[ILUG] Encyclopedia for Linux?

[Paul Jakma]

On Mon, 11 Jul 2005, Paul Biggar wrote:

> It would take an incredibly large amount of time to verify 
> references on every page you read.

You should at least:

1. Examine the references
2. Quickly look at the references (eg the introduction) to see there
    isn't a glaring inaccuracy in how the citee has interpreted it

You should probably do this regardless of whether it's a wiki or some 
other encyclopaedia, you should /definitely/ do so if you're doing 
more than casual research.

> Contrast this with a proper encyclopedia: once you ascertain it's 
> reliablilty for a few pages, you can be pretty certain of the 
> quality across the whole thing.

You can?

In that case, how come you can't do the same thing for wikipedia? 
I use it regularly and have found it quite useful and accurate (least 
for non-stub pages). Why can't I then apply your criteria and 
conclude it then likely is generally useful and accurate?

You can't - no more than you can with the EB. You should be wary of 
human error in /both/ cases.

> An occasional well written page (funny I can't find it - has it 
> changed already?), doesn't clear the rest (and vice-versa, my 
> example doesnt condemn the rest). But taking medical advice for 
> wikipedia? Dangerous trend..

Not from the wiki page:

 	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaicin

but rather from the linked to EU Science Committee paper: "Opinion of 
the Scientific Committee on Food on capsaicin, at:

 	http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/sc/scf/out120_en.pdf

Course, the fact that a wiki article linked to this report probably 
makes its accuracy suspect to your mind..

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	paul at clubi.ie	paul at jakma.org	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune: