On 30 Sep 2006, at 18:33, Richard Holton wrote:
On 9/30/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
May preference is to use colour. There are many possible ways to do this, but one way would be for sentences to start out light grey, and each independent editor who approves or disapproves turns it darker and either more blue or more red. So dark blue would be strongly supported, dark red would be strongly opposed, and light grey would be not supported or opposed.
Then uncited claims which were "obviously" true would soon gain credibility, but contentious claims would also be obvious.
As has been mentioned, a simple viewing option could turn everything back to normal.
Please, no!
This is the sort of "voting for the truth" that Colbert dubbed "wikiality".
It is not a question of how many people think it's true, or vote for it to be true. It's a question of reliable, verifiable sources.
Yes, we can go wonko about process, or smother articles with reference-love (neither of which is good), but let's not encourage the view that whatever most people believe must be the truth.
There is a difference between voting for the truth and showing which statements have been widely considered.