His is a valid point, wikipedia did slander him, and due to its anonymous nature it is hard to find redress. Yet our mainstream media, constrained as it is by standards of journalistic excellence and anti-defamation laws also has shortcomings, We don't dismiss it, and we shouldn't dismiss wikipedia.
I usually look up information through answers.com, for every query it lists entries from wikipedia and other sources, such as Columbia University Press, etc. I'm always struck by the higher usefullness of the wikipedia entry, and I was thinking of shifting all my searches there directly. That quality comes from their community process.
Unfortunately that same process leads to these situations. That does not mean that it should be changed. Yes it can be unfair, yes it can lead to outright lies, yes it can be unjustly damaging, and yes all efforts should be made to combat this, but its no reason to change wikipedia's essential nature. Take the information with a larger grain of salt than you would an entry from Britannica.
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His is a valid point, wikipedia did slander him, and due to its anonymous nature it is hard to find redress. Yet our mainstream media, constrained as it is by standards of journalistic excellence and anti-defamation laws also has shortcomings, We don't dismiss it, and we shouldn't dismiss wikipedia.
I usually look up information through answers.com, for every query it lists entries from wikipedia and other sources, such as Columbia University Press, etc. I'm always struck by the higher usefullness of the wikipedia entry, and I was thinking of shifting all my searches there directly. That quality comes from their community process.
Unfortunately that same process leads to these situations. That does not mean that it should be changed. Yes it can be unfair, yes it can lead to outright lies, yes it can be unjustly damaging, and yes all efforts should be made to combat this, but its no reason to change wikipedia's essential nature. Take the information with a larger grain of salt than you would an entry from Britannica.