First let me say...I love Wikipedia. I like to go up there each day and learn something new. Whether it is telling you it is Lei Feng Day In China (w00t!), in 1770 American's pelted British Soldiers with snowballs and that led to 5 dead or even that the Euro hit an all-time high today.
Sure I know the jokes about the inaccuracies (and here is a good one!): How do you know what 40% of Wikipedia's Facts are lies?...You take out the 60% that are blatant lies and it is what's left over :) (joke!)
Hey, but I love the goal of trying to contain all of the collected knowledge together in one place! Just for the betterment of mankind.
Well, allegedly the betterment of one kind. Jimmy Wells. Apparently, again, there are alleged incidences of improprieties with expenses, including a $13,000 Steak Dinner! This a bit after finding out that the Wikipedia Foundation had hired a Convicted Felon as their Chief Operating Officer (COO).
It is also in the same report that Wells changed his own listing multiple times (against the Wikipedia rules) to wash over personal issues or even remove the involvement of the Co-Founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger.
So what's the deal-i-o with the post and how, other that just being interesting, doe it have to do with you.
I don't want to always be a sceptic about everything. I want to believe in the overall goodness of my fellow man, but in the words of Ronald Reagan..."Trust, but Verify!"
Wikipedia has been having a cash crunch and a cash drive (at least that is my interpretation of the countless foundation buttons on the site. I was feeling a bit guilty about using that site every day, not not contributing. So I planned tomorrow to do so and ran across the USA Today article I linked to.
I am not telling you to not contribute to Wikipedia, just that I won't until this stuff gets fixed, otherwise I would feel pick pocketed the next time I saw something like this news.
Whatever charity or organization that you want to support, dig in...even if they have a big name it doesn't mean everything is roses! Neither of us can afford to be trusting, without verifying!
4 Comments:
The scary thing is, some people who don't know do trust it.
I used to think it was a reliable source - it's so official looking. But nowadays I know better.
Great Point Catherine.
I think it is great for general knowledge about a lot of topics. I also really like the idea of the project.
But it is the OK! magazine of encyclopedias! :)
Well, The Finwikian is run by an honest and trustworthy woman. ;)
While I sometimes daydream that it'll get to Wikipedia levels (or even on a much smaller but still awesome scale), it also worries me about what it's opening itself up to.
I wouldn't be endorsing it otherwise :)
"A Place to Contain the Collective Understanding of Personal Finance"
Should be the mission statement!
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