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From: Mart van de Wege <mvdwege@mail.com>
Newsgroups: sci.math,comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: KISS4691, a potentially top-ranked RNG.
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2011 06:47:29 +0200
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Date: 2011-06-29T06:47:29+02:00
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Gib Bogle <g.bogle@auckland.ac.nz> writes:

> On 6/29/2011 4:36 AM, Chris H wrote:
>> 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.
> ...
>
> The problem with Wikipedia is that it required a lot of discretion and
> discrimination on the part of the user.  It is very good in some
> areas, and very unreliable in others (just as some people are reliable
> sources of information, and others are not).  

Well yeah, but this is a particularly useless observation.

I mean, this goes for *every* source of information; they always require
discretion and discrimination. And yet discussions on the Internet are
full of people citing e.g. The Daily Mail as a reliable source.

The fact that some people evidently don't know how to handle a source
and do further research is not per se a problem with the source. Even
The Daily Mail can be a useful source, if only because it leads you to
more trustworthy sources to debunk them.

Mart

-- 
"We will need a longer wall when the revolution comes."
    --- AJS, quoting an uncertain source.