Wikipedia as a Source for Information (about Smyrna)

        The "wiki" (Hawaiian "fast") construction of knowledge has been popular since the WorldWideWeb first appeared, but "fast" is the enemy of "good" or "accurate" or "true" knowledge.  The problem is compounded when Wikipedia.org attempts to define knowledge about hotly contested facts.  In this case, Greek, Turkish, and Armenian partisan scholars and ordinary "netizens" have been waging information warfare over the responsibility for Smyrna's near destruction by fire in 1922, and the result is a highly unstable web page that suffers authorized and unauthorized editing to advance one of the three sides' opinions about the facts.  Never has the fragility of knowledge on the net been so clearly demonstrated.  The following are some quotes from the "Talk" page from the period between July 2006 and February 1, 2007.  Who knows if they'll still be there by the time you read it.

Unless I am suffering of hallucination, it seems that references I personally added were removed. Can I have some explanation as to why this was done? Thanks. Fad (ix) 17:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

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Is it just me, or is the article now incredibly POV? I love it how now there's no mention of Chrysostomos of Smyrna in the article... —Khoikhoi 21:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC) I would like to discuss any part of the article to be a POV. All of the information given were taken from cited resources, there may be missing information but no false information.

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ok lets say greeks didnt burn

then who the hell burned my village in Bursa-Inegol there was a hellenic garrison near the willage and no turks ever lived there.

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Because the article was ful of bias. Please submit your edits in article as it is now and don't revert. Mitsos 11:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

But you reverted back to Kertenkelebek's version... —Khoikhoi 17:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

And why didn't you reverted him completely? Please do it, just of the visitors of the page who are reading articles whose factual accurancy is disputed. 85.75.176.230 18:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Because changes by other editors have been made since then. I doubt the visitors would read it with the tag this page has... —Khoikhoi 00:52, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Is that what you want? This article not to be read by anyone? Please try to remove his edits. 87.203.235.223 15:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, since the dispute tag has now been removed, there are clearly no more problems with this article (even though there really are). Cheers. —Khoikhoi 17:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean? Speak clearly. 87.203.235.223 19:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

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You know, with no offense to anyone, I think that this article has gotten itself in a mess. I think that it's because of POV-pushing in the sense that, for every POV that was pushed, the other side brought in more sources and the other side did the same and vice versa.. The titles of the sections clearly show this, they seem to be answering one another, there are full letters that are posted etc.. I don't think that I will have the time to personally conribute to this article, but I was just writing this to its regular contributors.. :)) Baristarim 03:11, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

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I made a little change at the beginnings of the article, the burning of smyrna was a part of the greco turkish war and yet there is almost no reference to it in the article. Plus it doesnt mention about the reflections of the fire and massacres took place in the area in todays politics..laertes d 11:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

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To read the current (today's) version of "wikihistory," see the link below, and the link below it for the current state of chaos in wikiality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Smyrna

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Great_Fire_of_Smyrna