[WikiEN-l] Slashdot article

[WJhonson at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/22/2008 6:14:44 PM Pacific Daylight Time,  
snowspinner at gmail.com writes:

Actually, in my understanding, EB generally hires an expert to  write  
an article and leaves it at  that.>>


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Somewhat.  And yet they do issue corrections pages.  So how do  you square 
that?
 
The problem here is the use of the word "error" and "correction" and so on,  
in biographies.
If your mother says "He was always a naughty child" and YOU say "No I  
weren't"  What are we supposed to write?
 
Typically in a biography you write... both, and quote who said which.
That is what divorces biography from say mathematics where presumably there  
is one single correct version of any issue. (more or less).
 
If, after some use of a source, it's generally found that it often  
contradicts other sources which more-or-less agree with each other, we might be  led to 
think that source unreliable.  If you can think of some better  methodology 
for how to write biographies, than what we have, state it.
 
However believing that some anonymous editor is actually Jaron Lanier and  he 
should be allowed to willy-nilly change his own biography, isn't going to  
fly.
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