"On Wikipedia Nobody Knows You're an Idiot"
I'm still committed to posting two entries a week, at about noon on Wednesday and Sunday. (I may go to one a week when the fall semester starts.) Eating lunch, I realized I didn't have an entry ready for today, and no topic sprang to mind easily; so, here's a brief comment on a topic that lots of us think about.
How does the hardy web-surfer know which site is reliable and which is pure hokum? There's problem a spectrum from completely reliable to utter hokum, but how does one know where a particular web page lies on the spectrum?
I'm not sure I can answer my own question, so if you have ideas about reliable web sites or techniques that can help rate them, please share them in a comment. I promise to post comments that address the issue without flaming or obnoxious language.
I used "Wikipedia" in the title for this post because that's the site many first think of. I was visiting a freshman composition class that was discussing research. When the teacher asked where students would look for information, the first thing several said was "Wikipedia." I use Wikipedia myself; I've found it a useful source of information I want students to have. But when I use it that way, I know something about the topic and (hope) I would recognize hokum.
What if you don't know anything about a topic you need to research? Consult several sources — even printed books and journals. Talk to someone who is knowledgeable. It takes some effort to learn something.
But suppose I hear a story on the news that piques my interest; I don't want to do a lot of research to discover whether the assertion I heard is reliable or hokum. As the presidential campaign season begins, there are a number of questionable statements. How can I sort them out? Does anyone have an idea?
Comments
One important element in judging in any source is their agenda. For topics which are non-controversial, the author's interest may be limited to being genuinely informative, but for any subject of contention, and for current politics especially, the author will have his/her own agenda and is almost certainly more interested in promoting this agenda than in telling the truth.
Accordingly, every political source is biased, and in general will be as dishonest as the author expects to be able to get away with. The only time a source on political events or figures should be taken at face value is when it's clearly impossible for them to be lying.
If CNN says that Tony Blair has stepped down, for instance, we can believe them, because there would soon be embarrassing protests from the other side of the pond if it weren't true. On the other hand, anything they say about why he stepped down could easily be pure fabrication, since any such claims would be hard to disprove.
Basically, except for the most rudimentary and tangible facts, there is no way of knowing the truth. The solution is simple, and very widely practiced: just use your gut feeling to decide what the truth is, find a source that agrees with you (there will always be one) and quote them.
Posted by: Abgrund | August 4, 2007 04:47 PM