[Foundation-l] Organization on Wikipedia that deals with content issues.

[Peter Damian]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pro_hominem&oldid=369721624

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud at fairpoint.net>
> It's a simple error that most proof-readers would find.

Well only if they can read Latin, which is not that usual these days.

>>It looks right at  first glance but is not. It is a type of error.

No: the error is more subtle in that it may be 'dog Latin' i.e. an error in 
common use rather like 'strictu dictu'*.  How would the proof reader know 
that?  The problem is that it has been there for so long that it is 
difficult to tell whether the  Google search is turning up uses that have 
actually been *caused* by Wikipedia, so that Wikipedia is actually degrading 
human knowledge by introducing false information, in the manner of an urban 
myth, or whether the error predates that.  Either way the issue would have 
to be noted in the article.  I think it is beyond what simple proof-reading 
would give you.

> The obvious solution is to proof-read Wikipedia in a systemic way.

Who is going to do that?  It comes back to my earlier point: there simply 
aren't enough people with the right knowledge to do this.  There needs to be 
some way of making Wikipedia more 'knowledge friendly', but hard to see how 
that could be practically achieved.

Peter

*I have just noticed there is no entry on 'strictu dictu'!