FALSE WITNESS How true are "facts" online?..(wikipedia)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04seelye.html

FALSE WITNESS How true are "facts" online?

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Published: December 4, 2005

ACCORDING to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, John Seigenthaler Sr. is 78 years old and the former editor of The Tennessean in Nashville. But is that information, or anything else in Mr. Seigenthaler's biography, true?

The question arises because Mr. Seigenthaler recently read about himself on Wikipedia and was shocked to learn that he "was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John and his brother Bobby." "Nothing was ever proven," the biography added.Mr. Seigenthaler discovered that the false information had been on the site for several months and that an unknown number of people had read it, and possibly posted it on or linked it to other sites.

If any assassination was going on, Mr. Seigenthaler (who is 78 and did edit The Tennessean) wrote last week in an op-ed article in USA Today, it was of his character.The case triggered extensive debate on the Internet over the value and reliability of Wikipedia, and more broadly, over the nature of online information.

Wikipedia is a kind of collective brain, a repository of knowledge, maintained on servers in various countries and built by anyone in the world with a computer and an Internet connection who wants to share knowledge about a subject. Literally hundreds of thousands of people have written Wikipedia entries. Mistakes are expected to be caught and corrected by later contributors and users.

The whole nonprofit enterprise began in January 2001, the brainchild of Jimmy Wales, 39, a former futures and options trader who lives in St. Petersburg, Fla. He said he had hoped to advance the promise of the Internet as a place for sharing information.


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He is mad. And if he is telling the truth, I don't blame him.

and dumb people dumber.

The killers mentioned were,Poppy Bush, E.Howard Hunt,Frank(?) Strugis
Dick Nixon,a female and others. This group left Florida 2 days before
the murder because the woman spoke,she knew what was going to happen and fled Dallas.This video has many documents and statements out of the mouths of the assassins especially E.Howard Hunt.What convinced me
was the bullet holes in the limos windshield frame and the bullet hole in the windshield that was repaired the following day. The mechanic who repaired that limo signed a sworn paper as well as went on camera.I could go to my grave tomorrow satisfied Poppy and the
Plumbers shot JFK.

http://jackblood.netfirms.com/home/multimedia.shtml

scroll down to JFK II: The Bush Connection.
warning it took me 8 hours to load on dial up but was well worth the
time...Ever hear of "Operation Zapata"?

Yikes.. I am surprised you had the patience

to download but the wait was worth every minute. I don't promote many
videos but this one I swear was compelling.It made perfect sense,all
you needed was the courage to believe Poppy Bush (CIA) and the Plumbers did indeed kill JFK.The connections,the players and the reasons (JFK planned to dismantle the CIA)are put foward in this video.
Ever hear of "Operation Zapata" also known as the "Bay of Pigs" invasion? I wouldn't steer anyone wrong. Please take a look at the video and if you do please get back to me with your opinion. If not,thanks for the feedback anyway..

Bye Dem

of his founding the First Amendment Center in 1991.
Here's his biography from their website:
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/biography.aspx?name=seigenthaler

an open-source encyclopedia. Anybody who looks to it for the last word on a subject, or for unassailable fact, is looking in the wrong place.

It does, however, offer lots of information for someone who is willing to take it at face value and corroborate what they find. It's invaluable as a source of what people think about a subject; less so as a source of God's truth.

Frankly, looking for "truth" in an age when the government openly lies to you is a long, hard process;truth is not something you can find just by googling it.

but you do have to either take it with a grain of salt, or cross reference anything important. it can give a starting place.

i can understand anger over a mischaracterization, and isn't he the attorney dad of Jonathan on MSNBC? I guess he could have corrected it himself. I hate to think of good people being smeared but also hate to see free flow of info. censored.

They need a strong disclaimer on wiki.

You'd think it's pretty clear what it is and what it isn't. But I guess not.

I used to teach college about five years ago, and really had to educate the students about what a source is. I'll bet it's only getting harder...

I have noticed in the past five or so years, the term "educated palate" seldom applies to those who are consuming information on the web. There is a misperception that heavy traffic equals quality information.

There is no doubt that Wikipedia has succeeded in becoming the McDonald's of encyclopedia's, but like McDonald's, you don't really know who is cooking the food, how sane they are about it, and how good the food is. But it's fast, and it's convenient.

I cannot imagine anyone who has been through the rigors of a masters or doctorate using Wikipedia as anything other than an example of an interesting internet phenomenon. I would never consider it definitive on any topic.