Re: Wikipedia?

[David Groenewegen <david.groenewegen@lib.monash.edu.au>]

While I often find Wikipedia useful, I can't help but think it is 
not just the potential errors that cause concern, but the 
fluidity of the entries. What you read today may not be there 
tomorrow. Or even five minutes later. But it may be back the 
following Thursday. I suspect most people have never looked at 
the revisions section, and would have no idea that this happens. 
So that might make people nervous.

David Groenewegen
ARROW Project Manager
Monash University Library
Monash University
Victoria 3800
AUSTRALIA
David.Groenewegen@lib.monash.edu.au


Rick Anderson wrote:

> > Well, I guess if people want to use Wikipedia OK -- each to 
> > his own.  I still think it shows something of a slippage of 
> > standards. And for those who think errors are OK -- well, fine
> The idea that Wikipedia is somehow uniquely error-prone cracks 
> me up. In libraries, we subscribe to newspapers as a matter of 
> course, and when it comes to accuracy, I think the average 
> Wikipedia entry would compare pretty favorably to the average 
> news story.  We also buy books that are written by political 
> hacks (across the political spectrum) and that we know 
> perfectly well are filled with distortion and bias.  Are these 
> resources full of errors?  Of course.  Do we use them anyway? 
> Yes, because a resource doesn't have to be perfect in order to 
> be worth what it costs, or to fulfill a valuable educational 
> purpose (comparing the fulminations of Al Franken and Dinesh 
> D'Souza can be very instructive). If all our tools and 
> resources had to be error-free, we'd have precious few tools 
> and resources.
>
> ---
> Rick Anderson
> Dir. of Resource Acquisition
> University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
> (775) 682-5664
> rickand@unr.edu