[Web4lib] The Wikipedia Gotcha

[Richard Wiggins]

That cuts both ways.  It would be foolish to assume that each article grows
ever more perfect over time.  Remember Wikipedia having to ban
house.govbecause Congressional staffers were gleefully editing their
bosses' bios to
sanitize away their foibles?  Any given edit could be an improvement, or it
could turn the Wikipedia article into total falsehood.

And there is no version control.

Thus you could cite the earlier, correct version of the article, and when
people follow the citation link, they get the current, 100% wrong version.

/rich


On 2/21/07, Rob Styles <Rob.Styles at talis.com> wrote:
>
> Let's also consider though how the two systems - journals and Wikipedia
> - handle failures in the integrity of the work.
>
>
> If I reference (in print) an article on Wikipedia that has incorrect
> material in it my reference may remain static but the material need not.
> The article can be updated to reflect new information, corrections,
> citations of newer sources. If my article achieves notoriety for,
> perhaps, misquoting or misrepresenting the meaning of the Wikipedia
> article the article can supplemented to correct and specifically address
> visitors arriving from my reference. Those interested in what was
> contained on Wikipedia at the time of my reference can refer to the
> history and make their own conclusions.
>
> In short, web-based material is able to recover from mistakes in a way
> that printed material is not.
>
>