On 24/10/2010 20:10, geni wrote:
On 24 October 2010 19:59,
Anthony<wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:
On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 2:53 PM,
????<wiki-list(a)phizz.demon.co.uk> wrote:
On 24/10/2010 19:33, Austin Hair wrote:
You're asserting, then, that Wikipedia is
less reliable than other
encyclopedias, which the research done on the subject contradicts.
He is probably thinking about this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/britannica_wikipedia_nature_study/
Even if you ignore the flaws in the Nature study and equate
errors-per-article with reliability, it still found that Wikipedia
contained more errors-per-article than Britannica.
Remember though Britannica is meant to be the best of the best in
terms of encyclopedias .
I should hope so. The paper copy I bought in 1980 cost almost £1000. 30
years on I have every confidence that the articles won't have have
random "was a homo fag" comments inserted into them, and the articles on
Aristotle and Maths not much changed. OTOH the one on Beruit is probably
changed out of all recognition, and there'll be a few extra Presidents
of the USA.
It is also a bit useless for doing ctrl-C ctrl-V on though.
So unless you are going to define
"encyclopedia" as "Encyclopedia Britannica" you have to accept that
works with lower levels of reliability qualify as encyclopedias.
Its not a question of lower levels of reliability it is a question of
the absence of reliability, the fact that one can never be sure that
what one is reading is correct, an honest mistake, or something inserted
to push some agenda.
Next to the EB we have a French encyclopaedia. It is much less in depth
but it is still accurate in what it has to say on the subjects it
covers, and again I don't have to worry about whether some one just
added nonsense to the article on Maurice Jarre.