From: Erik Moeller
It's not so much an Internet/paper distinction but a primary/secondary
sources distinction. Errors being promulgated from one book to the
next
happens on paper just as it happens online. A personal
webpage may
well be
a much better source for vital data than a biography
written by a
third
party, and that in turn may be a better source than a
book that
briefly
mentions the person in context.
That reminds me...can we add a little <permanent URL for this version>
at the bottom of the article pages?
We can find the link to the archived copy of previous versions, but
there's presently no way to make a hard link to the presently displayed
version.
That would be a very simple step in making Wikipedia usable as an
"authoritative" resource, for one thing.
It's also helpful for internal discussions if you want to have a
discussion comparing different versions of the same entry.
--tc