4 ms·
Even "just the facts" is a fallacy. Wikipedia has simply outsourced its fact-checking to the news media, which is... well, how to put this... not very intereste
by mzw_mzw 10y ago
Even "just the facts" is a fallacy. Wikipedia has simply outsourced its fact-checking to the news media, which is... well, how to put this... not very interested in facts.
- shard972 10y agoI think that's the most damning thing about the truth on Wikipedia, not that any article can be edited by anyone but their policy of second hand sources over primary sources. There is reasons for doing it but when you get into certain fields it just becomes a cluster F.
- mzw_mzw 10y agoPresumably they don't want to put themselves in the business of determining if a primary source is legitimate or if some random pseudonymous writer's original research is accurate. Not an unreasonable desire! Except instead they've put themselves in the business of determining if a secondary source is legitimate, which isn't fundamentally better. Wikipedia has to come to terms with the fact that if you claim you're making an encyclopedia that comes with certain expectations, namely, that you've verified the facts you are printing. They try to obfuscate this with endless layers of rules and procedure, but that no more eliminates the need to check facts than credit default swaps eliminated the need to pay back debt.