Re: KISS4691, a potentially top-ranked RNG.

[James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net>]

On 06/28/2011 11:01 AM, Chris H wrote:
> In message <iuco82$u6s$1@dont-email.me>, James Kuyper
> <jameskuyper@verizon.net> writes
>> On 06/28/2011 09:03 AM, Chris H wrote:
>>> In message <iuchk8$gha$1@dont-email.me>, James Kuyper
>>> <jameskuyper@verizon.net> writes
>> ...
>>>> It's only worthwhile pointing out the unreliability of wikipedia if you
>>>> can identify a more reliable source.
>>>
>>> That is not true.   Unreliable information should be removed if it is
>>> wrong.
>>
>> If you are justified in your belief that something is wrong, you will
>> have an alternative source that you consider more reliable.
> 
> Not always.

If so, please provide a counter-example. If it happens often enough to
justify bothering to mention that possibility, it shouldn't be hard to
come up with one.

> ...  Also in many cases not information that can be put on a
> public web page. It might surprise you that in the information age
> information is power and a lot of it is NOT in the public domain.

One of the costs of secrecy is that people reach incorrect conclusions
and make bad decisions based upon the absence of the information that's
been kept secret. That's not their fault, it's the fault of the secret
keepers, and in an ideal world the secret keepers would be held liable
for the costs of those badly made decisions.

The existence of secrets is not adequate justification for criticizing
Wikipedia; it makes no claim to being able to penetrate people's secrets
- that's Wikileaks you're thinking of.

> There is a very stupid belief these days that if it is not on the
> Internet it is not real.  So if you can't provide a link it is not

Who said anything about a link? I just asked for a citation. You
remember those - they predate the Internet; they predate the invention
of electronics; they predate the invention of the the printing press.

> real....  I was discussing something similar with a friend who was at
> the start or the Internet and was discussing this in a forum. When
> challenged for links to prove what he said (as him saying "I was there
> did not count")  he replied with "two filing cabinets beside my desk".

A citation that cannot be checked by the person you're communicating
with is useless; if such a citation is the only reason you can give for
believing something, the other person is well justified in being
skeptical about it. You might be right, but you've not given him
adequate justification to believe you.

>> If so, you
>> should cite it; without such a citation, other people cannot judge the
>> accuracy of your belief that it is, in fact, a more reliable source.
> 
> SO if I write some complete crap on a wiki page (with no citations) it
> should stand unless some one has citations to prove otherwise?

How did you reach such a stupid conclusion? There's not even the
remotest connection between what I said and your response. Wikipedia's
standards require citations; the editors do clean up wiki pages that
lack them; and the particular page currently under discussion had citations.

> What you are saying is that any old rubbish can go on wiki unless some
> one has the time and resources (ie money) maintain the page to put
> something else up?

Again, that comment has no logical connection to anything which I said,
which was about wiki page which did have citations, just as most of them do.

> Besides often you have to be prepared to battle nutters and zealots who
> won't accept reality. Why should I spend time and effort on that?

That's a different matter; I've never bothered fixing a wiki page, so I
could hardly criticize someone else for failing to do so. On the other
hand, I've recognized very few errors on those pages. This is partly
because I use Wikipedia mainly to look up things I don't know about.
However, I've also frequently looked at Wikipedia pages covering topics
I'm an expert in; I've seldom seen any defect in any of those pages that
was serious enough that I'd want to bother correcting it, even if I had
endless free time. The worst cases I've seen are pages that were clearly
written by non-native speakers of English, and even those were far
cleaner than the typical message I receive from co-workers and in-laws
who aren't native speakers of English.

> If Wiki is not correct then it is wrong.

Of course it's not correct. No significant repository of knowledge is
free from errors. It's just a question of how many, and what type. If
you expect perfection, you're dreaming. If you consider a source of
information unusable solely because it has errors, without
quantification of those errors, there aren't any usable sources.
-- 
James Kuyper