On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 1:53 PM, Thomas Morton <morton.thomas(a)googlemail.com
wrote:
That process takes* much much longer* than 2-5 days.
Yes, but it takes place *before* publication. :P
Not at all.
My specific experience was while consulting on another matter for a firm;
they were surprised to find their name had been noted in connection with
some years-before legal action (quite a disturbing one) in a prominent
printed encyclopaedia.
I helped them get in touch and resolve the issue.
It took about a week for initial contact to prove successful - the material
was reviewed, taking another two weeks, and "amended internally". The next
years print run was currently happening, and they were unable to modify the
problem.
So all in all it took about 18 months for a correction to be published.
I happen to know of several other examples where incorrect material is
still being published years after the point has been brought up.
Whilst you will get some material sent out for review I don't believe it
accounts for much of the content. And, as such, is something of
misdirection on the issue.
I'm not arguing Wikipedia is the solution. But the argument that
printed encyclopaedias are better at this I know to be false.
Tom
Well, it is still true that in a conventional encyclopedia, everything goes
through vigorous professional fact checking *before* publication. We have
nothing to compare to that. Not even Pending Changes. Surely that is a
very, very significant difference indeed?
As a result, the kinds of inaccuracies we have in Wikipedia can be in a
whole different league than the sort of error you might find in Britannica;
there is often active malice at work, as opposed to the occasional cock-up,
and you are talking about the no. 1 Google link for a person or company,
rather than something appearing on page 582 of a dusty tome that few people
own, let alone read.
Andreas