[WikiEN-l] User:Hillman's arguments

[Steve Summit]

Kirill Lokshin wrote:
> On 7/27/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
>> ...the central point is that Wikipedia, along with many other cultural
>> forces, are encouraging convenience over correctness,

This is indeed a widespread and discouraging trend.

>> people who want to use Wikipedia to mislead others are having more and
>> more sucess.
>
> ...alarm is not called for at this point.  Despite the
> failings of a (relatively) miniscule number of articles, the vast
> underbelly of historical, scientific, and literary topics that
> includes most of our coverage is steadily moving forward with "proper"
> encyclopedic work.

Agreed.  However: it's worth noting that Wikipedia is now *BIG*.
Whereas once we had only to worry about high school kids
inserting misinformation for fun, and later about individual POV
warriors and fanatics who couldn't change their mind and wouldn't
change the subject, now we're subject to organized propaganda
campaigns of arbitrary sophistication.  The antivandalism efforts
that have worked for us in the past may not always be up to the
task of defending against powerful interests who've realized that
Wikipedia is becoming a one-stop shopping center for information
and is therefore a "must have" venue for their particular
misinformation.