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From: Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.math,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.pl1,comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: KISS4691, a potentially top-ranked RNG.
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 10:51:49 -0600
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Date: 2011-06-28T10:51:49-06:00
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Chris H <chris@phaedsys.org> writes:

> In message <1bei2e54d4.fsf@snowball.wb.pfeifferfamily.net>, Joe Pfeiffer
> <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> writes
>>"robin" <robin51@dodo.mapson.com.au> writes:
>>
>>> "Georg Bauhaus" <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de> wrote in message
>>> news:4dda09ca$0$6629$9b4e6d93@newsspool2.arcor-online.net...
>>> |
>>> | According to Wikipedia, counting all CPUs sold, even the share
>>> | of 8bit 0 >> | the numbers.)
>>>
>>> Wikipedia is not a reliable source.
>>
>>It's as reliable as any encyclopedia.
>
> That is the problem we face... stupidity like that.
>
> Wiki is very far from being as reliable as any other encyclopaedia.
>
> I know some one who has a written a page entry for the Encyclopaedia
> Britanica.   He is a world expert in the subject which is why he was
> asked to do it.  When he finished the item it was peer reviewed by other
> world class experts.  It is like that for al their entries. The same
> with most other encyclopaedias. They take a lot of care.
>
> That sort of level of care does not go into wiki pages. Anyone can write
> anything on any page. There was an experiment done 3-4 years ago to see
> if was possible to get ridiculous changes past the page editors.  IT was
> so successful that after owning up some of the changes were not reversed
> until the experimenters re-edited the pages themselves.
>
> SO apart from the usual mistakes, and the authors being anything but
> experts, there are those with differing views counter editing and of
> course malicious editing.  You don't get these problems in  other
> encyclopaedias.
>
> In short due the openness of the wiki it is far less reliable than any
> other encyclopaedia. Because no one is responsible in any meaningful way
> for what is on wikipeadia.

The only study I've seen showed an error rate for wikipedia roughly 30%
higher (per article) than britannica, while a follow-on pointed out that
the articles themselves were 2.6 times longer.

Yes, it's possible to deliberately "game" wikipedia in order to prove a
point, and politicians and others who have an interest in the content of
articles vandalize them.  The number of 8-bit processors doesn't come
into these categories, and besides (as has been pointed out by others)
the wikipedia article cites sources.

So, rather than blanket statements regarding the unreliability of wikis,
or anecdotes regarding your friend the expert, are you claiming the
wikipedia author mis-quoted the statistics?  Or do you have a "more
reliable" source that says says something different?