An impassioned debate has been raging, particularly since about the summer of 2004, about the merits of Wikipedia and the future of free online encyclopedias.
Why didn't any of you guys tell me about this before?
I think that the impassioned debate would be better described as an impassioned attack from those who've previously profited heavily from the distribution of information. In many ways, they're right. The basic integrity of a public wiki is compromised from day one. That's an obvious point to argue, but a very hard one to defend successfully. Imagine a sickly spokesman saying "Well... we've got people who remove vandalism" - but well intended factual errors and typing mistakes (1952 and 1852 are very different!) are a lot harder to account for.
Imagine a sickly spokesman saying "Well... we've got people who remove vandalism" - but well intended factual errors and typing mistakes (1952 and 1852 are very different!) are a lot harder to account for.
It's worth noting that traditional encyclopedias have had the same issue since their inception. Unintended errors are a fact of human life, yet it's common for the public to think that entity XYZ is immune to these things. The upside of Wikipedia is that the sheer amount of peer review helps catch these
Where have I been? (Score:1, Funny)
Why didn't any of you guys tell me about this before?
Re:Where have I been? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where have I been? (Score:2)
It's worth noting that traditional encyclopedias have had the same issue since their inception. Unintended errors are a fact of human life, yet it's common for the public to think that entity XYZ is immune to these things. The upside of Wikipedia is that the sheer amount of peer review helps catch these
Re:Where have I been? (Score:2)
There is also the problem that Wikipedia requires constant upkeep. It's not hard to change things back to the broken state if someone isn't watching.