On 12/12/05, Steve Bennett wiki@stevage.com wrote:
Can we blame people for thinking Wikipedia is more authoritative than it is? Is it not time that a banner "Anyone could have written this. Including you." appeared for anonymous users? What exactly, if anything other than possible "aesthetics", would be the argument against warning users against taking Wikipedia at its word?
Steve
Well, most "anonymous" users *can't* edit Wikipedia. Wikipedia blocks most anonymizing proxies, after all.
Anyway, can we blame people for thinking Wikipedia is more authoritative than it is? Sure, you shouldn't believe something just because you read it on the Internet, even if that site claims to be an encyclopedia.
But then again, I have my doubts Wikipedia should be calling itself an encyclopedia in the first place. It's not really an encyclopedia, it's a website for a group of people who are building an encyclopedia. I remember arguing that years ago on IRC, though, and I lost the argument. Most Wikipedians insist that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, even though common sense says that it is not.
Anthony