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Is Wikipedia even worthwhile?
According to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, John Seige-nthaler Sr is 78-year-old and the former editor of The Tennessean in Nashville. But is that information, or anything else in Seigenthaler's biography, true?
The question arises because Seigenthaler recently read about himself on Wikipedia and was shocked to learn that he 'was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John and his brother Bobby'.
"Nothing was ever proven," the biography added. Seigenthaler discovered that the false information had been on the site for several months and that an unknown number of people had read it, and possibly posted it on or linked it to other sites.
If any assassination was going on, Seigenthaler (who is 78 and did edit The Tennessean) wrote last week in an op-ed article in USA Today, it was of his character.
The case triggered extensive debate on the Internet over the value and reliability of Wikipedia, and more broadly, over the nature of online information.
Wikipedia is a kind of collective brain, a repository of knowledge, maintained on servers in various countries and built by anyone in the world with a computer and an Internet connection who wants to share knowledge about a subject.
Literally hundreds of thousands of people have written Wikipedia entries. Mistakes are expected to be caught and corrected by later contributors and users.
The whole nonprofit enterprise began in January 2001, the brainchild of Jimmy Wales, 39, a former futures and options trader who lives in St Petersburg, Fla.
He said he had hoped to advance the promise of the Internet as a place for sharing information.
The question arises because Seigenthaler recently read about himself on Wikipedia and was shocked to learn that he 'was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John and his brother Bobby'.
"Nothing was ever proven," the biography added. Seigenthaler discovered that the false information had been on the site for several months and that an unknown number of people had read it, and possibly posted it on or linked it to other sites.
If any assassination was going on, Seigenthaler (who is 78 and did edit The Tennessean) wrote last week in an op-ed article in USA Today, it was of his character.
The case triggered extensive debate on the Internet over the value and reliability of Wikipedia, and more broadly, over the nature of online information.
Wikipedia is a kind of collective brain, a repository of knowledge, maintained on servers in various countries and built by anyone in the world with a computer and an Internet connection who wants to share knowledge about a subject.
Literally hundreds of thousands of people have written Wikipedia entries. Mistakes are expected to be caught and corrected by later contributors and users.
The whole nonprofit enterprise began in January 2001, the brainchild of Jimmy Wales, 39, a former futures and options trader who lives in St Petersburg, Fla.
He said he had hoped to advance the promise of the Internet as a place for sharing information.
Given that the information is in some cases is either wrong or written by someone who has no background on the subject they are writting about and mistakes are not fixed as often as it's supporters claim, of what value is the entire enterprise?
Ok, that was probably intendet to fool people, and - to be fair - it was edited our some days later.
every time wikipedia is cited.
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