Jens Ropers wrote:
If you doubt the standards of our editorial review
mechanisms, go try
and introduce some decidedly un-encyclopaedic (unproven, contentious
and/or unacademic, etc.) information into an article of your choice.
Then check back and see how long your contribution will remain in the
article. My confidence is high that -- depending on how much this
contribution falls short of encyclopedic standards -- you will find
your contribution challenged on the respective article's discussion
page (where you will likely be asked to provide references for your
claims) or outright removed.
I think "go and try" is a dangerous answer to give to our critics. It is
easy to falsify and it starts at the wrong end. Of course I could insert
wrong information, but for what purpose? And what does that prove about
wikipedia in general?
Wikipedia is based on the assumption that there are much more people
adding valid information than people interested in deliberately
inserting wrong information. I don't talk of vandalism, this is rather
frequent but easily spotted, I talk of deliberately adding "hidden"
mistakes. My claim is that there are not enough people who find such
actions satisfying to make wikipedia in general unreliable as a source.
So please don't tell people "go and try" (they will suceed if they are
halfway intelligent) but tell them: "most people just don't do it,
that's why wikipedia works".
greetings,
elian