Dennis Posey's sailing simulators require about 2MB hard drive space. With simple graphics, they run on old computers. There is nothing missing from these programs that would be worth the pain of making them bigger. They were obviously developed for some early Wndows version and not allowed to bloat since then, even though there are new tweaks that come out every year. poseysail.com
According to the New Yorker article (which I believe is the same article that led to the outing of the bogus professor), Wikipedia started out as a peer-reviewed encyclopedia project. The Wikipedia part of it was an informal non-peer-reviewed offshoot. What happened was that the peer-reviewed part of the project moved very slowly and Wikipedia exploded. The experts didn't work fast enough to keep up with the mob.
What you get in Wikipedia is a huge workforce compiling vast amounts of information. The authority of that information is so-so, but the volume and depth of the information very good. If you put brakes of any kind on contributions, whether by enforcing verification requirements, or vetting contributors, you will choke off the flow of contributions. I think that any scheme that will please the naysayers will choke off contributions so much that Wikipedia will cease to be Wikipedia.
I am an expert in two areas, sailing, and U.S. criminal law. Wikipedia has some articles in both areas that are sub-par and some that are very good. It has nothing that is just crazy wrong. I don't have time to fix the bad articles myself. I also think that the low quality articles are not likely to mislead the non-expert, because they don't involve big, elaborate erroneous information, just perfunctory treatment of the subject and minor misunderstandings. Usually, if an article has well-crafted prose, citations to outside sources, and reasonable organization, the information holds up.
I don't think the drawbacks to open editing are fatal. The advantage is obvious in the size and depth of the information available.
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Dennis Posey's sailing simulators require about 2MB hard drive space. With simple graphics, they run on old computers. There is nothing missing from these programs that would be worth the pain of making them bigger. They were obviously developed for some early Wndows version and not allowed to bloat since then, even though there are new tweaks that come out every year.
poseysail.com
Mike.
According to the New Yorker article (which I believe is the same article that led to the outing of the bogus professor), Wikipedia started out as a peer-reviewed encyclopedia project. The Wikipedia part of it was an informal non-peer-reviewed offshoot. What happened was that the peer-reviewed part of the project moved very slowly and Wikipedia exploded. The experts didn't work fast enough to keep up with the mob.
What you get in Wikipedia is a huge workforce compiling vast amounts of information. The authority of that information is so-so, but the volume and depth of the information very good. If you put brakes of any kind on contributions, whether by enforcing verification requirements, or vetting contributors, you will choke off the flow of contributions. I think that any scheme that will please the naysayers will choke off contributions so much that Wikipedia will cease to be Wikipedia.
I am an expert in two areas, sailing, and U.S. criminal law. Wikipedia has some articles in both areas that are sub-par and some that are very good. It has nothing that is just crazy wrong. I don't have time to fix the bad articles myself. I also think that the low quality articles are not likely to mislead the non-expert, because they don't involve big, elaborate erroneous information, just perfunctory treatment of the subject and minor misunderstandings. Usually, if an article has well-crafted prose, citations to outside sources, and reasonable organization, the information holds up.
I don't think the drawbacks to open editing are fatal. The advantage is obvious in the size and depth of the information available.