I favor an unmoderated Wikipedia, since "who chooses the moderators"
and *for what purpose* must always have imperfect answers. And the
moderated Wikipedia is imperfect too, so what to do? I think part
of the answer is, more Wikipedias: some controlled and some not. In
today's world, that seems not very hard to do, nor costly.
So how about those uncontrolled Wikipedias? Where some people
do childish and foolish things? My answer to it is, *grow up*. Small
children need their food prepared; adults sort from what's on hand
and prepare it for themselves.
Here, scholarly practice serves. Back in prehistory, our ancestors
learned winnowing to sort the chaff from the wheat; and today, our
(relatively) improved civilization hasn't made this no longer needed.
When did any good scholar believe anything that came her way?
Factual information *must* be checked, verified, and then never
completely believed (i.e., faith-based). There's a reason why
scientists are still testing Einstein's relativity theory. So the
sudden
appearance in Wikipedia of the Black Emperor in Ratzinger's place
is inappropriate and a nuisance to serious workers, but the line
between "moderating" and "censorship" is too uncertain to let the
"moderating" in the door ...*everywhere*.
Which all leads me to favor the unmoderated over the moderated
Wikipedia. (But rubbish is still rubbish and it wastes working
peoples time.)
Cheers -- Martha Adams
"Mark Kent" <mark.kent@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0hr1v3-m0i.ln1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> begin oe_protect.scr
> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>> Wikipedia to fight vandals in Germany
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>| When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected as pope last year, some
>>| Internet users who logged onto Wikipedia to see what he looked like
>>| found a rather different image: that of the evil emperor from "Star
>>Wars."
>> `----
>>
>> http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;1186418988;fp;524288;fpid;1
>>
>> Concepts of a Wiki and Open Source/Linux are closely related. The
>> fork of
>> Wikipedia hasn't been mentioned in COLA yet.
>
> The problem you have /then/ is who chooses the moderators...
> Unfortunately, as long as there are people like Mr Wong, who believe
> that breaking the law to make money for shareholders is the duty of a
> company, then you're going to get corporates paying people to pollute
> and distort information bases. Wiki was a wonderful idea in many
> respects, but does seem to show a certain naivety in the behaviour of
> people - there are far too many people with flexible morals to allow
> something like wiki to be reliable.
>
> Perhaps some kind of fusion with traditional, edited, encyclopaedia
> and
> the open, edit-it-yourself approach of wiki might work?
>
> --
> | Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
> Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable
> while
> you're being miserable.
> -- C.B. Luce
|
|
