[Sig-bwp] NYTimes: The Nitpicking of the Masses vs. the Authority of the Experts

[Gerry Mckiernan]

Colleagues/

NY Times: The Nitpicking of the Masses vs. the Authority of the Experts 
By GEORGE JOHNSON

[ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/03/science/03comm.html ]

Published: January 3, 2006
Uneasily sharing space on the top ledge of my computer browser are two buttons I click almost daily for an information fix: Encyclopaedia Britannica, as old and steadfast as the ligature in its name, and a mercurial upstart called Wikipedia, in which almost anyone anywhere can fiddle with the prose.

It may seem foolish to trust Wikipedia knowing I could jump right in and change the order of the planets or give the electron a positive charge. But with a worldwide web of readers looking over my shoulder, the error would quickly be corrected. Like the swarms of proofreading enzymes that monitor DNA for mutations, some tens of thousands of regular Wikipedians constantly revise and polish the growing repository of information.

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/Gerry 

Gerry McKiernan
Science and Technology Librarian 
Iowa State University Library 
Ames IA 50011

gerrymck at iastate.edu