QUOTE(Amarkov @ Sat 22nd March 2008, 10:58pm)
QUOTE(Lar @ Sat 22nd March 2008, 6:20pm)
QUOTE(Amarkov @ Sat 22nd March 2008, 8:13pm)
The thing is, most sites with user-contributed content are forums like this. They don't present random people's statements as encyclopedia articles. These sites say "this is a forum, on which users say things; they may or may not be accurate".
Wikipedia bills its articles as an encyclopedia, and that should not be done without someone who has said "yes, this information is accurate". Nor without someone who is responsible when the information is innaccurate.
Well, ya, except that Wikipedia DOES have a
disclaimer... it's linked from every page, right at the bottom, so presumably people do read it. In the disclaimer it says, in giant letters no less:
WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITYThat doesn't mean that things known to be wrong should be left, but still... you were warned.
Brittanica has a disclaimer like that, too. In fact, I'd guess you'll find similar text in many encyclopedias.
Regardless of what disclaimers may say, if something is billed as an encyclopedia, then it has a basic responsibility to be reasonably accurate. Especially when inaccuracy could be harmful.
I don't disagree with the idea that it ought to be as accurate as possible, as much of the time as possible. But, since anyone can edit it, even vandals, it can't be guaranteed to be. The project needs stable versions for that situation to be better, I suspect but even that can't prevent subtle errors that aren't recognised.
But, I thought this thread was about deletion? I've spoken out on BLP-Lock about that, I made rather a radical proposal, in fact.
We're mostly agreeing with each other, here, aren't we?