Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikipedia COO was convicted felon

On Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 2:18 PM, Gautam John <gautam(a)prathambooks.org> wrote: wrote: I think it is very important to note the closing words from The Register report: "The original version of this story said that Carolyn Doran's hit and run DUI resulted in a fatality. This was based on two separate sets of computer records - one with the Loudoun County, Virginia Circuit Court and another on the web site of the Virginia Judicial System. But these records are incorrect. Apologies to Carolyn Doran and her family." It is of particular importance to us here in India, where gradually, following the purported success of e-Bhoomi (the brief report in Wikipedia should speak volumes about how well this project is really doing, but some details might be more welcome to people who want to reference how digitisation proceeds in the real world), there is excitement about increasing digitisation (and more importantly, interlinking) of all kinds of records. In the computer sector, there is a very old expression, 'garbage in, garbage out'. Wikipedia also looks to digital references for credibility. It ought to be noted that in fact, even government-maintained records are sometimes grievously wrong, not just out-of-date. imho, the past ten years have demonstrated unequivocally that a community-sourced and maintained virtual encyclopedia is not just capable, but is far superior to a bespoke production of select persons, both in terms of timeliness and accuracy. Undoubtedly, there is still much to do to make it now more meaningful to the world at large, beyond the English-familiar audience. Perhaps an objective for the future will be adding on-the-ground fact-checking, going beyond digital records that can be (and, given the imperatives of business, will be) perversely altered in the hands of private and other vested interests. At present there is no scope for this kind of value addition, but the need is enormous, and will only grow as Wikipedia's coverage grows beyond the realm of 'credible' digital records. I don't have a roadmap for how this factor will be included, but it is worth planning. Today (as in the perfuffle around Kasab's birthday), we end up firefighting, confusing for information seekers and fodder for a confrontational mainstream media. Vickram _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l