James: Google obviously made a bad choice of source there, or a good source got something catastrophically wrong. That does not mean Google (or anyone) should rely on Wikipedia's systemically unreliable content. Wikipedia should not be trusted for anything - least of all health matters . Anthony Cole <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole> On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 12:40 AM, Anthony Cole &lt;ahcoleecu(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On 15-04-07 12:51 PM, Anthony Cole wrote: That's a perfectly true, but perfectly vacuous assertion. Wikipedia should be trusted exactly as much as any other single source may be trusted, for exactly the same reason. Striving to find the most reliable sources is fraught with pitfalls whether you attempt do to it yourself or rely on the collective efforts of Wikipedia editors to do so. Wikipedia is a giant collection of summaries and overview of topics, and it never pretendend to be anything else. If you *end* your reasearch there for anything of importance, then you commit as sin no graver (nor lighter) than picking any other random book on the topic and ending your research there. -- Marc _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

It's an encyclopedia, Marc. The world's encyclopedia. People should be able to trust it. You and the rest of the WMF need to get that through your heads or you'll wake up one morning soon and find Wikipedia on page 2 of Google and you out of a job. This is the most important issue facing Wikipedia. Denial isn't helping. Anthony Cole <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole> On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 1:04 AM, Marc A. Pelletier &lt;marc(a)uberbox.org&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Back in 1989-90 I was working in a telecom company. We then said mobile phones can never really challange fixed phone as it is not at all reliable compared with fixed phone and will never be of the same quality. We then learnt "reliable enough for the purpose it it used for" as an explanation for the explosive use of mobiles for almost all usages I use to to say Wikipedia consists of a number, say 1000, encyclopedias on different subject areas. And I would say for something like 80% of these wp is reliable enough and in many cases outstanding compared to "competitors". In many subject areas there does not even exist an alternative. But in some areas, say 20% of total there exist good alternatives if we look at content, and in some cases (like health) I see the demand for reliability and quality so high that perhaps wp can not be seen as the best alternative. (and the "Hot line" still rely on the fixed phone...) I am proud to (again) be part of a movement that "wins" the world by producing "products" that are being reliable enough for its purpose at the same time being extremely easy to access and useful Anders Anthony Cole skrev den 2015-04-07 19:16: _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>