WikiPedia is threatened

[Eric Dunbar]

On 12/17/05, David Allouche <david at allouche.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-12-17 at 19:03 +0000, john levin wrote:
> > It appears that this is a complete scam, run by some crooks behind a
> > fraudulent charity:
>
> Regardless of the merits or legitimacy of the wikipediaclassaction.org
> site, I do find their "reuse" of the wikipedia logo interesting.

Which is apparently without merit (at least according to the WikiPedia
pages ;-).

> "The Inaccurate Encyclopedia" accurately describes the level of credit
> that can be reasonably given to any project such as Wikipedia, or even
> the whole internet. It would apply equally well to The Hitchhiker's
> Guide to the Galaxy.

A neat little bit of trivia -- WikiPedia was found to be "nearly" as
reliable as the great Encyclopedia Britannica in the realm of science.

<http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/12/14/1134500913345.html>

So much for "The Inaccurate Encyclopedia" monniker as claimed by the
anti-WikiPedia fruitcakes. This little controversy is unlikely to
disappear from the public conscience soon so I hope that Nature (or
another respected journal) can weigh in on the reliability of the
articles in other disciplines.

> I do not know how much commercial interests weight in the Wikipedia
> governance, but if they do not weight to much and if they have an ounce
> of humor and self-derision, they ought to incorporate that quote into
> their logo!

Probably not the wisest move -- their goal is to be respected, and, I
think that might be just a tad too irreverant for most people's
tastes.

Eric.