In rec.photo.digital.slr-systems Q.G. de Bakker wrote:

That wasn't necessary. You said on 16th Sep

"If only you knew how well i know how knowledge, science, and Wikis
work. But you don't because it can't be found on a Wiki."

It did occur to me that you might have meant that I couldn't see
inside your mind because what was inside your mind hadn't been put
into a Wiki. But the reason I can't possibly know your thoughts isn't
because they haven't been written in a Wiki, or indeed written
anywhere. It's one of the most well known and long discussed
properties of minds. So that would have been a rather silly sneer to
throw into the argument.

I decided on the more intelligent interpretation, that you were
suggesting that I couldn't match your knowledge of how knowledge,
science, and Wikis work, because that kind of information could not be
found on a Wiki, and you were mocking me by supposing that I relied on
Wikis for my education.

Was I mistaken?

But i see where your confused idea stems from: you think that Wikipedia
deciding whether Wikipedia is a trustworthy thingy ("mechanisms that
Wikipedia uses to resolve disputes, which involve such things as developing
rankings of trustworthiness.") is something of value.

That's like accepting a politician's promise that he's all above board, 100%
committed to the promises he made to his voters, "because", he says" he is".
"Trust me, i'm a politician/Wikipedia".
The naivety of it is, quite frankly, stunning!

This is rather like the question of whether evolution favours the
development of cheats or the development of honesty. If that's a new
topic to you I suggest you consult Wikipedia for further
information. Wikipedia's simple updating mechanisms contain a bias
which make it likely that good contributors will survive longer than
bad. In the domain of technical and scientific information that seems
to have worked well. See for example Chesney's examination of
Wikipedia's credibility in technical areas:

http://bccasx.com/asx.pl/000001A/htt...n/ojs/index.p\
hp/fm/article/view/1413/1331

It proved inadequate against the persistence of trolls and
fundamentalists on controversial topics, so an extra form of editing
protection was added for them. That has reduced the problem, but not
enough.

The reason I doubted that you had any research training is that during
the entire history of human recorded knowledge the largest collection
of dubious nonsense ever achieved is a title which has always belonged
to whatever happened to be the biggest library at the time. Yet
researchers nevertheless find libraries invaluable research tools. How
come? Because the biggest library always contains lots of useful truth
as well as lots of nonsense. The whole point and skill of library
research is knowing how to find likely looking useful possible truths,
and how to verify them.

O dear...
I'l keep it short (just let me know and i'll give you the long version):
First, the obvious flaw in the logic of your argument: "the biggest library"
and "libraries" which are "invaluable research tools" are of course not the
same.

The biggest libraries are the national copyright libraries. They are
also invaluable research tools.

I have yet to see a researcher who would start researching, say, how to make
the best bricks by studying the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical
Care Medicine. Only a very silly research scientist would.
That's why a research library is nothing like Wikipedia or the Internet.

It's easy to avoid irrelevant stuff in a research library because it's
organised by topic and has searchable indexes. As have non-research
libraries, such as the national copyright libraries. As has Wikipedia.

As for the Internet, are you aware that it was originally designed as
an academic research tool? Are you aware that most university research
libraries will offer training courses for staff and students in the
use of the Internet as a research tool? Are you aware that the Human
Genome Project would have been very close to impossible without the
enormous contribution of the Internet as a research tool?

Next, even if a research library would contain last month's issue of the
local tattler, or a PC allowing acces to a Wikipedia, he would still be
crazy to even consider using Wikipedia, unless in complete secrecy.

In your terms there's obviously a lot of crazy academic research
scientists out there then. Small but increasing numbers of them have
started using Wiki to hold introductory summaries to the up to date
state of their research field.

I suspect the reason for your blindness on this topic is that you are
an expert who never needs to acquire an education in a new field, only
using libraries etc. as backup and extension in the area in which you
are already expert. That suggests to me that when you said you had
research training you didn't mean scientific research, you meant
training in how to look up relevant stuff in the domain of your
expertise.

Finaly, even if he did anyway, he would be laughed out of his research
institution by claiming that a quick search of the Internet turned up a
reference syaing it was o.k. to use a Wikipedia. Now imagine how load the
laughter if if that reference was the Wikipedia itself.

A number of respondents have now pointed out to you the difference
between a citable authoritative source and a useful resource. You seem
unable to grasp this. Let me try a very simple example. Telling
someone who wants to learn something to go to a library is directing
them to a useful resource, even though "I read it in a library book"
is laughably remote from being an authoritative reference.

I suspect the reason you don't get this important difference is that
you're not aware that scientific research sometimes involves
contributions from different disciplines. As a consequence a
researcher sometimes has to acquire an education in a field of which
they previously knew little if anything. That's why any good research
library will always contain a Britannica and some of the more topic
specialised ecyclopedias, even though anyone who cited a Britannica
entry as an authoritative reference in a paper submitted to a
peer-reviewed journal would excite as much mirth as someone who cited
Wikipedia.

The short reason still is that the basic concept behind Wikipedias is
essentially and absolutely flawed. It has so little to do with what we call
'knowledge', 'science' even, that it is absolutely safe to say it has
nothing to do with knowledge at all (trust me, i really am an expert).

Do you also agree with the similar argument that nothing as simple and
as irrelevant to knowledge and design to a practical purpose as random
genetic mutation and survival of the fittest could possibly develop
anything as sophisticated and effective as an eye or a wing?

--
Chris Malcolm, IPAB, School of Informatics,
Informatics Forum, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB