http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/technology/19wikipedia.html?hp

-- 
John Rethorst
jrethorst at post dot com

And is there a Wikipedia article on how bad the New York Times can get?

In article <nobody-FDF74E.20353018082007@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
 John Rethorst <nobody@nowhere.net> wrote:

> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/technology/19wikipedia.html?hp

The only thing surprising to me is a law professor saying: "Wikipedia is 
a reliable first stop ...." It's completely boggling to me that such a 
statement would be made in the context of answering a question about the 
implications of both the edits and the tool that makes them more obvious,

There's no way that any resource that can be edited by pretty much 
anyone who feels like it any time the urge strikes can be characterized 
as "reliable." If if vandalism or self-serving edits are discovered and 
corrected quickly, there's always a window during which someone's "first 
stop" might have given them wrong information.

She could say useful, because it often is a good _first_ stop. But to 
make any comment about the completeness or accuracy of the content being 
implicitly worthwhile is just dumb.


No, wait. There's another one:

| Gantt Walton, a spokesman for [ExxonMobil], said that although the
| revisions appeared to have come from an ExxonMobil computer, the
| company has more than 80,000 employees around the world, making it
| "more than a difficult task" to figure out who made the changes.

Ditto for the NYT speaker.

Am I surprised a company spokesman would say this? No. But I'd be very 
surprised if it were true. You'd think a company of their size would 
have an IT staff that would be able to figure out which of their 
machines had the IP address in question at the time the edit was made 
and be able to identify who was logged in to that machine at the time, 
as long as the information was sought within a reasonable amount of time 
after the event. And whoever was logged into the machine is responsible 
for the edits, because either they made them or they left an unsecured 
machine unsupervised (and I'd be stunned if that's not explicitly 
against the corporate security policy).

In article <uce-FA2F4A.08124919082007@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
Gregory Weston <uce@splook.com> wrote:

> If if vandalism or self-serving edits are discovered and 
> corrected quickly, there's always a window during which someone's "first 
> stop" might have given them wrong information.

Not really, at least for the intelligent reader.

From "10_things_you_did_not_know_about_Wikipedia"
http://tinyurl.com/2pep2k

> You cannot actually change anything in Wikipedia... �you can only add
> to it. Wikipedia is a database with an eternal memory. An article you
> read today is just the current draft; every time it is changed, we
> keep both the new version and a copy of the old version. This allows
> us to compare different versions, or restore older ones as needed. As
> a reader, you can even cite the specific copy of an article you are
> looking at. Just link to the article using the "Permanent link" at
> the bottom of the left menu, and your link will point to a page whose
> contents will never change. 

Cheers,

Darrell

-- 
To reply, substitute .net for .invalid in address, i.e., darrell.usenet6 (at) 
�telus.net

In article <nobody-FDF74E.20353018082007@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
 John Rethorst <nobody@nowhere.net> wrote:

> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/technology/19wikipedia.html?hp

I already know 8-)

-- 
Mary, biblioholic

bib-li-o-hol-ism :  the habitual longing to purchase, read, store, 
admire, and consume books in excess.

http://www.airstreamcomm.net/~erilarlo

In article <190820070651387830%doozy@earthling.net.invalid>,
 Philo D <doozy@earthling.net.invalid> wrote:

> And is there a Wikipedia article on how bad the New York Times can get?

Wouldn't matter, because you can't trust Wikipedia for anything.

-- 
Mary, biblioholic

bib-li-o-hol-ism :  the habitual longing to purchase, read, store, 
admire, and consume books in excess.

http://www.airstreamcomm.net/~erilarlo

In article <190820070651387830%doozy@earthling.net.invalid>,
 Philo D <doozy@earthling.net.invalid> wrote:

> And is there a Wikipedia article on how bad the New York Times can get?

I don't know. IAC cute play on words there, but it ignores or denies the point 
that the NYT collectively takes responsibility for what it offers us, while 
Wikipedia, collectively, does not.

-- 
John Rethorst
jrethorst at post dot com

In article <nobody-30229B.16361419082007@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
John Rethorst <nobody@nowhere.net> wrote:

> In article <190820070651387830%doozy@earthling.net.invalid>,
>  Philo D <doozy@earthling.net.invalid> wrote:
> 
> > And is there a Wikipedia article on how bad the New York Times can get?
> 
> I don't know. IAC cute play on words there, but it ignores or denies the
> point 
> that the NYT collectively takes responsibility for what it offers us, while 
> Wikipedia, collectively, does not.

Wikipedia is fatally compromised, IMO.

In article <nobody-FDF74E.20353018082007@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
 John Rethorst <nobody@nowhere.net> wrote:

> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/technology/19wikipedia.html?hp

I've had people get terribly indignant with me, insisting that Wikipedia 
is the be-all-end-all of open sourcing, when I expressed a concern that 
anyone would actually rely on Wikipedia

In article <uce-FA2F4A.08124919082007@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
 Gregory Weston <uce@splook.com> wrote:

> You'd think a company of their size would have an IT staff that would 
> be able to figure out which of their machines had the IP address in 
> question at the time the edit was made and be able to identify who 
> was logged in to that machine at the time, as long as the information 
> was sought within a reasonable amount of time after the event. And 
> whoever was logged into the machine is responsible for the edits, 
> because either they made them or they left an unsecured machine 
> unsupervised (and I'd be stunned if that's not explicitly against the 
> corporate security policy).

That presupposes an inclination to do so on their part.

In article <bearclaw-10E528.13351621082007@news.supernews.com>,
 bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:

> In article <uce-FA2F4A.08124919082007@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
>  Gregory Weston <uce@splook.com> wrote:
> 
> > You'd think a company of their size would have an IT staff that would 
> > be able to figure out which of their machines had the IP address in 
> > question at the time the edit was made and be able to identify who 
> > was logged in to that machine at the time, as long as the information 
> > was sought within a reasonable amount of time after the event. And 
> > whoever was logged into the machine is responsible for the edits, 
> > because either they made them or they left an unsecured machine 
> > unsupervised (and I'd be stunned if that's not explicitly against the 
> > corporate security policy).
> 
> That presupposes an inclination to do so on their part.

It's not so much about inclination, though, when the spokesperson is 
characterizing what should be 10 minutes of research as "more than a 
difficult task." You snipped out the "I'd be surprised if that was true" 
and the main reason I'd be surprised if that was true was because of the 
sheer number of headaches they'd be setting themselves up for if it were.