On 9/18/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 9/18/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, that's exactly what you're suggesting. Removing Wikipedia from search results would take away people's ability to easily find the information we have.
It'd take away people's ability to easily find the misinformation too. And it'd make it easier to find the better information that other people have.
But in most cases, other people have worse information, or none. I've been using search engines as a first-line method of exploratory research for at least 10 years, and the appearance of Wikipedia has *markedly* improved the usefulness and accuracy of that approach. Ten years ago, the most likely outcome was some random guy's geocities page had a bunch of information on the subject, which might or might not have been any good. Now that guy, if he writes on Wikipedia, at least normally has a bit of peer review.
Correlation does not imply causation. Lots of things have changed over the last ten years besides Wikipedia. Wikipedia is sometimes a half-decent starting point for information *if* you know how to use it, but if you know how to use it you don't need the search engines to point you to it in the first place.