On 3/23/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
By this standard, Wikipedia should reply to nature and say "Thanks for the criticisms. Our community rejects them. We stand by our original version". However, we didn't - as I understand, we actually took the criticisms on board and worked with them. Which kind of demonstrates the real strength in Wikipedia. Instead of simply "not accepting" every criticism (as EB does 22 times in their response) to protect our good name, we, without ego, simply make it better.
This has already been suggested, but we should invite EB to organise another study, to be conducted by a journal of their choice. Perhaps they can even contribute to the method (multiple reviewers for each comparison would be a good inclusion), on the condition that the results of the study are published at the same time as the list of errors. Then we can fix them within days, just like with the Nature review, and put that fact out in a press release.
I'm sure they have real concerns, and I'm also sure that there are probably more errors in WP than in EB. The point is that WP can fix its errors far more quickly than traditional encyclopaedias, and we should use this opportunity to show that.
-- Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com