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

Sun Oct 24 18:53:05 UTC 2010

On 24/10/2010 19:33, Austin Hair wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 7:44 PM, Anthony<wikimail at inbox.org>  wrote:
>> On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Austin Hair<adhair at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 7:34 PM, Anthony<wikimail at inbox.org>  wrote:
>>>> On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 1:19 PM, Austin Hair<adhair at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>>> On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 6:33 PM, Anthony<wikimail at inbox.org>  wrote:
>>>>>> On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 11:52 AM,<wiki-list at phizz.demon.co.uk>  wrote:
>>>>>>> On 24/10/2010 14:20, Fred Bauder wrote:
>>>>>>>> Taking this problem seriously, how can we mitigate misplaced reliance?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Well you could put a banner above every article that read "The
>>>>>>> information contained on the page could well be nonsense".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A better start would be to stop calling Wikipedia an encyclopedia.
>>>>>
>>>>> Who on earth thinks an encyclopedia is an authoritative source?
>>>>
>>>> How is that relevant?
>>>
>>> You seemed to be saying that by calling it an encyclopedia,
>>> reliability is implied.
>>
>> A higher degree of reliability is implied than is provided.  I
>> wouldn't go so far as to say that encyclopedias are generally
>> authoritative, though.
>
> You're asserting, then, that Wikipedia is less reliable than other
> encyclopedias, which the research done on the subject contradicts.

He is probably thinking about this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/britannica_wikipedia_nature_study/

Actually I dug out an old 1999 CD version of Britannica the other week. 
*whispers* I was amazed as to how refreshing the articles are.