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Offtopic: Wikipedia Fact Checking

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Offtopic: Wikipedia Fact Checking
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...>
• Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 10:02:39 -0600

In a distributed open hypermedia where the dominant quality 
is the speed of distribution of an assertion, one cannot 
rely on the wisdom of crowds.   One must be able to 
get notification based on the seriousness or consequences 
of the assertion itself.

The semantic web has uses.  Services have uses.  One of 
these will be an ontology of personal importance.  What 
we learn (or knew) about the Internet as a medium is that 
it speeds up signal distribution but has no means to separate 
truth and superstition, something the mammals are often 
bad at with or without technology.  The wisdom of 
crowds is only as good as enough people care and comment. 

If an assertion is read but not vetted, it is just an 
opinion.  The problem is not in finding the number of 
links but in using the number of links joined to the 
seriousness of the assertion to create automatic notifications 
to interested parties.   Authority is not in owning the 
assertions but in verifying them.  A record of authority is 
the statement of that vetting and verification.

If you ever have to implement an internal affairs module, 
the utility of those concepts is obvious.

len

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