mdj wrote:
> On Jan 8, 6:44 pm, "Michael J. Mahon"  wrote:
> 
>>> Actually, I'm going to just give up. If real facts aren't of interest
>>> to them, why should I fight it? I have better things to do.
>> My feeling exactly.
>>
>> If citations are the only guide, then a frequently repeated lie trumps
>> a seldom repeated truth.
>>
>> I have very little faith in the "wiki" principle, whether it is
>> controlled by unseen editors or by a mob.
> 
> When I read this, I was reminded that I once had a crisis of faith. I
> resolved it when I realised the paradox; my crisis was due to my faith
> in the concept of faith itself :-)
> 
>> If it is to make any sense at all, it must be based on the
"credentials"
>> of each contributor.  It is evident that everything is not known equally
>> by everyone.
> 
> In a Wiki setting, there's no way to verify the veracity of someones
> "credentials", and thus no way to bestow authority. But in a way,
> that's the point of it; the tendency of societies to propagate
> incorrect information even in the face of the truth isn't a wiki
> phenomena, and unfortunately those with "credentials" are often a part
> of the same mob that propagates the fallacies.
> 
>> As a person of some knowledge and good intentions, and an obsessive-
>> compulsive "proofreader", I frequently see things in
wikis which are
>> incorrect either in form or in essence (and I am referring to errors
>> of fact, not opinion).  I am willing to take the time to edit and
>> proof my corrections, and would welcome someone knowledgeable reviewing
>> them and even contacting me if questions arose, but I am not willing
>> to take the time to fix things if they are often simply blindly restored
>> to their error state.
> 
> That is of course what happens. But what happens when another
> individual comes along, notices the error, and corroborates your
> correction? Over time, the number of individuals purveying the truth
> outweighs the number purveying the myth. Alas, dialectic only trumps
> rhetoric when it occurs...
> 
>> I can only assume then, that for all practical purposes, wiki updating
>> is left to that tiny minority who are willing to research every point
>> (ha!) and cite references.
> 
> I agree the concept needs to evolve somewhat, but I suspect the "way
> forward" lies in using software to perform statistical analysis on the
> commentaries and edits applied to articles. I suspect that trends
> would emerge that could be used to provide a "veracity metric" for the
> information that people could take into account when deciding whether
> or not to trust it, and potentially a way of raising the awareness of
> bad information in groups that can contribute to its correction.
> 
> To me, it's an academic problem: "The mob contains a lot of
> information. How do we mine and then refine it such that the accuracy
> is maximised?" Fascinating stuff!
> 
> Matt

NVIDIA's first Chief Scientist (David Rosenthal) moved on to investigate 
how to maintain and keep track of information in such a "mob", i.e. the 
internet, scenario.  It deals more with static information rather than 
dynamically edited information, but is still kind of interesting.

http://www.lockss.org/lockss/Home

Dave...
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