The recent news of the changing of climate data to fit what researches want instead of fact is in some ways similiar. Deleting of data from servers so in the future accurate data is not available. I don't think wikipedians put misinformation in on purpose on a wide scale, but it has similar effect if all that is left in 20 years is wikipedia. Since much of our knowledge now is kept only in byte form, how easy it is to just delete and type over to make it appear as anything you want.
On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 11:10 AM, chad evans wyatt <[email protected]>wrote: > "...inaccuracies abound ...(and) can come to be regarded as fact..." This > is always why Wikipedia should be only a starting point to research, but > unfortunately has become the end-point for so many, an easy way out. > Related is the question of search: if not among the first 10-20 hits in > google, then facts can slip away, thought not to exist. Proper research is > a time-intensive, hands-on work; few consider it worthwhile. Web-based > research is at best an incomplete venture. Thanks for this post, Richard. > > > > --- On Wed, 11/25/09, Richard P. <[email protected]> wrote: > > From: Richard P. <[email protected]> > Subject: [CGUYS] Wikipedia > To: [email protected] > Date: Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 10:00 AM > > Not sure this is off-topic but is this a sign of the times: > > http://tinyurl.com/ygeo84p > > From The Times > November 25, 2009 > Wikipedia shows signs of stalling as number of volunteers falls sharply > > It was one of the internet’s most ambitious, radical and ultimately > successful ideas. > > Eight years ago Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia that allows > anyone to write and edit articles, declared that it would provide > access to “the sum of all human knowledge”. It soon became one of > world’s most popular websites. > > The site assumed that facts and information could be provided by all. > Anyone was allowed to log on, write and change articles. Any subject — > from Barack Obama’s election to characters in the Star Wars films — > was considered worthy of inclusion. The pages have been updated and > improved upon thousands of times and they are used more than 300 > million times a month by everyone from primary school pupils to > speechwriters — even if they should know better. > > > > > > > > > ************************************************************************* > ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** > ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** > ************************************************************************* > ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
