On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote:
On 7/4/12 1:04 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
What would a Wikipedia look like that did not make use of press sources?
It
would look a hell of a lot more like an encyclopedia. Thousands of silly
arguments would never arise. Thousands of apposite criticisms of Wikipedia
would never arise. These are good things.
Unfortunately, such a Wikipedia would also have vastly impoverished
coverage of popular culture and current affairs. The articles on Lady Gaga
and Barack Obama would be years behind events; the articles on the Japan
earthquakes, which I believe Wikipedia was widely praised for, would only
now begin to be written, articles on many towns and villages would lack
colour and detail.
It's an intriguing idea, and I agree with the general principle of reducing
reliance on sources with less gestation time, of which newspapers are the
biggest offender. I do tend to apply it in an as-alternatives-are-available
The problem with articles from india, kosovo and other minor places
for example is that many will be deleted because there are not many
press sources online for people to check refs.
mike