[Foundation-l] Most read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia

Thu Dec 1 23:53:41 UTC 2005

SJ wrote:

>We should certainly not strangle that freedom.  But I'm not worried
>about people being 'turned away' from WP because of bad press.  I'm
>worried about the real damage that may be done to people due to bad
>content.  As a community, we should be far more concerned about this
>than about our own image.
>  
>
That's true, but at the moment Wikipedia has not yet instituted a system 
by which we can say that we are even reasonably sure that a particular 
revision of a particular article is accurate.  This has been 
long-planned, but not operative.  In the meantime, people need to read 
Wikipedia with a large grain of a salt---it is great for finding out 
information, but any information that is important should be 
double-checked (this is true of any sources, but especially true of ones 
in flux).  Basically, as David Gerard has mentioned, we've peaked too 
early---Wikipedia is still in beta, working out how to deal with these 
issues, so should be treated appropriately.

Perhaps we should make the disclaimers more prominent?  There are plenty 
of possible ways people could be damaged other than libel---for example, 
someone could rely on a wholly made-up bit of medical advice.

-Mark