When Wikipedia Fails 513
PetManimal writes "Frank Ahrens of The Washington Post looks at how Wikipedia stumbles when entries for controversial people are altered by partisan observers. Case in point: Enron's Kenneth Lay, who died of natural causes last week, shortly after being sentenced to prison. His Wikipedia entry was altered repeatedly to include unfounded rumors that he had killed himself, or the stress from his trial had caused the heart attack. From the article: '... Here's the dread fear with Wikipedia: It combines the global reach and authoritative bearing of an Internet encyclopedia with the worst elements of radicalized bloggers. You step into a blog, you know what you're getting. But if you search an encyclopedia, it's fair to expect something else. Actual facts, say. At its worst, Wikipedia is an active deception, a powerful piece of agitprop, not information.'"
Uh-oh (Score:1, Funny)
Re:I am no nut but... (Score:5, Funny)
Now you are. Congratulations on the shiny new hat.
Re:Square peg, round hole. (Score:3, Funny)
Brought to you by the Slashdot Post Translation Service.
Re:Editorial Oversight != Truth (i.e. FOX News) (Score:5, Funny)
Yes for example it examines whether liberals hate america or whether they are merely terrorists.
I have also heard heated debate on fox news as to whether Hillary Clinton was "pure evil" or merely "very evil".
Finally I don't think anybody could argue that fox news gives both sides of the important debates on science such as "theory" of evolution vs creationism, the contrversy over global warming and such. Both sides of those issues are to be treated with the same amount of respect.
Re:How much editorial oversight is enough? (Score:5, Funny)
So... you're saying that the community has an ideological bias towards complaining about Slashdot's moderation system?
Wait, no, because your comment got modded up, too. Argh! Now I'm confused, which way is the bias?!
Re:How much editorial oversight is enough? (Score:3, Funny)
Marmots, on the other hand, are plentiful.
As far as accuracy, even the stuff "no one cares about" has occasional minor annoying errors. They just don't get corrected. The trouble is that the general population is, on average, only of average intelligence and education. The errors I find are, in fact, more likely to be errors not so much in factual minutiae, but in pure logic, and are correctable by anyone with the ability to reason. For example, I don't have to be an air conditioning system expert to know that, in a particular Volkswagen AC system where the condenser is in the front by the radiator and the compressor is in the back on the engine, relocation of the evaporator (which sits in the refrigerant circuit between the condenser and compressor) does not make the refrigerant circuit longer or shorter.