We are frequently warned to not believe everything we read on the internet. This is especially true for sites that allow anyone to edit the information such as Wikipedia. The following excerpt is taken from the current Wikipedia link to Taney County, Missouri where the popular tourist attractions of Branson, MO are located.
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History
The first Taney County Courthouse was built by the early pioneers in 2000 b.c.e. during Hammurabi's rule and destroyed by Brithish forces on July 22, 1861, during a Desert Storm Battle. The second Courthouse was destroyed by megatsunami on December 19, 1885. The third Courthouse was removed in 1952 to permit the building of Bull Shoals Lake. The fourth, and present, Courthouse was occupied on August 1, 1952. In 1989, an addition was started and completed in 1991.
I like to read local history.:whistle:
A lot of garbage and vandalism may be seen on Wikipedia, but it rarely stays there long before someone cleans it up. You, too, can edit.
> A lot of garbage and vandalism may be seen on Wikipedia, but it rarely stays there long before someone cleans it up. You, too, can edit.
Ditto what Bill said. Take care to be sure of your facts. I almost edited some physics stuff the other day. "The math is not right" I told myself time and again. After about 30 minutes of working it out, the stuff was indeed correct.
Who am I to think Planck's constant was wrong. Specifically the h-bar value. I was sure they had the math wrong - but I was wrong. Thank goodness I didn't go public before working out the math. That would have been a big dumb a$$ on me.
I'm pretty sure they got the year of the megatsunami wrong. I would correct it but I'm not sure what year it really did happen. None of my ancestors who lived in Missouri were anywhere near Branson. None of my great- or great-great grandmas were snuff dippers.
A few months ago, I was told about a particular falsehood on wikipedia. It involved a "known" musician (at least in some circles, I forget the name). The article claimed this person had a sibling. The musician in question happened across the article and thought "I do Not have a sibling" and commenced to tell wikipedia about it. Wikipedia would not change the error (I guess) because they refused to believe the musician in question did not know enough about his own life (or else could not verify his identity "enough" to wikipedia).
I do not know if the error was ever corrected.
I don't think Wikipedia actually changes anything. The whole concept is that anyone can go in and create, change, or update the content. I made one minor correction myself once. Someone should advise that celebrity that he, or a friend could actually take care of the error.
I would suspect that is what likely happened. I was under the (likely wrong) impression that wikipedia would (should?) remove blatantly false (especially if identified by a living person who the article was about) and/or offensive material.
A few months ago it was discovered that an OSU fan had literally written himself into OSU history through Wikipedia, Face Book, Twitter, and other Wiki sites that allow the readers to edit the content. For years, he had been doing autograph sessions, guest appearances, and even had his memorabilia displayed at sports-themed bars.
It got fixed!
What I posted was a cut and paste from what was on the site last night. It had already been corrected by someone by mid-morning today.
By Freeman Dyson, from a review of James Gleick’s The Information in the March 10, 2011 New York Review of Books:
The consequences of the information flood are not all bad. One of the creative enterprises made possible by the flood is Wikipedia, started ten years ago by Jimmy Wales. Among my friends and acquaintances, everybody distrusts Wikipedia and everybody uses it. Distrust and productive use are not incompatible. Wikipedia is the ultimate open source repository of information. Everyone is free to read it and everyone is free to write it. It contains articles in 262 languages written by several million authors. The information that it contains is totally unreliable and surprisingly accurate. It is often unreliable because many of the authors are ignorant or careless. It is often accurate because the articles are edited and corrected by readers who are better informed than the authors.
Cheers,
Henry
I agree. I use it all the time, but with skepticism.
I don't read surveying topics though, for like my clients tell me, no 2 surveyors agree on anything! 😀
I know the feeling.
I was doing some M.E. and K.E. calcs last week and I had to go back and find the formulas first. It had been TOOO long.B-)
