Dear Mr. Fasoldt, dear Ms. Stagnitta,
I am writing in response to your article "Librarian: Don't use Wikipedia as source" in the Post-Standard.
I.
I would like to strongly second what fellow Wikipedia contributor Mathias Schindler recently wrote to you (see his email below). Mathias observed that the Wikipedia is not alone in having a disclaimer as regards the accuracy and validity of our content. He pointed out that the Encyclopaedia Britannica also has a legal disclaimer. To that I would also like to add what fellow contributor Pcb21 has found: Practically ALL encyclopaedias have such disclaimers:
Columbia : http://www.bartleby.com/sv/terms.html , section 3 Encarta : http://privacy.msn.com/tou/ , section 9 Encyclopedia.com : http://www.encyclopedia.com/terms.asp, section 5
II.
You wrote that there was no editorial review at the Wikipedia.
This is incorrect. Our articles DO undergo substantial editorial review. However, contrary to how paper-based encyclopedias operate, editorial review at the Wikipedia takes place AFTER publication.
Our system works as follows:
- A user makes a submission, for instance he or she edits an article or creates a new one. - EVERY submission (to any article) automatically causes the article in question to be added to this machine-generated list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges - EVERY article change is tracked in the article's history. - By clicking an article's "diff" link on the Recent changes page, it can be seen precisely WHAT was changed. - A large number of users regularly patrol the Recent changes page. Considering the 24/7, worldwide nature of our encyclopedia, there is hardly ever an article that would pass through Recent changes unchecked. If there is a mistake, it is very likely to get spotted and it can be changed instantly once spotted (our readers don't have to write a letter to the publisher).
There also is a separate page for newly created articles (also auto-generated): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Newpages
These are not the only tools we use for editorial review of our articles: This template (which is included in many of our procedural and administrative pages) lists but a few: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Resources_for_collaboration
As you can see, there are a large number of ways in which we conduct editorial review, even if errors get past Recent changes.
III.
You also questioned the authority of our site and whether our content is well-researched. I am going to tell you something I am not really supposed to:
If you doubt the standards of our editorial review mechanisms, go try and introduce some decidedly un-encyclopaedic (unproven, contentious and/or unacademic, etc.) information into an article of your choice. Then check back and see how long your contribution will remain in the article. My confidence is high that -- depending on how much this contribution falls short of encyclopedic standards -- you will find your contribution challenged on the respective article's discussion page (where you will likely be asked to provide references for your claims) or outright removed.
Your concerns over the quality of our content are however justified in one respect: At any given point in time, it is possible that a mistake (or vandalism) has just been introduced to an article you're retrieving. Users are thus encouraged to check any article's history -- a tremendous tool for readers and contributors alike:
As an example, let's look at the CGA article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Graphics_Adapter You will note the "history" tab. Clicking it takes you to this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml? title=Color_Graphics_Adapter&action=history On this page, you can see and compare every previous version of the article. You can compare these versions and easily see precisely WHAT was changed. As an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml? title=Color_Graphics_Adapter&diff=5388826&oldid=5388760
If someone eg. vandalizes an article, it will almost certainly be quickly caught and reverted (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Revert). Especially popular and contentious articles do regularly get vandalized. But never for long. Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=George_W._Bush&action=history or http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=John_Kerry&action=history Note how little time typically elapses until vandalism is corrected.
IV.
Many of us believe that it is beneficial to make it as EASY as possible to contribute to our encyclopedia.
The traditional approach to writing encyclopedias, to aggregating human knowledge, has been to make it as DIFFICULT as possible to contribute. You have to obtain formal certifications and undergo formal training to be even allowed to contribute. This is done in the hope of reaching and maintaining high standards.
Many of us believe that this however stifles progress as it excludes all knowledge and knowledge-based skills obtained in any other way (than formal accreditation).
