Andrew Lih wrote:
Librarian: Don't use Wikipedia as source Wednesday, August 25, 2004 AL FASOLDT STAFF WRITER
<snip>
Stagnitta gives two quotes from the Wikipedia site that illustrate the problem.
From the home page:
"Wikipedia is an encyclopedia written collaboratively by its readers. The site is a Wiki, meaning that anyone, including you, can also edit any article right now by clicking on the edit this page link that appears at the top of every Wikipedia article."
Actually, this quote is not taken from the home page, but from [[Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers]].
All I can say is if that kind of sloppy journalism is representative of their work, I'll put our reliability up against theirs anytime.
But Andrew's right, criticism is bound to appear because to the media, we're a subject to be treated with their own version of NPOV. Usually that means when the coverage has been too slanted in one direction, there will be attempts at debunking the misperceptions. This one is mildly amusing, not worth getting riled up about, and still brings us free publicity.
--Michael Snow
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org