http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pro_hominem&oldid=369721624
----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Bauder" fredbaud@fairpoint.net
It's a simple error that most proof-readers would find.
Well only if they can read Latin, which is not that usual these days.
It looks right at first glance but is not. It is a type of error.
No: the error is more subtle in that it may be 'dog Latin' i.e. an error in common use rather like 'strictu dictu'*. How would the proof reader know that? The problem is that it has been there for so long that it is difficult to tell whether the Google search is turning up uses that have actually been *caused* by Wikipedia, so that Wikipedia is actually degrading human knowledge by introducing false information, in the manner of an urban myth, or whether the error predates that. Either way the issue would have to be noted in the article. I think it is beyond what simple proof-reading would give you.
The obvious solution is to proof-read Wikipedia in a systemic way.
Who is going to do that? It comes back to my earlier point: there simply aren't enough people with the right knowledge to do this. There needs to be some way of making Wikipedia more 'knowledge friendly', but hard to see how that could be practically achieved.
Peter
*I have just noticed there is no entry on 'strictu dictu'!