We put a process in place that will accept all comers in the first instance -- and combine and distill these collective contributions to reach high standards. Our daily growth and quality improvement shows that the traditional approach -- only allowing very few select individuals to contribute -- wastes enormous talent, potential and opportunity for progress in all fields of human knowledge. Thus, one of our core operating principles is to lower any bars to entry as much as possible, if not to outright abolish them. Anyone can contribute. You don't need to provide certifications. You don't need to show ID or a credit card. You don't need to give an email address. You don't even need to log in or create an account. You can edit. Because you have UNIQUE knowledge skills. Dr. Pyotr Anokhin calculated that the number of possible combinations in the human brain was 10 to the power of 799 (seven hundred ninety nine). In short, NO ONE on this planet will ever have the same thoughts as you. It thus makes sense for us to be as inclusive as possible. We would be honored to welcome your contribution to our modest but growing record of human knowledge.
If you have any remaining doubts about our potential to deliver the the most comprehensive, comprehensible and correct encyclopedia on the planet, please refer to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page#lang
The irony of course is that you will probably now find yourself doing the exact same thing we do all of the time: Review and correct your Post-Standard article AFTER publication. That doesn't necessarily make your publication a worse information source -- as long as you DO correct inaccuracies where found.
Yours sincerely,
-- Jens Ropers Wikipedia contributor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ropers www.ropersonline.com
PS: Oh, and as for "accredited scientists", "academics" and "intellectuals"? We're "building it" -- and they are coming.
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:14:24 +0200 From: Mathias Schindler neubau@presroi.de Subject: [WikiEN-l] another supposedly authoritative web sites To: technology@syracuse.com Cc: wikien-l@wikipedia.org, wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org, sue_stagnitta@liverpool.k12.ny.us Message-ID: 412D9BE0.6010902@presroi.de Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Dear Mr. Fasoldt, Dear Ms Stagnitta,
I read your article in the Post-Standard "Librarian: Don't use Wikipedia as source" at http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/news-0/ 1093338972139211.xml, where you wrote: I was amazed at how little I knew about Wikipedia. If you know of other supposedly authoritative Web sites that are untrustworthy, send a note to technology@syracuse.com and let me know about them.
Have you visited britannica.com?
http://corporate.britannica.com/termsofuse.html
Disclaimer of Warranties
Neither Britannica, its affiliates, nor any third-party content providers or licensors makes any warranty whatsoever, including without limitation: that the operation of the Site will be uninterrupted or error-free; that defects will be corrected; that this Site, including the server that makes it available, is free of infection, viruses, worms, Trojan Horses, or other harmful components or other code that manifest contaminating or destructive properties; as to the results that may be obtained from use of the materials on the Site; or as to the accuracy, reliability, availability, suitability, quality, or operation of any information, software, or service provided on or accessible from the Site or as to any information, products, or services on the Internet in any way. In addition, Britannica does not assume any responsibility or risk for your use of the Internet.
THE SITE AND ALL INFORMATION, PRODUCTS, AND OTHER CONTENT (INCLUDING THIRD-PARTY INFORMATION, PRODUCTS, AND CONTENT) INCLUDED IN OR ACCESSIBLE FROM THIS SITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND (EXPRESS, IMPLIED, AND STATUTORY, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF TITLE AND NONINFRINGEMENT AND THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE), ALL OF WHICH BRITANNICA EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. YOUR USE OF BRITANNICA.COM IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK.
Information at britannica.com can be edited by anyone who was given permission from the company. It might be a PhD who hasn't done anything else than writing about this specific topic. It might be someone else who feels competent. You never know.
Just compare http://www.britannica.com/eb/dailycontent?eu=422756#e%0Avent " Haile Selassie" with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie
At wikipedia, you can see a) who wrote b) when c) which part of the text, who changed it, who altered the order who removed parts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml? title=Haile+Selassie+of+Ethiopia&action=history&limit=500&offset=0
The authors, such as David Parker can be emailed or asked for clearification in doubt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Parker
You and Susan Stagnitta are perfectly right to advise people never to "trust" unreliable sources but I can't see a difference in this case between a "black box" company and a group of academics and skilled laymen who make the process of encyclopedic writing transparent.
Several wikipedians have created a document called "Making fun of Britannica" http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Making_fun_of_Britannica, which contains a list of "errors" (in a broader sense). This does not change the level of trust towards Britannica.
