Re: KISS4691, a potentially top-ranked RNG.

[David Bernier <david250@videotron.ca>]

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.
>
> 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.
>
>

A few years back I had written that the Wikipedia page
on Brownian motion was about as good as what I'd expect from
Encyclopaedia Britannica.  Unfortunately, I hadn't looked at
what Encyclopaedia Britannica had on Brownian motion.

That was at a time when Encyclopaedia Britannica was a more accurate reference
than Wikipedia.  It would be interesting to find those old web pages,
if they still exist.

David Bernier


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