Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
Shane King wrote:
I've been thinking about this for a few days,
and I can't get around one
basic issue: we haven't solved the problem. We've shifted the burden of
evaluating the credibility of the theory to evaluating the credibility
of the sources. I see no reason to believe we're any better at
evaluating the credibility of sources than of theories.
Oh, I think it is a lot easier to evaluate the credibility of sources
than the credibility of theories. If you offer me your personal
theory of "Liquidity, Efficiency, and Bank Bailouts" then it's going
to be quite hard for me to judge whether you are an economics crank or
someone with an interesting theory. But if you point me to an essay
of that title in _American Economic Review_, I can feel comfortable
that it is at least credible.
What about an article written by an associate editor of the New
Republic? It's still surprising to see how many articles have referred
to information in Stephen Glass's "Hack Haven" article as a credible
source.
(However, despite how much the reliability of usually credible sources
can be disputed, I realize Wikipedia needs a clear-cut policy on this,
and that there is probably no such thing as bullet proof policy on
ensuring that everything reported is 100% accurate.)
As such, despite theories such as the [[propaganda theory]] (by [[Noam
Chomsky]]) or other recent court cases proving that big News stations
(e.g. Fox News) can lie legally (due to the 1st amendment overriding
whistle-blowing laws), I still reckon Wikipedia has a much better chance
of being a source for reliable information than most places due to its
collaborative design.
$0.02,
Rebroad
Ed