in case anyone was curious.

Contracycle,IF you needed a liver transplant operation, would you like all the nurses, doctors, anesthesiologists, pharmacists, and all the other people involved in the surgery and your recovery (including the long line of scientists and doctors that came before who developed the techniques, the instruments, and the understanding) to have gotten their education from a Wikipedia-style university, where anyone, no matter the level of expertise, can contribute and teach a class, or from a university where every professor is highly educated and an expert in the specific subject they teach?

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WHO DO YOU THINK PUTS THE DATA IN WIKIPEDIA?

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Anybody who wants to can edit any entry in Wikipedia.Anyone at all, regardless of expertise or education or know-how.From the Wikipedia home page:Bold and italicized comments added by me So, Nupedia is expert-written, in contrast to Wikipedia. See, not only experts or professionals on the subjects do the editing. Just about any person can edit. I hope you read that closely, Contra.

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According to your principle, getting information from a public resource like a library is implausible, and only word-of-mouth is reliable, yes?

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Wikipedia is hardly equivalent to a public library.When you search for information in a library, you can determine the credentials of the author. This is not possible for Wikepedia, because anyone can be an author.And I would hardly call the opinion of an Oxford Professor mere "word of mouth". More like "expert opinion".So, please answer the question, now that you know that non-experts contribute to Wikipedia all the time, so much so that inaccuracy is a problem:If you needed a liver transplant operation, would you like all the nurses, doctors, anesthesiologists, pharmacists, and all the other people involved in the surgery and your recovery (including the long line of scientists and doctors that came before who developed the techniques, the instruments, and the understanding) to have gotten their education from a Wikipedia-style university, where anyone, no matter the level of expertise, can contribute and teach a class or from a university where every professor is highly educated and an expert in the specific subject they teach?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 04-25-2005 08:15 AM

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Yes, and so what happens if you enter something that is contrary to the state of the art? Why someone who IS familiar with the state of art will correct it.

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I just looked up "balsamic vinegar" on wikipedia as an example of a subject that I have a good deal of expertise in.The entry is quite limited and has several errors in it.Now, I may go ahead and correct the entry, but the point we are all trying to make to you is that if I had gone to this website of these people who I know who make balsamic, or this website which is the Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Reggio Emilia consorzio's official site in the first place, I would have found a much more accurate and authoritative and detailed description of how Balsamic vinegar is made and what it's history is.That's the chance you take with a volunteer encyclopedia.