets, or host comprehensive media.
Think of it like this: vandals in this case are the people throwing marbles on the track, their not a fellow racer.
Exactly. And when the race is the education of humanity, it's unethical to fuck it up.
