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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I know people swear by Wikipedia but I never go there.
I get all a-tizzy when I find out that dictionaries add a fake word to protect their copyrights, so knowing that Wikipedia is peppered with erroneous info makes me avoid it like the plague.
If you don't know something, and you go to a source of information, you have to believe it is accurate.
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
Aware of my own ignorance, I take comfort reading what others don't know.
(quality of writing an indicator of reliability)
Last edited by inselpeter; 10/19/05 02:32 AM.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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From the blog: who the heck is "famed lawyer Hesham Foda"?) One of the things the name anagrams to is...MADE HASH OF.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027 |
In my view, the argument
The commonest is: If you don't like an entry, you can fix it yourself. Which is rather like going to a restaurant for a date, being served terrible food, and then being told by the waiter where to find the kitchen.
is blatantly unfair: there is no such thing as a free lunch.
And then, one man's "real expert" is another person's propaganda minister.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2000
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> there is no such thing as a free lunch.
And then, one man's "real expert" is another person's propaganda minister.
Agreed. I haven't really used wiki much, but I recently found the 'current events' section surprisingly good. While surveying information on Hurricane Katrina I found the wiki entry to be nothing if not thorough. Sure, it may be that a few errors creep in now and again but these are entries about complex, ongoing events and mistakes are fine as long as they are updated as the errors come to light. Wiki doesn't fulfil the 'dead tree' requirements cause it is very different from them and generally vastly more useful and interesting as an everyday reference tool (not for research), and its cheaper and faster.
I think the layout here is crucial too and they have it nailed. Is it a hodge-podge? For some entries it certainly is. And sometimes that's exactly what you want - an overview. Fact remains that for a good number of topics there is no place on the Net that offers such a wide range of hodge-podge in one place:-)
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Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 203
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 203 |
The utility of an encyclopedia is directly proportional to the reliability of its entries.
Surely the very idea of an open-content encyclopedia is doomed to failure?
A proliferation of bogus articles, vandalism, the misinformation of bored and ignorant Netizens with a didactic itch.
So how can Wikipedia survive when any cretin with a computer can edit, delete or create articles?
The explaination given in Time (It's a Wiki, Wiki World, June 6, 2005) explains:
"Naturally, there are also a lot of idiots, vandals and fanatics, who take advantage of Wikipedia's open system to deface, delete or push one-sided views. Sometimes extreme action has to be taken. [..] But for the most part, the geeks have a huge advantage: they care more. Wikipedia lets you put your favorite articles on a watch list and notifies you if anyone else adds to or changes them. According to an M.I.T. study, an obscenity randomly inserted on Wikipedia is removed in 1.7 min., on average. Vandals might as well be spray-painting walls with disappearing ink."
[Chris Taylor]
"Open-content encyclopedias are a useful example of how information can involve in synergistic homeostasis."
-- Richard K. Edel, Boulevard, 2005, 'Epistemology in the Age of Digital Reproduction' Autonomedia, Semiotext(e)
But one is still tempted to quote Eliot :
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
-- T. S. Eliot, The Rock, 1934.
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