[ILUG] Encyclopedia for Linux?

[Paul Jakma]

On Mon, 11 Jul 2005, Paul Biggar wrote:

> 1. http://www.snopes.com/lost/false.htm

Yes, and I'm particularly impressed by your sense of false of 
authority wrt EB.

> 2. If the reference information was better, this might be possible. 
> You seem to think you hit a goldmine with the chili reference, but 
> its hard to tell what data from the paper it's citing.

It isn't actually citing it, it's providing it for further 
information.

> Taking a glance at it, it looks like it's going for the chemical 
> formula, and it's not until the last line that you get what you're 
> looking for.

It provides a fair amount of interesting info about capsaicin which I 
never knew before. Then links to other stuff with lots more 
interesting information.

> Would it kill it to provide a better reference? The 
> report shows how it's done: authors, title, journal name, and best 
> of all, page numbers.

That'd be nice, yes.

>
>> 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?
>
> How did you verify this accuracy, I wonder, when you knew little
> enough about the topic to need to look it up?

I don't, but I can correlate provided information against other 
sources I find via google.

Same question to you wrt EB. What makes EB such an oracle of accurate 
information. (AFAIK, they /do/ make mistakes).

> True. But if it's serious research, you'll only be using it as a 
> primer anyway.

Right. If you were to cite Encyclopaedia Britannica as part of a 
paper, I'd very much hope your audience would laugh at you.

Wiki is as useful as EB is as a primer on a topic and to give you 
google fodder for further research. 'Cept with the wiki, I can 
cut&paste. ;)

Wiki is also a damn sight cheaper..

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	paul at clubi.ie	paul at jakma.org	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
He's the kind of guy, that, well, if you were ever in a jam he'd
be there... with two slices of bread and some chunky peanut butter.