[WikiEN-l] Re: Improve quality by reviewing all new articles

Fri Dec 16 16:25:19 UTC 2005

"Jimmy Wales" <jwales at wikia.com> wrote in 
message news:43A2D09C.4080301 at wikia.com...
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
[snip]
>> I also read the USA Today article, and the paragraphs that were quoted
>> were not obvious mistakes.  "John Seigenthaler Sr. was the assistant
>> to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the early 1960's. For a brief
>> time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy
>> assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was ever
>> proven."  "John Seigenthaler moved to the Soviet Union in 1971, and
>> returned to the United States in 1984," Wikipedia said. "He started
>> one of the country's largest public relations firms shortly
>> thereafter."
>> None of those mistakes are obvious.
> Anthony, I'm not normally one to state harsh opinions.  But frankly, if
> you don't find those errors to be blindingly obvious, you need to find
> another hobby.  Writing an encyclopedia is quite frankly beyond you.

Well, colour me with the same brush, then.

If I was already familiar with the life-history of "John Seigenthaler Sr." I 
might well be able to tell that those particular statements were in error. 
If I was an expert on the Kennedy Assassination, I might have a similar 
chance. Even if I was American, I might have a better chance than I do :-)

However, coming to it cold, I would have no way of knowing which, if any, of 
the various points of information in that article might have been false. If 
there were external links in the article, I would have to follow each and 
every one to check. If not, I would have to Google extensively.

However, and most importantly, I would have to know that I **needed to 
check**.

What was the "glaring red light" that might have prompted a chance visitor 
to that article to think "maybe I ought to check whether everything in this 
article is completely true?"? Were there no other suspects than Oswald and 
[whoever killed Bobby Kennedy], ever? Did JS never live anywhere other than 
where he lives now, and is he famous for never moving home? Did he not 
actually start up "one of the country's largest public relations firms"? or 
did he, but not at that time?

Hindsight is 20/20. I clearly am not.

HTH HAND
-- 
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]] 