I just thought of a real example. According to websites the world over the Prince of Wales's name is Charles Windsor. In reality, as his own office confirmed when it was being checked for Wikipedia, it is actually Charles Mountbatten-Windsor. We are one of the few correct sources of information on the net about it.
Every so often someone comes along and does one of those damned google searches (god but those things 'prove' such crap!) and changes the article to say he is Charles Windsor. Before those of us who constantly correct it find the change, Charles himself or William (both of whom surf the net) find the mistake. Would WP allow them to correct the error?
BTW Wikipedia HAS been read in Buckingham Palace, as I found when checking with BP about something for an article here. I mentioned us but before I even got a chance to say who what we were, the person I was speaking to came back 'oh yes. The big online encyclopædia. It is really quite good. We've seen it here.'
BTW the Queen is an avid net surfer. Who knows? She may be one of our anonymous Wikipedians. Maybe she is on this list for all we know. (If she is, Hi Ma'am!) lol
Thom
Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote: On 11/15/05, Tom Cadden wrote:
But what if an article contains a widely believed 'fact' that actually is bullshit.
eg,
Michael was born in Toronto in 1956 and moved to Atlanta in 1961.
But Michael finds the article and knows that he was born in Ottawa but his family moved to Toronto some months after his birth. Plenty of internet sites say Toronto but he knows for a fact that it is wrong. Can he correct that, or does he need to produce his birth certificate to correct an error about himself? lol
I suggest we say "unless there is some reason why we think he is misleading us, believe him". Unsourced accuracy actually is better than sourced inaccuracy. It's just that the wrong one conforms to policy...
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