[Web4lib] Problems with Wikipedia

[Lars Aronsson]

Jimm Wetherbee wrote:

> 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.

The non-expert, the average person, doesn't know how to identify 
an authoritative author either.  They would trust a well-known 
face from TV, but cannot tell a real professor apart from any 
photo model in a white coat in a medical advertisement.  The white 
coat is probably more important than the paper trail.

Hmm... perhaps I should get a photo of myself in a white coat to 
present myself as an expert on my Wikipedia user's page.  Maybe
something like this stock photage,
http://www.medical-scrubs.com/white-lab-coat-3046.htm
http://www.imagesource.com/search/image.aspx?id=215837
http://www.comstock.com/web/search/loupe.asp?Image=KS85205.JPG&Type=RF&CatID=&LightboxID=&NoPopUP=T
http://www.sullivanuniforms.com/uniformstore/prods/4010WH.html


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se