Friday, February 21, 2014

Wikipedia on Alexandrinus

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: How Bad is Wikipedia? Codex Alexandrinus as a test case (Peter Head at ETC).
That is ten problems in the first half of the entry. And there are many more in the second half. I can see why many people advise students to avoid wikipedia. Wikipedia is quite bad. Facts are wrong, correct facts are placed in the wrong context, incorrect conclusions are drawn. Some of these errors would seem to have been deliberately inserted (either that or very stupid people are getting things badly wrong and adding them in). The best and most recent scholarship is cited the least. Evidence is not routinely provided. And the overall style is dreadful.
That's bad. But maybe the entry was edited by bots.

The machines still need us. For now.