My brief story to add to the general theme is: * I knew personally that a regionally important corporate lobbying group was funding a ballot measure. (For the

My brief story to add to the general theme is: * I knew personally that a regionally important corporate lobbying group was funding a ballot measure. (For the moment assume I am correct: this was not a 'secret': everyone in local politics knew this. It just wasn't 'official') * I edited the organizations wikipedia page to state that the group was promoting the ballot measure. The edit was reverted. Was I going to spend time trying to track down obscure articles on local newspaper websites to prove this to wikipedia? No. It just wasn't worth it. I have come to the conclusion that the really interesting information is still in peoples heads. I rarely find wikipedia turning up in my searches any more - in particular anything "controversial" or anything where there is moneyed interests involved who are interested in suppressing the other side. I actually don't see a solution for Wikipedia. It is trying for some sort of 'objective' encyclopedia. This is well and good for questions like what is an atom in the 21st century. However, lets pretend that it is a 1901. "What is an atom?" was controversial and the back and forth that would have been interesting to know as a 1901 reader would be edited out of the 1901 version of Wikipedia. Quite simply for me: * something is interesting if it is "controversial" (global warming, health care, etc.) * I am not interested in an "objective" sanitized view. I have a bias and I am not interested in hearing about the "controversy about global warming". Therefore I am biased toward sites predisposed to my perspective. * Others have different preferred bias. * Trying to come to a group decision where both sides are convinced that their side is correct is impossible ( in particular if one side is paid to not change their mind ) * If something is really important (i.e. job critical) I want to go to a source expert that I trust irregardless of what the 'crowd' thinks. I know what the standards I am applying to determine who I regard as the expert. * rarely search for important things and find the wikipedia article interesting Therefore: * Wikipedia as a common community encyclopedia only works for the uninteresting 'factoids' that are not important * I filter out wikipedia when looking at the google results when I am looking for something I really care about getting correct.