QUOTE(thekohser @ Wed 25th January 2012, 12:01pm)
Note how teenagers who grow up with Wikipedia become
very foolish college students.
Most scary quote in there:
QUOTE
Therefore, the site depends on the consensus of society rather than a few anointed experts.
How many issues of muddle-headed thinking are in that one statement? I'll start off:
1. The site does not depend on consensus. Structural flaws in Wikipedia and policy do not mean that the ideal answer, by whatever measure, will drive out worse.
2. The editors of Wikipedia are demonstrably not representative of society at large, therefore I cannot envisage how any consensus on Wikipedia can be representative of society's consensus.
3. Which society? US, UK, European.
4. One expert may be right. 1,000,000 idiots can still be wrong.
5. "Experts" such as university professors are probably a more reliable source of knowledge than society consensus for both deep science issues and general every day facts. People with day to day experience will generally be more knowledgeable than someone whose knowledge is based on a few conversations down the pub.
Let's see if we can get to 50.