Re: [flalug] Interview with Wikipedia founder

From: Steve Litt (slitt@troubleshooters.com)
Date: Sat Feb 26 2005 - 15:38:06 EST


On Friday 25 February 2005 01:18 pm, Khepri wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:
> > Like a free market, free knowledge just works
> > better.
>
> Yeah, what he said...:)
>
> Well put!
>
> Chris

As long as you don't instantly treat it as true. AFAIK anyone can write
anything on a wiki, so IWSTM there's no facility for fact checking.

If I see something in Encyclopedia Britannica, I believe it if it's a hard
fact. If Encyclopedia Britannica had all knowledge I'd use it exclusively.
Problem is, there are tons of facts and ideas not in Encyclopedia Britannica,
so one muse cast a wider net, including Wikipedia. Then one fact checks.

It's kinda like using a pre-written program vs. writing your own. If I use
grep, I don't check it for bugs -- someone else already did. But if I write
my own program to perform a grep-like functionality, I bug check it.

SteveT



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