On 05/04/2015 06:36, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, Reliable is not an absolute. Wikipedia is in the final analysis an encyclopaedia. It is not original research.
One can indeed engage in original research by cherry picking the sources.
Studies have indicated that Wikipedia is as reliable as its competitors.
Nonsense. Reliability has only ever been checked in the case of well established scientific knowledge (where it was found to have 30% more errors), and highly disputed content. It has not been checked over the millions of articles that are neither of the above.
Take the WP article on John Dee and compare it to the Britannica article. The Britannica article is both readable and well rounded. The WP article is a rambling mess that tries to present Dee the Mathematician, Scientist and natural philospher, but is thwarted at every turn by those that want John Dee to be foremost the magician and conjuror.
Perhaps in the end Dee the mathematician wins out, but it is a close run thing, and one has to pour over the stilted language and mish mash of thought processes to get there.
Ironically enough many of the sources used to promote Dee the magician are instead promoting Dee the mathematician.
I think you have it backward. Given that Wikipedia is best of breed, people do care about Wikipedia Zero.
God help us if that is the case. Fortunately there are far more informative and reliable sites about then wikipedia. Unfortunately they tend not to be on the first page of a search engine's results.