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this sort of story illustrates what a wikipedia type repository of knowledge misses. wikipedia will typically have the most up to date explanation of an event
by nazgulnarsil 17y ago
this sort of story illustrates what a wikipedia type repository of knowledge misses. wikipedia will typically have the most up to date explanation of an event or phenomena, but it can be very illuminating to see past wrong explanations and the people and situations which gave rise to those incorrect explanations. this is even more valuable on topics where heavy revisionism has made it difficult to discern why the current explanation is accepted.
- Groxx 17y agoThis can be put on Wikipedia. They keep known-false things in there, with adequate flagging that it is such. As long as it exists somewhere else, it can be on Wikipedia.
- panic 17y agoAs long as it exists somewhere else, it can be on Wikipedia. Unless it's not "notable" enough to warrant inclusion.
- derefr 17y agoEventually, Wikipedia will also be a source of past-wrong explanations, in the form of years-old page revisions.
- nazgulnarsil 17y agoi have a feeling that old page revisions aren't considered that valuable and significantly old ones may be dropped.
- bdonlan 17y agoNo, they're not dropped, as that would violate attribution requirements. They are, however, compacted and compressed to take less space (at the expense of more CPU to access, but the typical user won't notice this)