I have been thinking for a while that Wikipedia is, like, the shit. Sure, its not particularly authoritative - but perhaps instead of asking to have your information carefully controlled and validated by others, you should concentrate instead on becoming a discerning reader. In any case, I think it is beyond dispute that if you need a quick, semi-reliable summary on any given topic, Wikipedia is one of the best things going. And if you are still worried about authoritative info, get this: recent blind-tests, where specialists were asked to read entries from Encyclopedia Brittanica and Wikipedia, and count factual errors, turned up equal results for the two sources. You can read more about that in the BBC article.
Meanwhile, there have been a couple of articles floating around recently on the problem of vandalism and rogue “information” on Wikipedia, and some speculation that it might change its open-authorship some day soon. To this end, I have decided to get involved while it’s still open. After all, there are still quite a lot of frustrating “no article on this topic” pages in Wiki world. Since the only thing I can really claim to know much about is book covers, I wrote and published a very short article, which is now online here.
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Well done John - an excellent wikipedia entry. Kudos to you for getting involved in such and excellent movement.
Posted 27 Aug 2006 at 8:55 am ¶Thanks Dave. I hope to expand the entry in the future… if I ever feel the urge that is. Maybe there are other entries I could create or revise? I can see how this could become addictive — I think that for an average unfamous Joe, this is one of the best opportunities going to “contribute to the great tree of knowledge”.
NB I have added a link now to the article on Wiki vs Brittanica
Posted 27 Aug 2006 at 2:22 pm ¶Post a Comment