Re: Please help with wikipedia's article on Arabic Numerals that's falling victim to vandalism


fishfry wrote:
> In article <1134520860.915762.209620@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> "david petry" <david_lawrence_petry@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > casioculture@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >
> > > I'm becoming convinced that unless it has strict editorial control then
> > > Wikipedia is destined to perpetual failure. It's one thing devoting a
> > > little of my time to a public cause, it's another to be wasting it in
> > > "dispute" with unreasonable idiots who won't admit to their
> > > demonstrable errors and won't back up their claims with evidence.
> > >
> > > You spend a considerable amount of your valuable time researching the
> > > literature, citing soruces, and so on, and what happens after a couple
> > > of days? The idiots have been at it again and it's a mess.
> > >
> > > I'm sure that anyone whose time is worth anything won't want to waste
> > > it on Wikipedia.
> > >
> > > But it's a dilemma, Wikipedia is becoming quite popular, on many topics
> > > it's the first Google result returned. Do you leave it to the idiots to
> > > spread their nonsense uncontested?! But again, if you do, they won't
> > > admit to error, and given their evident idiocies they probably have
> > > nothing better to do.
> >
> > You bring up some really good points. I guess the Wikipedia eventually
> > will be seen as a really interesting experiment that was,
> > unfortunately, doomed to failure without changes in the rules.
> >
> > Maybe the solution is to allow numerous different versions of articles
> > (which are archived by Wikipedia anyway), and then have people
> > "endorse" their favorite variant of the article. Then when you go to
> > the encyclopedia, you just pick out the article with the endorsements
> > you respect. Or something like that.
> >
> > The Wikipedia contains way too much valuable information to just
> > dismiss its worth.

Stanislaw Lem put it best:

What can be done when an important fact is lost in a flood of
impostors, and the voice of truth becomes drowned out in an
ungodly din? When that voice, though freely resounding, cannot
be heard, because the technologies of information have led to
a situation in which one can receive best the message of him
who shouts the loudest, even when the most falsely?

Of course, this quote was from 1968, so he couldn't have been talking
about the Internet, right? ... Right?

> There's recently been a public Wiki scandal. Clearly it's a good
> experiment but subject to abuse.

At *AHEM* http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10439120/?GT1=7516 , for one.

> Perhaps in this age of disintermediation, we're finding out that there
> is an important role to be played by professional writers, reporters and
> editors.

No kidding. And maybe air marshalls should carry tranquilizer guns.
(Rolling eyes at the obvious.)

--- Christopher Heckman

.

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