[Foundation-l] Misplaced Reliance, was Re: Paid editing, was Re: Ban and moderate

[????]

On 24/10/2010 21:12, geni wrote:
> On 24 October 2010 20:58, ????<wiki-list at phizz.demon.co.uk>  wrote:
>> Its not a question of lower levels of reliability it is a question of
>> the absence of reliability, the fact that one can never be sure that
>> what one is reading is correct, an honest mistake, or something inserted
>> to push some agenda.
>
> And how does that differ from every other document written by human beings ever?
>
>> Next to the EB we have a French encyclopaedia. It is much less in depth
>> but it is still accurate in what it has to say on the subjects it
>> covers, and again I don't have to worry about whether some one just
>> added nonsense to the article on Maurice Jarre.
>
> You've just defined the New Columbia Encyclopedia as not an
> encyclopedia (see
> http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/08/29/050829ta_talk_alford ).
>
> And then well consider this:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhine#Length
>

Oh well that's OK then. One Encyclopaedia puts an fake entry into the 
work about a fictitious person (born in bangs, died in an explosion, 
whilst working for combustible), and that absolutely justifies having a 
site that boasts of containing the worlds knowledge, where every page 
can be turned on its head from one page request to the next.

Whatever was I thinking? Of course the vandalism, POV pushing, and plain 
old altering of pages to 'win' an argument in the pub or the David Ike 
forum, is exactly the same as what goes on at the New Columbia Encyclopedia.