[Web4lib] Problems with Wikipedia

[Jimm Wetherbee]

Tim,

Tim Spalding wrote:
> I do not think Wikipedia should be relied upon in most scholarly
> contexts. (It's lousy in Classics, that's for sure.) But examine the
> final paragraph of the Williams College Libraries page:
>
> "Without knowing who wrote the article, it is not possible to judge
> whether the author's writing is worthy of respect, or to critique his
> or her motivations or qualifications. In short, without a known
> author, Wikipedia articles cannot be considered authoritative."
>
> Is this critical thinking at Williams? Surely the
> argument-from-authority is as wrong now as it ever was—"Aristotle said
> it" is no argument at all, and "some English prof said it" is
> considerably worse. 
For someone who is not an authority, William's argument is quite sound.  
Note that the library did not say that without a known authority behind 
an article its truthfulness cannot be evaluated, rather that a 
non-expert in a given field cannot judge whether a given article is in 
line with the current state of knowledge on that topic.  Moreover, 
authorities leave paper trails that are often evaluated by their peers 
so that one can judge how much of an expert on is in a given field or 
how much her considered opinions and conclusions should be relied upon.

--jimm