If you spot a mistake in Britannica, what are the consequences? If it was in a book, there is no chance to correct it and the risk might be that a student relies on wrong information. She/He will not be able to get a refund from Britannica or even a discount on the new and (hopefully) corrected version.
Ms. Stagnitta said "Anyone can change the content of an article in the Wikipedia, and there is no editorial review of the content." Even if the first part of that sentence is correct, the second part does not describe the reality.
Just have a look at the procedures at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates. It might be hard to get used to the fact that editorial review might be ad-hoc or it might be a constant effort. If an article was found fit for being a "Featured article", the process of improving that article does not stop.
I would like you to encourage you to ask Britannica if they feel that their content is "authoritative" in a sense that they will guarantee any given fact in their Encyclopedia. Ask them if they are able to attribute every sense to a specific author who can be contacted. Ask them if they will make their decision transparent, which lemma does get into the EB and which lemma does not get into it.
Yours, Mathias Schindler neubau@presroi.de
Ringelstr.50 60385 Frankfurt am Main Germany
FYI, the latest chapter of this exchange, from Techdirt...
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20040827/0132238_F.shtml
Who Do You Trust, The Wiki Or The Reporter? Ramblings Contributed by Mike on Friday, August 27th, 2004 @ 01:36AM from the questions,-questions... dept.
On Wednesday I posted a story linking to an article suggesting Wikipedia was somehow untrustworthy. While I can understand why, at first, the concept of Wikipedia seemed a little scary to those who hadn't seen it in action, I figured the reporter in question might want to know a few more details about it, and perhaps correct some of his misperceptions. My main problem was that he seemed to write off Wikipedia based solely on how it was created and maintained, and not at all on the actual content. Along with my post, I sent an email to the writer, Al Fasoldt, giving him some additional information about Wikipedia, and wondering why, after telling us how you can't trust any random info online, he trusted the email from a random librarian claiming Wikipedia was somehow untrustworthy. The ongoing discussion with Mr. Fasoldt has been quite a lesson in watching how a journalist (a) continues to make unsubstantiated allegations (b) seems to prefer insulting me and putting words in my mouth to actually responding to my points or questions and (c) sticks steadfastly to his belief that only "experts" can be trusted with information -- and, in his case, only experts that he chooses. Yet, somehow, we're supposed to find him more trustworthy than a self-correcting community. Figuring he might appreciate the views of others in his profession (you know, "experts"), I sent him links to Dan Gillmor's article on Wikipedia and Steve Yelvington's recent realization of the power of Wikipedia. However, rather than actually look at that information, Mr. Fasoldt accused me of wanting "students to trust a source that's not trustworthy." After some back and forth of this nature, where Mr. Fasoldt responded to my request that he do a little more research by saying: "I'm glad you're not the publisher of a newspaper" (apparently, his publisher lets him do no research at all) and then telling me that anyone who wrote for Wikipedia obviously knew nothing (his phrase was: "100 times zero is still zero"), I suggested an experiment. I pointed to the Wikipedia page on Syracuse, NY where he apparently lives, and suggested he change something on the page, to make it provably, factually incorrect -- and see how long it lasted. Rather than take me up on the experiment, or suggest an alternative, he complained simply that the whole idea of Wikipedia was "outrageous," "repugnant" and finally (in another email) "dangerous," and therefore he refused to take part in my experiment. He told me that asking him to take part of an experiment that would show how Wikipedia corrected errors "wouldn't change the danger" of Wikipedia -- and mentioned how important it was that teachers everywhere knew what a dangerous tool this was. After this email exchange, he came to Techdirt himself, and commented that, based on what he read here, he was disappointed in our educational system -- and proceeded to misquote a poem. Apparently, he was unwilling to trust information displayed in Wikipedia, but finds random comments on a blog as a representative sample of our education system. Thankfully, someone else corrected his misquote, pointing out that a group editing system might have helped out in such a situation. It's true that you shouldn't trust anything you read online, by itself. However, most of us know how to look at information, find other, supporting information to back it up or disprove it before writing it off, and not to judge a wiki by its disclaimer. However, by refusing to back up his claims, by mis-stating or ignoring nearly everything I said to him and by resorting to misdirection in his arguments, personally, I find Mr. Fasoldt to be untrustworthy -- but I suggest you make your own judgment call on that one.
