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Monday, December 05, 2005

Bad Information on Wikipedia - Pop Occulture

Bad Information on Wikipedia - Pop Occulture:
"...Instead of getting all grumpy and contacting a lawyer, he could have simply logged onto Wikipedia (hell, you don’t even need to sign in or create an account if you don’t want to) and actually made the appropriate corrections himself! Thereby saving everybody the headache of hearing him have to bellyache about the whole thing.

Every article I’ve read which has been critical of Wikipedia always takes this same angle: of the beleagured scientist, author or intellectual who comes out of his ivory tower every ten years to use the internet, and discovers - Lo! There’s a factual error in Wikipedia! And then before you know it, they’ve convened a fucking press conference to denounce the technology. When instead, they could have done what the rest of us who actually make sites like Wikipedia work routinely do: they could have fixed it and made it better!

In a nutshell, the weaknesses of this type of technology (or approach to technology) is precisely the same as it’s strength. It’s just a matter of what you’re ready to focus on and do about it."

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