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Re: Is Wikipedia taking over the net?

On Saturday 20 August 2005 16:24, Mikkel Møldrup-Lakjer wrote:

> "Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> skrev i en meddelelse
> news:de7dll$1msk$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> On Saturday 20 August 2005 12:22, Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer wrote:
>>
>>> It probably depends on the topics that interest you, and probably also
>>> the
>>> language version of Wikipedia you use. I would suspect that Wikipedia is
>>> more useful for technical topics than for the humanities.
>>
>>
>> Technical topics are usually less two(or multi)-sided than the
>> humanities. This, for example, is why I have never been reluctant to post
>> in technical newsgroups under my full name.
> 
> Could you rephrase that? I don't get your point.


Search engines make it easier than ever before to learn about an individual
these days. For example, by searching for "roy schestowitz outlook", you
will know my sentiments on the issue, which have been expressed openly many
times.

Religion in software and IT are quite harmless to a human reviewer (with the
exception of 'closing doors' to future jobs). The last thing you want to do
is express your opinions on issues where there is a great divide like the
favouring of political parties, the issue of smoking or international
affairs.

So, in brevity my point was that wars over content in humanitarian articles
would be much more fierce. I will not be surprised if people keep
intercepting one another's content on articles relating to Bush, Iraq, or
the Vietnam War.


>>> Simply because
>>> personal bias and ignorance is more likely to affect articles on topics
>>> wihin the human sciences rather than within the natural sciences. As
>>> languages goes, I have seen that many articles in languages other than
>>> English are only translations of the original, which carry on the
>>> misrepresentations of the original and adds some more because of a poor
>>> translation.
>>
>>
>> Agreed, but even poor translations, as long as they remain valid
>> translations, cannot reverse things upside-down.
> 
> Probably not, but there might be better sources around. Especially if you
> know other languages than your mother tongue.
> 
>>> It's a bit like reading a poor newspaper (or watching a news programme
>>> on TV): When it is a topic that you don't know about, the article may
>>> seem extremely useful to you. However, when it is a topic you _are_
>>> knowledgable about, you may be uncomfortable with the inaccurate
>>> reprensentation of the topic.
>>
>> The latter case is when people intervene and change Wikipedia. That's the
>> beauty of it all. It will usually be people who know the field that feel
>> a compulsion to fix the mistakes and provide the best references to
>> support their argument/s.
> 
> I agree. The best is of course when articles are allowed to maintain more
> than one well-supported and argumentated point of view on (controversial)
> topics.
> 
> Mikkel

Roy

-- 
Roy S. Schestowitz        "Free the mind, the source will follow"
http://Schestowitz.com



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