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Auto racing history and my problem with wikipedia

Wikipedia and I have a very tense relationship.

Let me explain.

As a racing history researcher, I find wikipedia to be wanting. For those that do not know the English expression, it means lacking, insufficient.

I began writing about racing history back in 2003, when even blogs were not yet the rage. I used to include texts on a site I had, called brazilyellowpages.com, which no longer exists as a standalone site (long story). There was no such a thing as wikipedia. And google was still a young company, looking for "partners" in the way of content builders.

So, when I began building my blogs in earnest, I had the ambition of building the largest depository of race results in the internet, or at least winners. I soon found several sites that had very good information, but I found copying all laboriously compiled information a bit sneaky simply. So I understood that I could present winners and let others do what they do well.

Unfortunately, Wikipedia has other thoughts. And search engines have other thoughts about anyone who is not wikipedia.

From a "content partner" who made US$ 350 a month from google ads, back in 2005, now, with an exponentially larger number of posts, google pays a pittance of US$ 100 every year and a half. I feel more like a slave than partner, to tell you the truth. That is when I decided to "migrate" away from the internet.

Enough about money. I was not doing this for the money, this is just to show how the presentation of information  has changed in the last 10, 12 years.

Search engines rank sites by popularity. Never mind the fact they might be wrong (and wikipedia has tons of mistakes), or that information is being stolen from bona fide authors without authorization. Yes, several of my early posts ended up in wikipedia as posts! At first, I would attempt to remove, then I gave up. I simply changed the way I write posts, so that they would be rendered useless as a wikipedia entry.

The fact is that search engines no longer "love" my site, the one I indicate below, or consider it relevant. Back on the day, google would include any new post within half an hour. Now, it may take a few days, and normally it appears in position 1267th.

So, here is the "Winner" section of my old blog. It helps you contextualize careers of former and current Formula 1 drivers, and find out a bit of detail about their early exploits It is free!.

Unfortunately, a lot of sites that had good, detailed information back in the early 2000s, have disappeared from the internet a long time ago. So much for relevance.

The link is as follows. Enjoy.

http://brazilexporters.com/blog//index.php?blog=8

If you are seriously interested on Motor Racing, specially the racing that took place in the 70's, my book Motor Racing in the 70s - Pivoting from Romantic to Organized is for you. Its 384 pages are full of rare pieces of information, much of it surprising for even very knowledgeable racing buffs, collected over 40 years. It lists very obscure racing venues in surprising countries, interesting highlights, a very thorough list of champions, articles and statistics from the main championships of the era, the main drivers from over 78 countries, in addition to the most comprehensive and diversified list of 70's marques ever published. The difference is that the research for this book was conducted in over 10 languages, which gave the author access to information rarely consulted and included. For US$ 29.99 (even less, with discounts granted by Amazon, currently US$ 26.76) , you will be getting a lot of reference, and hours and hours of interesting reading. THIS INFORMATION IS AND WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED ON
TO BUY MY BOOK Click here https://www.amazon.com/Motor-Racing-70s-Pivoting-Organized/dp/1732674426 

Incidentally, Wikipedia contributed very little in terms of information.




Comments

  1. Thank you for the auspicious writeup. It in fact was a amusement account it. Look advanced to far added agreeable from you! However, how can we communicate? Auto Lifestyle News

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