[WikiEN-l] Re: How much?

Thu Jan 15 05:30:00 UTC 2004

The point is not about any one example in particular.  Sascha's example 
would be a relatively easy one to check, but who would think to check it 
if he had not used it as an example.  There are countless such unnoticed 
details in the 'pedia.
Ec

Nikos-Optim wrote:

>just visit a government statistics page and check.
>
>
>--- Sascha Noyes <sascha at pantropy.net> wrote:
>
>>On Wednesday 14 January 2004 04:58 pm, Ray Saintonge
>>wrote:
>>
>>>In [[Académie française]] there is the statement
>>>
>>"a musician named
>>
>>>Gourville, who named it the Académie française".
>>>
>> Another established
>>
>>>contributor and I both independently looked for
>>>
>>some kind of
>>
>>>substantiation for this statement; neither of us
>>>
>>was successful.  At the
>>
>>>same time we did not find any information
>>>
>>indicating that someone else
>>
>>>was responsible for the name.  This particular
>>>
>>piece of data was
>>
>>>contributed by an anonymous contributor on
>>>
>>December 31, 2002.  The last
>>
>>>contribution of any sort by him was on April 12,
>>>
>>2003.  He may still be
>>
>>>with us, and with a real identity, but I can't
>>>
>>know that.
>>
>>>What do I know about 17th century musicians.  I
>>>
>>found a contemporary
>>
>>>Gourville who was in a position to exercise such
>>>
>>influence, but no
>>
>>>evidence to connect him with the issue. 
>>>
>>Fact-checking is a painstaking
>>
>>>and tedious process, and tracing the type of thing
>>>
>>that I used as an
>>
>>>example could take hours, and may require material
>>>
>>that is not on the
>>
>>>internet.  Wikipedia's credibility depends on it. 
>>>
>>Everybody knows to
>>
>>>expect bias in a hotly disputed topic like
>>>
>>Israeli/Palestinian
>>
>>>relations, and is on alert for that bias.  This is
>>>
>>not so with obscure
>>
>>>little details.  A credibility test for Wikipedia
>>>
>>might be to take a
>>
>>>random selection of obscure details and attempt to
>>>
>>verify them, or at
>>
>>>least find some source.  How well would we do?
>>>
>>This is indeed a problem. I have begun, and plan to
>>continue to in my edit box 
>>summaries to indicate the source of the information
>>I add to an article (if 
>>that information is non-obvious). Which reminds me
>>that it would be a good 
>>idea to _require_ users to fill in the edit summary
>>box. 
>>
>>What worries me every time is when I see an anon
>>change numbers in wikipedia 
>>without any edit summary. Eg. changing statistics on
>>the population of 
>>spanish speakers in California from (hypothetical)
>>15% to 40%. It is often 
>>impossible to tell whether this is vandalism or a
>>correction.
>>
>>Best,
>>Sascha Noyes
>>