On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 12:59:59 +0800, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
Rather than take me up on the experiment, or suggest an alternative, he complained simply that the whole idea of Wikipedia was "outrageous," "repugnant" and finally (in another email) "dangerous," and therefore he refused to take part in my experiment.
Some people evidently find the whole idea of Wikipedia deeply unsettling, presuambly because it overturns their deeply-held convictions.
Others believe that anything they can get without payment just can't be any good (these people aren't as bad as the first lot, and can usually be persuaded by evidence).
Meanwhile, Wikipedia continues to grow, doubling every 9 months or so, gets more and more readers, and is approaching a million articles.
By the time we approach 10 million articles (some time in 2007?) I expect the majority of the nay-sayers will have learned better.
On Saturday 28 August 2004 06:06, Jens Ropers wrote:
Hi,
If you doubt the standards of our editorial review mechanisms, go try and introduce some decidedly un-encyclopaedic (unproven, contentious and/or unacademic, etc.) information into an article of your choice. Then check back and see how long your contribution will remain in the article. My confidence is high that -- depending on how much this contribution falls short of encyclopedic standards -- you will find your contribution challenged on the respective article's discussion page (where you will likely be asked to provide references for your claims) or outright removed.
we just had someone on the de mailinglist who purposely modified four articles and introduced a mistake in each of them. He also told us which articles he modified and claimed that none of the mistakes was detected by now. I checked three of the articles he was right with his claim.
In the german article about "consumer surplus" the error was there for about 9 (!) days before I removed the nonesense. In other articles the errors were there for more than 9 days.
I agree with most of what you wrote, but I think it is a mistake to believe that we have any kind of review system which is on par (wrt error elimination) with a real peer review. At least my experience is that the probability for finding a mistake in Wikipedia is by far higher than for Britannica.
best regards, Marco
On Sat, Aug 28, 2004 at 04:16:43PM +0200, Marco Krohn wrote:
On Saturday 28 August 2004 06:06, Jens Ropers wrote:
If you doubt the standards of our editorial review mechanisms, go try and introduce some decidedly un-encyclopaedic (unproven, contentious and/or unacademic, etc.) information into an article of your choice. Then check back and see how long your contribution will remain in the article. My confidence is high that -- depending on how much this contribution falls short of encyclopedic standards -- you will find your contribution challenged on the respective article's discussion page (where you will likely be asked to provide references for your claims) or outright removed.
we just had someone on the de mailinglist who purposely modified four articles and introduced a mistake in each of them. He also told us which articles he modified and claimed that none of the mistakes was detected by now. I checked three of the articles he was right with his claim.
In the german article about "consumer surplus" the error was there for about 9 (!) days before I removed the nonesense. In other articles the errors were there for more than 9 days.
I agree with most of what you wrote, but I think it is a mistake to believe that we have any kind of review system which is on par (wrt error elimination) with a real peer review. At least my experience is that the probability for finding a mistake in Wikipedia is by far higher than for Britannica.
I'm seeing a lot of mistakes in Wikipedia too. It seems to be have a lot more mistakes than it used to.
Imagine a wiki without a Recent Changes page - the error can stay in it for days or even weeks before it gets corrected. Such a wiki wouldn't work well. But that's almost the situation in Wikipedia today - because the Recent Changes is so huge, very few people will check all articles, and as the topics of articles become more specialized, chances that non-trivial error will be spotted in RC are getting lower and lower.
Articles monitoring helps, but not that much.
I think we just have to divide RC into reasonably-sized parts. We should group categories into some related standarized sets (without standarization some of the categories would be much more likely to end underchecked), provide RC for each of those sets, and a huge RC for articles without categories, from which the edits in the articles would be categorized for later review by people competent in given area. RC in all categories could stay, but it would probably be only used for things like obvious vandalism and newbie experiments (not like it's much different today).
Tomasz Wegrzanowski schrieb:
We should group categories into some related standarized sets (without standarization some of the categories would be much more likely to end underchecked), provide RC for each of those sets, and a huge RC for articles without categories, from which the edits in the articles would be categorized for later review by people competent in given area.
