Re: [flalug] Interview with Wikipedia founder

From: Eben King (eben1@tampabay.rr.com)
Date: Sat Feb 26 2005 - 23:20:06 EST


On Sat, 26 Feb 2005, Khepri wrote:

> > 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.

...

> Another form of this self-correcting principle is the "popularity"
> test...If a wiki develops a reputation overtime of being inaccurate,
> inconsistent, etc., (and word spreads fairly quickly on the Net) it just
> won't survive to any meaningful extent.

I see no reason why a well-executed troll in an otherwise factual wiki can't
persist.

> > 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.
>
> True. But if you then shared that with me, I probably wouldn't check it.
> You already did....:)

I don't trust any one person that much. A dozen, maybe. A hundred, yes.

-- 
-eben    ebQenW1@EtaRmpTabYayU.rIr.OcoPm    home.tampabay.rr.com/hactar

Hi! I'm a .sig virus! Copy me to your .sig!



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 20:09:04 EDT