usefulness of open wiki's (was: Re: wikihow.com/Category:Linux)

[Mike Schwartz]

> "written, edited, and maintained [...] by volunteers."

True, there is almost no limit to how bogus a given
article might be (become), at least temporarily.
The damage might be due to someone well-meaning but
inept or misguided, or someone who was actually malicious.

On the other hand, supposedly there are enough eyes
gazing over the "recently changed" logs, that if someone
does post some "mis" info., then theoretically it should
be "on the air" only for a short time, before some altruistic
helping hand comes along and pitches in to correct it.

It is similar to wikipedia -- which, it seems to me, can
sometimes be a good source of explanations, which
(maybe even after you already have the facts),
may help to suggest (better) ways to "understand"
something, that is, an attitude, (a point of view);
how to see it, how to think about it, that might even
help to remember the facts, or to see how/why the
facts make sense.

Also, at en.wikipedia.org at least, they have links
to [supposedly] authoritative "sources" -- which can
be very useful.  Those (typically on other web sites),
each have their own level of "reputation" or credibility;
but given the range of such levels, some of them are
probably pretty "authoritative".
-- 
Mike Schwartz
Glendale  AZ
schwartz at acm.org

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 6:21 PM, Rob Goelz <robgoelz at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mike,
>
>   Thanks for posting this -- it seems to have a lot of excellent information
> (especially for a relative Linux n00b like me).
>
>   Wiki sites are great for information sharing but I inherently distrust
> them due to the ability of anyone to edit the page. From the main page:
> "written, edited, and maintained primarily by volunteers."
>
>   I suppose that the same is true of most forums in that someone could take
> bad advice and damage their system, but at least on most forums, people have
> to register and can be held accountable. On wikis, unless you choose to
> register, the only thing tracked is your IP address. So far the stuff that
> I've read seems to check out though. :)
>
>   What does everyone else think?
>
> -rob
>
> On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 2:45 PM, Mike Schwartz <schwartz at acm.org> wrote:
>>
>> Maybe it's just me,
>> (having been in a cave, lo these umpteen years),
>> but when I came across this:
>>    http://www.wikihow.com/Category:Linux
>> recently,
>> it was news to me.
>> --
>> Mike Schwartz
>> [...]
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