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From: nmm1@cam.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.math,comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: KISS4691, a potentially top-ranked RNG.
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2011 08:36:08 +0100 (BST)
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In article <iudg27$1ik$3@speranza.aioe.org>,
Gib Bogle  <g.bogle@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>
>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).  For example, anything about 
>political disputes that are still active is subject to capture by 
>interested parties.  More generally, anything controversial is at risk 
>of being distorted.

Yes, precisely.  And the same applies to topics that are not often
regarded as controversial, because a particular dogma is claimed to
have been proven.  In those cases, Wikipedia's references just refer
to more prestigious papers that spout the same dogma.

The better encyclopaedias are a bit better in this respect, and
usually refer to the original sources when they exist.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.