For me the possibility to split RC was the best argument for the introduction of categories, much more important than the navigational aid. Yes, we should do this.
I think "Bug 144: Special:Rencentchangeslinked for particular categories" http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=144 is the corresponding feature request. I've attributed 400 of my "votes" to it - any higher bids?
Kurt
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
I think we just have to divide RC into reasonably-sized parts.
I think "filtering" is a more apropriate word than "division". Perhaps I only want to see changes in biology categories, perhaps you only want to see new articles, someone else only wants to see changes made on Wednesdays, a fourth person only wants to see changes made by a limited group of people (his traditional enemies). It should be one list, but with more ways to personalize the display.
Already, the "user contributions" is indeed one such filter applied to the list of changes.
On Sat, Aug 28, 2004 at 09:26:32PM +0200, Lars Aronsson wrote:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
I think we just have to divide RC into reasonably-sized parts.
I think "filtering" is a more apropriate word than "division". Perhaps I only want to see changes in biology categories, perhaps you only want to see new articles, someone else only wants to see changes made on Wednesdays, a fourth person only wants to see changes made by a limited group of people (his traditional enemies). It should be one list, but with more ways to personalize the display.
Already, the "user contributions" is indeed one such filter applied to the list of changes.
I think the filtering would only be a partial solution. The reason RC worked so well was that every change was reviewed by a few competent people. If we divide the RC (and provide a special RC for uncategorized articles, from which they will be moved to specialized RCs), this property will be restored. With general filtering it seems to me that there are going to be many changes which won't get into filters of enough competent people. The only idea I have how to cope with that group of changes is the division, but maybe there's some other way.
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
I think the filtering would only be a partial solution. The reason RC worked so well was that every change was reviewed by a few competent people. If we divide the RC (and provide a special RC for uncategorized articles, from which they will be moved to specialized RCs), this property will be restored. With general filtering it seems to me that there are going to be many changes which won't get into filters of enough competent people. The only idea I have how to cope with that group of changes is the division, but maybe there's some other way.
Yesterday I dreamt of a "review queue". There's a common situation: I check an edit on RC, okay, it's not vandalism, but it smells somehow fishy. The problem is, I have no knowledge of the subject (say, it is biology). Currently the only, very stony solution is to leave someone I know who knows about biology a message on his talk page to please have a look at the article. But most people don't do that.
Instead, I could - RC patrol mode switched on in my user pref - select in the diff view the biology-queue, and the edit would go in the review queue of the biologists where someone checks the edit and removes it from the queue (and takes the appropriate measures).
Dunno if that's too complicated, sounds like.
greetings, elian
At 11:44 PM 8/28/2004 +0200, Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
Yesterday I dreamt of a "review queue". There's a common situation: I check an edit on RC, okay, it's not vandalism, but it smells somehow fishy. The problem is, I have no knowledge of the subject (say, it is biology). Currently the only, very stony solution is to leave someone I know who knows about biology a message on his talk page to please have a look at the article. But most people don't do that.
Instead, I could - RC patrol mode switched on in my user pref - select in the diff view the biology-queue, and the edit would go in the review queue of the biologists where someone checks the edit and removes it from the queue (and takes the appropriate measures).
Dunno if that's too complicated, sounds like.
A few days back I proposed something similar to Recentchanges, in which every article would have a link or button that would cause the article to get placed there as a way of drawing attention to dubious content. Clicking the link wouldn't actually change the article, it would just put a link to it out in a prominent position for a little while. Sort of a one-click cleanup queue. I'm hoping that if something like it were implemented it would be used by readers who otherwise wouldn't go to the effort of correcting errors they saw themselves, and so wouldn't otherwise contribute to the project at all.
--- Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
I think we just have to divide RC into reasonably-sized parts.
I think "filtering" is a more apropriate word than "division". Perhaps I only want to see changes in biology categories,
This can already be done by using 'Related changes' on a list of biology-related articles. But creating and maintaining such a list is too centralized and too hard to maintain for a wiki.
I do see that 'Related changes' somewhat works now for articles listed on category pages. What is needed, IMO, is for user-selectable levels for that feature such that all articles with the category Biology, for example, and all articles that are listed as sub, sub-sub, sub-sub-sub, etc., categories of Biology could all be displayed in a single RC for Biology-related articles.
