a topic on which the wikipedia has a high quantity of unreferenced material on.
i know this isnt the topic of the thread, and the dude that was picking a fight with you was both out of line and just flat wrong, but he was right on one point.
the wikipedia really is a cesspool of misinformation, rumor, and popular misconception. its probably as inacurate as any other source of information, from printed encyclopedias to network news, but its inacurate in different ways.
as it becomes more and more robust and its use increases, its inacuracies will continue to be defined by dominant cultural views. and as a source of information, it will begin to reinforce those views until it becomes (more than it already is) a part of the slow tide of cultural consiusness.
sure, it has its supporters. sure many of them are dedicated and sharp. but you must acknowledge that many others are not, many of them are just flat wrong and post misinformation and, with the absence of experts to review each section, there is no real way to verify the information.
again, i dont mean to say its worse than any other source of information. but anyone who relies on a SINGLE source of misinformation is basically bending over to receive the authors agenda.
sadly, a large number of references and off-site links does not directly equate to veracity. its depressingly easy to find a large ammount of reference material to support any view point.
and its just the way of things that multiple view points can emerge from examining the same material.
so i guess the moral of this imbicilic meandering post is to trust no one, burn books, destroy all sources of information, and in the end we will have a perfect world where only the strong survive.
i mean, the moral is to think for your self, and be carefull of what you feed your brain. especially on the internet, because who knows where its been.
edit: fixed a particularly agrevious spelling error. you can suffer through the rest of my tripe, unedited.
[ April 01, 2007: Message edited by: puke ]