[Foundation-l] Misplaced Reliance, was Re: Paid editing, was Re: Ban and moderate

Sun Oct 24 16:28:49 UTC 2010

On 24 October 2010 16:52,  <wiki-list at phizz.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Well you could put a banner above every article that read "The
> information contained on the page could well be nonsense".

That would be the logo at the side, then.

Really, Wikipedia can't be expected to think for those who can't or won't.

The community attempts best-effort, but the readers need to understand
that Wikipedia is *just written by people*. We tell them this all the
time. Slowly it seeps through the culture.

Furthering this is definitely the best thing that can be done about
the problem you raise. Not "everything in Wikipedia is rubbish and
must be ignored" - that's obvious exaggeration and will be discounted
by the readers, even though you're convinced it's the case. It
wouldn't be #5 site in the world if it wasn't actually useful.
Instead, that it's just written by people, and check the references.

- d.