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Speaking of Whiney Bitches...
Making the rounds: A political has-been doesn't like what Wikipedia has to say about him, so he finds the biggest megaphone he can get his hands around and uses it to scream to the world about the injustice. Instead of, you know, fixing the goddamned article himself which is after all the whole point of Wikipedia.
Reading the article, I get the impression this guy is the kind of person who'd hold up an entire checkout line for hours just because his can of peaches rang up 5 cents over. I'd like to say this sort of person is more prevalent on the other side of the isle, but in truth I know they hang out along the edges of all our camp fires.
It's our job to make sure they never get to play with the flame.
Oy. I like how, after trying to track down his "character assassinator" (nice choice of words, given the topic), he's upset that BellSouth could not be held liable for "disseminating" the message.
I'd like to give him a hypothetical:
Person A is on the telephone, and calls Person B. Person A says that B is [insert slander here]. Is the phone company liable for processing that phone call?
Wikis are only as good as the people who write them. Therefore, things will average out between good and bad.
Posted by: Jon on December 1, 2005 01:16 PMActually, I can see where this guy is coming from. It's not just Wikipedia that the articles appear on; they get mirrored to other sites that are also looked to for answers, and may not update as often as they should. A defamatory Wiki entry can live forever, supported by references even after the original article is changed or removed.
Wikipedia really can't be considered any more authoritative than Indymedia, but it is. The 'average' is not always the truth.
Posted by: Tatterdemalian on December 1, 2005 02:25 PMI think most professors and the like are telling their students that Wiki articles are not acceptable sources of information. That being said, they may be a good way to get closer to source data.
Of course, Scott has a point - FIX THE BLOODY ARTICLE YOURSELF AS THERE'S A FRICKIN' LINK RIGHT THERE THAT'LL LET YOU DO THAT!!!!!!!
Posted by: ronaprhys on December 1, 2005 04:55 PM>FIX THE BLOODY ARTICLE YOURSELF
And then get the change rolled back because one of the Wikipedia in-crowd doesn't like you.
Posted by: DensityDuck on December 1, 2005 06:07 PMI don't follow the "mirrored" analogy.
When newspaper articles publish retraction/correction columns, they doesn't automatically update any wire service articles that quoted them. If it fell under a professional journalist's responsibility to do so, then I would argue for the wiki to do the same.
Posted by: Jon on December 2, 2005 02:05 PM