Comments on: Lisa Barone Finally Gets Wikipedia – Why Can’t I?

By: Better Rank

Better Rank — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 06:50:31 +0000

Better Rank…

Web sites dealing with optimization related information are all over the net….

By: Mike Schinkel

Mike Schinkel — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:15:47 +0000

To me Wikipedia is the definitely location on the web for a topic. If I’m going to link to something for a definition I’ll typically link to Wikipedia because they’ve created (in my mind) a canonical URL for the associated topic.

As for Wikipedia being the “truth du jour” I would ask at the risk of getting too philisophical “What exactly *is* the truth?” The past decade of political strife in the USA has proven to me that “truth” is spun and perceptions of truth are people want it to be. In that environment, how can you really define truth?

Said another way, while Wikipedia might not have the 100% correct truth, I would challenge you to find another source that is unbiased and more accurate. If they are the best, is it fair to take them to task for not being perfect?

By: David Gerard

David Gerard — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 08:58:57 +0000

We do tell people “it’s not reliable as such, it’s good and useful, it’s a live working draft, it’s just written by people” and so on … all of which I would have thought reasonably obvious. But anyway.

It seems the problem you’re outlining is people believing everything they read on the Internet. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is not yet able to cure that level of stupidity. We’re working on it, though.