[Foundation-l] Most read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia

Wed Nov 30 19:26:23 UTC 2005

Poe, Marshall wrote:

>Mark wrote:
>
>  
>
>>And in this case, I don't see how ethical issues enter into it at all. 
>>    
>>
>
>Like this: deciding what you are going to say and what you aren't going
>to say is on some level an ethical or moral decision.  Similarly,
>deciding what you are going publish and what you aren't going to publish
>is an ethical or moral decision.
>
The problem with this view is that Wikipedia by nature cannot "decide" 
what to publish---we "publish" anything that anyone posts, automatically 
and without review, because that is how wikis work.  What we *continue* 
to publish is the result of the consensus of editors.

I don't, in general, see a problem with this.  If something is incorrect 
in any way, it should be corrected or removed (whether it is libelous or 
not is irrelevant---non-libelous misinformation has no place either).  
The "what if [x]" scenarios seem pretty far-fetched.

-Mark