-- mav
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On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 16:16:43 +0200, Marco Krohn marco.krohn@web.de wrote:
I agree with most of what you wrote, but I think it is a mistake to believe that we have any kind of review system which is on par (wrt error elimination) with a real peer review. At least my experience is that the probability for finding a mistake in Wikipedia is by far higher than for Britannica.
Yes, and so is the probability of finding true information. The en Wikipedia has more text and articles than Britannica, and thus contains more information. Yes, some of that information in either is going to be wrong, which is why it's always useful to check on the web (or in books) for other sources of information.
we just had someone on the de mailinglist who purposely modified four articles and introduced a mistake in each of them.
That's nice.
He also told us which articles he modified and claimed that none of the mistakes was detected by now.
Could it perhaps be that he was trusted to not do that (misplaced trust if you ask me).
I checked three of the articles he was right with his claim.
That's nice too.
In the german article about "consumer surplus" the error was there for about 9 (!) days before I removed the nonesense. In other articles the errors were there for more than 9 days.
A whole nine days? Woa, that's like incredible. I would not believe it. Now, a year would be a real challenge.
I agree with most of what you wrote, but I think it is a mistake to believe that we have any kind of review system which is on par (wrt error elimination) with a real peer review.
A real peer review is done by people who are paid. We are volunteers, and while some people might think our work worthless, we don't.
At least my experience is that the probability for finding a mistake in Wikipedia is by far higher than for Britannica.
And britannica has been around what, 100+ years?
best regards, Marco
Marco, tell your friend next time he wants to experiment, to use the sandbox.
And if you like Britannica so much, then, it's there for you to use. Oh, and I forgot, you have to pay to read Britannica articles. (look up Blade Runner, the movie)
Now, granted, the review on W takes more time, but we don't release every year, we release constantly.
There is a program afoot to make a printed wikipedia, and I am sure tht your attention to detail and factual accuracy would be extremely valuable in reaching the completion of the project.
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
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On Saturday 28 August 2004 19:26, Christopher Mahan wrote:
He also told us which articles he modified and claimed that none of the mistakes was detected by now.
Could it perhaps be that he was trusted to not do that (misplaced trust if you ask me).
no, he created a new user account for every new "contribution".
A real peer review is done by people who are paid.
In science reviewers are often not paid for their work. Which btw in many cases means that the scientist who wrote the paper is paid by the public and the two other scientists who are doing the review for free (free for the journal) are paid by the public too. For the resulting journal, libraries have to pay huge amounts of (public) money. Which is a great system for the publishing company. Additionally the publishing companies even claim copyright for their "work".
At least my experience is that the probability for finding a mistake in Wikipedia is by far higher than for Britannica.
And britannica has been around what, 100+ years?
right, this surely makes a difference. But if it is possible to introduce bugs into Wikipedia that easily then I have little doubt that Wikipedia will always contain more mistakes per sentence than Britannica etc.
Marco, tell your friend next time he wants to experiment, to use the sandbox.
And if you like Britannica so much, then, it's there for you to use. Oh, and I forgot, you have to pay to read Britannica articles. (look up Blade Runner, the movie)
???
Neither is this guy my friend, nor did I say that I like Britannica more than Wikipedia. As you can easily find out I am contributing to the German as well as to the English Wikipedia.
If Jens challenges the author of the article it is perfect legitim to tell Jens what happended to "de" in a similar case.
Wikipedians are very enthusiastic about Wikipedia and I still am a big fan of this project and tell everyone about it (whether s/he wants to hear about it or not ;-). But in our enthusiasm we should not forget that there are areas, were Wikipedia can improve. I believe that factual correctness still is such an area where Wikipedia can and should become better and the example from "de" makes that even clearer.
It is perfect to counter my arguments, or if you tend to agree to think about what we can improve. For instance I consider Tomasz response usefull. His idea can certainly help with dealing with the overwhelming amount on "recent changes" and therefore could make Wikipedia better.
On the other hand the last part of your comment reads "go away and use Britannica instead", which I don't find too helpfull.
best regards, Marco
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org