[WikiEN-l] Getting hammered in a tv interview is not fun

[Sheldon Rampton]

Stan Shebs wrote:

> Isn't it interesting how nobody ever complains
> about inaccuracies in articles other than the ones about themselves?
> Egos, geez...

Actually, people *do* complain about inaccuracies in other types of  
articles. Moreover, there are good reasons other than ego for people  
to notice the inaccuracies in articles about themselves. For one  
thing, we all know our own biographies in a lot more detail than  
other people. I'm willing to bet that no one on WikiEN-l other than  
myself knows off the top of their head what city I was born in or my  
date of birth. If someone other than myself were to read that I was  
born in 1961 in Toledo, Ohio, it's unlikely that they'd know it was  
incorrect, whereas I'd notice the error immediately.

In any case, the people who complain about inaccuracies in articles  
are doing Wikipedia a favor, not a disservice. Complaints help  
Wikipedia learn about errors and improve. It may be momentarily  
embarrassing for Jimbo to have an error pointed out to him during a  
TV interview, but that's a small price to pay for useful feedback.

Slim Virgin wrote:

> The other solution is to stop publishing biographies of living
> persons, or at least to offer subjects deletion on request.
>
> By hosting living bios, and by inviting anyone in the world to edit
> them, we're encouraging bad editing in a quantity we have no hope of
> controlling.

Actually, hosting living bios probably helps improve fact-checking  
and accuracy more than publishing other types of articles. If there's  
an error in an article about some dead guy, he's NOT going to point  
out the error. Without the feedback from live people, Wikipedia would  
know less than it knows now about the accuracy of its articles and  
the validity of its editorial policies.

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
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