[WikiEN-l] Well, that's interesting...

[Wily D]

On Feb 12, 2008 4:25 PM, Angela Anuszewski <psu256 at member.fsf.org> wrote:
> I just was looking at
> http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/politics/bal-primarytracker-html,0,4807672.htmlpage
>
> and saw that in one of the boxes on the page, the word
> "superdelegates" was a hyperlink - imagine my surprise when I clicked
> on it and it took me to the Wikipedia article.
>
> Does anyone worry that if newspapers make a habit of doing that, their
> readers will look at Wikipedia as being as authoritative as the
> newspaper and not bother to check into the article's accuracy? After
> all, if the paper considers it authoritative enough to link to, it
> must be so, right?
>
> Angela
>
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Maybe you don't read a lot of newspapers or something, but most are
barely as reliable as your average page on geocities.  There are few
if any newspapers that should be considered more authoritative than
Wikipedia (really, any discerning reader should rank both on the level
of reliability I call "rumour mill" - your nomenclature may vary).

In fact, I'd wager we could go head to head for accuracy against any
newspaper and "pwn" them, as the young people say.  I've never figured
out why Wikipedians seem to regard newspapers as some sort of gospel,
rather the the fish-wrapping pack of lies they are.

Of course, standards for souces have been increasing with time - maybe
something we'll see newspapers dropped as reliable sources.

Cheers
WilyD