Re: SemiOT Wikipedia and roads

On Apr 8, 4:43 pm, John Lansford <jlnsf...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Sherman L. Cahal" <shermanca...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Apr 8, 7:06 am, "Scott M. Kozel" <koze...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John Lansford <jlnsf...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Sherman L. Cahal" <shermanca...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

And as an editor and administrator at Wikipedia, I cannot begin to
tell you just how incorrect that statement is.

I knew I'd get the Wiki fanboys up in arms with that comment. I've
seen enough of the Wiki-flamewars to stand by what I said; moderators
aren't all as ethical and unbiased as you think they are, Sherman.

Well, I'm no "Wiki fanboy", and I have only rarely made any updates to
their articles; I just think that your comment was anally retentive as
well as ignorant.

--
Scott M. Kozel Highway and Transportation History Websites
Virginia/Maryland/Washington, D.C.http://www.roadstothefuture.com
Capital Beltway Projects http://www.capital-beltway.com
Philadelphia and Delaware Valley http://www.pennways.com

John has never edited at Wikipedia, and only jumps on the bandwagon of
the Wiki-haters at the off-chance. If he would be involved in the
spirited discussions...

And Sherman, before you and Scott go all anal yourselves and start
demanding "proof" that Wikipedia is unreliable, I'll pre-empt you:

http://nhw.livejournal.com/905163.htmlhttp://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/008953.htmlhttp://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009274.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:David_G._Hartwell#Lack_of_sources

That's what I found in about 10 minutes. It's not all that hard to
find examples of what I've said on Wikipedia.

John Lansford, PE
--
John's Shop of Woodhttp://wood.jlansford.net/

An article's only as good as the effort that goes into it. I'll be the
first to admit there's some really shitty articles out there. But
there's also some really good ones. It just depends. Best way to tell
is to look at the number of references (they appear as subscript
"[42]" or whatever in the text of the article) -- the more densely
referenced the article is, the better it's likely to be. Similarly, if
it has an orange "this article has no references" flag at the top, you
may want to be more diligent cross-checking information against other
sources.

So don't just paint the whole site with a wide brush as "bad". The
quality varies from article to article, but I've found that for the
most part it's not too far off the mark. The scientific journal
"Nature" did a study which showed that Wikipedia on average actually
contains fewer errors than Encyclopedia Britannica...
.