Re: Broad standards acceptance

In message <e43c7fbf4f.druck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
druck <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 15 Jul 2008 Barry Gray <barrygray@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The point about Wikipedia is that it is peer-group reviewed. The first
draft on any topic may not necessarily be completely reliable, but
anything which has been there for a year or so is very likely to be.
This means that if you have evidence to prove that anything is
factually incorrect you can always correct it yourself - no one person
owns Wikipedia.

Thats the way Jimmy Wales would like you to believe it works, but in
reality its controlled by a clique of high level anonymous moderators,
who have demonstrated numerous cases of politically or commercially
biased editting, in violation of wikipedia's own rules.

In reality you can't trust any serious article on wikipedia, its only
real use is for trivia such as sci-fi episodes and cast lists, and
in depth documentation of the Klingon language.

Well that really puts a fella in his place.

I cannot remember when I first started wearing rose-tinted spectacles
(lenses not frames) but it must have been at least fifty years ago. I
do not think they are made any more (lenses that is, the frames still
are, although I do not own any), but the World looks much better
through them.

I am not into the study of the Klingon language so I cannot comment
the reliability of the Wikipedia entry on that. But within the past
few days and weeks I have found their entries on, say, the Zeppelin
NT07 airship which flew over our house on Sunday morning, or Euler's
solution of the Bridges of Konigsberg, or the destruction of Julius
Caesar's first British invasion fleet by a storm surge, very helpful,
and I am not certain where the political or commercial bias comes into
these. OK, their pages containing biographical information on 15th
Century English composers so obscure that they are not in Grove may be
sponsored by or carry advertisements for publishers of 15th century
English music by composers so obscure that they are not in Grove, but
I cannot see that this necessarily makes the information they contain
any less reliable or carefully researched.




The way most search engines display results is also peer-group
reviewed: sites which other people have found useful are listed first.
(I do not know how to explain this both properly and briefly so
forgive me if my explanation is neither.)

Thats the way Brin and Page would like you to believe it works, but it
reality google exist to sell advertising, and the complex algorithms
they use to rank pages may have some element of popularity, but are
mainly a compromise between their advertising income and defeating the
spammers trying to game them in to promoting their products.

In reality you can place very little weight on the absolute position
in search results. You need to visit a few dozen sites, and use your
own judgement as to the relevance and quality of the information
contained there in.

I agree completely. To my mind the intelligent use of search engines
is one of the most important skills that we need to teach young
people, but by and large it is a skill which is not being taught. Many
Pages on my own web site are written for children and young people,
and those Pages which link to other, external, web sites contain
explicit warnings about the importance of using the internet
intelligently, and in particular of looking at the role of sponsors
and advertisers.

Barry


--
Barry Gray
http://www.barrygray.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
.

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