Posts by Rex Widerstrom
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Email Web
Deborah says:
Get it right, Rex. I put a link to an article documenting research that showed that "Wikipedia is about as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica."
Indeed it does: for a sample of just 42 scientific articles subject to peer review.
An example of pecisely the kind of misrepresentation of "fact" that Wikipedia perpetuates. All you'd need to do to have that "Gospel of Wikipedia Accuracy" accepted as fact by vast numbers of readers would be, ironically, to make such a claim on Wikipedia itself.
And, in my opinion, the ratio of inaccuracy on more contentious topics would favour Brittanica by a much greater margin.
The problem is, as ali bramwell has aptly pointed out, that:
...you cannot safely accept what is published on face value without tiangulating your sources. the problems you cite about too ready acceptance of information presented to you are not limited to wiki.
However, because it's readily searchable and linkable it's used unquestioningly by far too many people as an infallible source for their contentions.
I'd feel happier if every Wikipedia page carried some sort of caveat phrased much as ali has.
-
Email Web
A while back on this thread: http://publicaddress.net/system/topic,786,hard_news_reading_material.sm;jsessionid=5FB6C9D2DA03040C497DEEBBFE56B934?p=31173
I commented that:
It's what I call the "Wikipedia effect" - the "broadcaster" of the information imbues that information with a level of credibility it sometimes doesn't deserve, as evidenced by the number of people in blog comments referencing Wikipedia articles as fact when they're probably, on average, about as accurate as the average Fox News broadcast.
I was immediately contradicted by Deborah, who claimed Wikipedia was "as accurate as Encyclopedia Brittanica". And then 3410 showed the depths of his/her wit by enquiring as to whether I'd like to join "the fight against dihydrogen monoxide".
But as this post shows, Wikipedia is no more an unimpeachable source of fact that the collected opinions of the contributors to this or any other discussion thread here or on any blog.
That commenters and even some bloggers continue to reference it as though it is anything else illustrates its intrinsic problem - it is imbued by those who quote it with an air of finality it does not deserve and thus, amongst the uninitiated, perpetuates errors of fact across the Interwebs and out into the real world.
-
Email Web
I realise those who recycle the Dihydrogen monoxide prank to fool politicians think they're awfully clever, in a "we put Glad Wrap over the toilet bowl" kind of way. But no thanks.
While the pollies caught by recycled student "humour" could indeed have avoided falling into the trap with a quick Google search, politicians are hardly a random sample of the population - they're generally indolent and expect a researcher to tell them what to think. I wouldn't be surprised if some bored party researcher knew all about the DiHyMo myth and thought "bugger it, let her stew".
It's easy to assume that we internet-savvy types are also a representative sample. We're not. I remember that when One was trumpeting "More people get their news from us than any other source" in fact it was the "bulletins" on TV2, lasting all of 2 minutes and read by former cheerleaders rather than journos which some survey or other demonstrated had become the primary source for the bulk of the population.
While the readers of Public Address are more than capable of weeding the wheat from the chaff on sites like Wikipedia, many are not. And to those who'd defend Wikipedia's accuracy I'd respond yes, I agree the bulk of information is okay. But to cite but one example - go read the biography of any living pollie. It's probably been initiated by, and is certainly regularly tweaked and tended by, his or her spin doctors and / or the pollie themselves. Some people might come along and insert the unvarnished truth, but don't have the time to keep coming back and repeating it.
Or try talking to any GP who's now confronted by patients carrying armloads of internet-sourced documents which "prove" that wearing a tinfoil hat cures baldness or that the stomach upset they've had for a few days is in fact som obscure Amazonian plague.
Or go on being glib. See if I care.
-
Email Web
Only read the Executive Summary so far so could be prematurely expostulating here, but I didn't see any discussion of a significant problem with the "internetification (c)" of television - namely that a lot of the user-generated material online is incorrect, either because of benign ignorance of malicious disinformation.
People have learned to automatically associate a certain believability to their media. I'd suggest that in NZ it goes, from most beliveable to least, print, radio, TV, internet - though of course the internet sites of official news outlets such as Radio NZ, Stuff, The Herald etc are imbued with much greater believability due to their association with the respective media.
So if more and more low quality, user-produced material makes it to our TV screens (and don't get me wrong, I think this is potentially a good thing) or whatever form of interactive moving picture device TV evolves into, how will viewers decide upon the credibility of what they're reading?
It's what I call the "Wikipedia effect" - the "broadcaster" of the information imbues that information with a level of credibility it sometimes doesn't deserve, as evidenced by the number of people in blog comments referencing Wikipedia articles as fact when they're probably, on average, about as accurate as the average Fox News broadcast.