On 17/01/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Ok, so what do we do when mostly we're right, we're occasionally laughably (or harmfully?) wrong, and we don't seem to have much control either way? Tough to implement any policies telling vandals how to behave when they're up to no good...
I've been trying to turn the phrase "Wikipedia is not a reliable source" into a positive thing ;-)
"What people say is true, Wikipedia is not a reliable source. We can't guarantee it. It's a useful source and we try to keep it useful, but it's just written by people - read it critically, like you would any web page. If you see something really surprising like that, check the history tab and see if it was just added ..."
Journalists are a good audience to get this across to, because they looove Wikipedia - it's the universal background resource (an area where our breadth is a strength).
This is also useful for getting across to journalists that saying "according to Wikipedia" is as appropriate as it would be using any useful but non-canonical source. Attribute your sources!
- d.