On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 07:05:21 -0500, Mark Pellegrini mapellegrini@comcast.net wrote:
Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again --- http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0503200191mar20,1,26199.story?c... / /*...* / A similar hyperbole surrounds such projects as the Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia open to all. The Wikipedia's apologists emphasize the great number of volunteers who have taken part in the project and the number of entries they have contributed. They emphasize also the communal nature of the undertaking, in which anyone with a better understanding of a subject, or a bigger ax to grind, can edit what someone else has created. Their prime article of faith is that this openness will inevitably lead to a high level of accuracy and quality. ...
Robert McHenry is former editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and is the author of "How to Know."
/This is the same guy who called us the Faith-based encyclopedia and compared us to a public toilet- http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html
--Mark
That link that Mark posted didn't work for me but this one does: http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0503200191mar20,1,26199.story?c...
It seemed to me from reading the article that McHenry's answers to his own concerns were inherent in Wikipedia's structure:
"There is no guarantee that truth will win out; there is only our hard-won and too-seldom-employed knowledge of what gives us the best chance: the free exchange and clash of ideas." (Is Wikipedia not an obvious example of this?)
In his final recommendations, he advocates "clear thinking", a "genial skepticism" to both one's own and others' opinions and "toleration" (tolerance, surely?). Theoretically, this is covered in NPOV, [[assume good faith]], and [[no personal attacks]] but as we all know these are violated daily. My question is: how do you (I,we) work this in practice from a personal perspective rather than looking at others?
Cormac [[User:Cormaggio]] (en,m)