---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Keith Old <keithold(a)gmail.com>
Date: Mar 16, 2007 7:24 AM
Subject: Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Oops (or, be careful when quoting Wikipedia in your
newspaper, part 2)
To: "unblock-en-l(a)wikipedia.org" <unblock-en-l(a)wikipedia.org>
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Earle Martin <wikipedia(a)downlode.org>
Date: Mar 16, 2007 7:10 AM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Oops (or, be careful when quoting Wikipedia in your
newspaper, part 2)
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
London has a free daily newspaper called [[thelondonpaper]]. Every
day, on the puzzles page, there's a little factoid at the top of the
page. Today it said:
[in Big Type:] 670.6
The number of miles per hour at which light travels.
source:
en.wikipedia.org
Oh dear. I think the word "million" went missing somewhere. From
[[speed of light]]:
"Converted to imperial units, the speed of light is
approximately... 670,616,629.384 miles per hour, or almost one foot
per nanosecond."
I just hope that people realise the error was on their part, not ours.
(Probably, considering that they also had a story today titled "Jolie
Adopts Fourth Child", which began "Angelina Jolie today adopted a
third child...")
--
Earle Martin
http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/
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G'day folks,
The Register which has never published anything positive about Wikipedia in
its life published an interesting piece by Tom Melly (Username Tomandlu)
about The Times allegedly using Wikipedia as a source for an article on his
father George Melly.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/15/tom_melly_wikipedia_comment/
Wikipedia comes in for a fair amount of criticism these days from *El
Reg*and other publications, but I can't help wondering if we're
missing the real
point regarding its status as an encyclopedia. Most of the arguments hinge
on its accuracy, or lack of it. But if our criteria for an encyclopedia is a
guarantee of 100 per cent accuracy, then there are no encyclopaedias now,
and there never have been. So is Wikipedia an encylopedia, and, if not, can
it ever be one? Reluctantly, I think the answer is a resounding 'no', and
here's why.
This is a tale of personal experience, so a bit of background is needed. In
the first place, I am a casual editor on Wikipedia under the username
Tomandlu <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Tomandlu>. I've
contributed to articles on various novels, historical events, and so on
(including, for reasons I fail to recall, the tuberculate pelagic octopus –
don't you hate it when that happens?). So, I like Wikipedia, I really do.
Besides, any resource that has anything as bizarre as the Death Star
talkpage <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Death_Star> gets my vote.
My father is George Melly, the British jazz-singer and writer. Needless to
say, I keep an eye on Wikipedia's article on
him<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Melly>ly>.
I try to avoid any bias, although I did once suggest that a particular
anecdote wasn't really noteworthy or accurate. (It was a trout not a salmon,
and he didn't wank on it, just near it; besides, if a wank-adote is really
required, then there's a far better one involving cat impressions and a
plate.)
The closest I've come to censorship was when I removed "incontinence" from
a
list of his health problems. I didn't lose much sleep over it - it's your
standard, old-man, incontinence, so, once again, not very noteworthy. I'd
have removed "has wrinkles" or "thinks modern music is too loud and
repetitive" on the same basis. However, lung cancer (an early member of the
list), and emphysema (a later addition) were retained.
I had some concerns about this. Nevertheless, the information was accurate –
albeit unreferenced – so I let it stand. At least no one else seemed to have
heard that he had also been diagnosed with early vascular dementia, and that
stayed off the list – I certainly wasn't going to add it in.
We can now fast-forward to earlier this year, when my father came out, so to
speak, as a sufferer. I duly added "vascular dementia" to Wikipedia, and
settled down to following the various news coverage and articles on my
father's condition – for the most part sympathetic and accurate pieces, and
often based around interviews…and then I came across an article in the
Times<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article1453037.ece>by
a Dr Thomas Stuttaford.
Now, you can take my word for it, or you can take a look at the article and
compare it with the entry on Wikipedia, but large sections of it are
obviously sourced from there and I was rather shocked. This wasn't, as far
as I knew, what Wikipedia was for. Wikipedia was for... well what exactly?
Or more accurately, who?
More in story.
Regards
Keith Old