Re: KISS4691, a potentially top-ranked RNG.

[Chris H <chris@phaedsys.org>]

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.


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