On 06/12/2007, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
I was in an evil mood and confess to trolling; there are a lot of good thoughts at http://yudkowsky.net/virtues/ besides the sentence I seized on. We have published a "consensus of the most widespread error" from time to time, particularly in the run-up to the Iraq War. (I was one of the parties in error). Especially with current events, it is hard to know when you are doing that as our favored sources, in my case The New York Times, are fostering the error.
Even were we perfect overnight - all our articles neutral and informed and comprehensive - we would still be guilty of this; an encyclopedia reflects existing knowledge, and all too often existing knowledge is systematically wrong.
(The most obvious dangerspots are physics, biology, astronomy - fields that could have one unexpected announcement tomorrow throw entire textbooks out of whack.)
I'm not sure it's in our best interests to pre-empt this, though ensuring we can transition as smoothly as possible is always good. (I remember the day of Sorting Out All The Pluto Stuff)