It is now an archive for my newspaper and magazine pieces. My blog can now be read at: www.spectator.co.uk/stephenpollard
Politics, economics and culture from the master. Unmissable.
Melanie Phillips home page
Melanie Phillips' peerless blog. Read, and learn.
Daniel Finkelstein's Times Comment Central
A daily must-read.
Tim Worstall
Lots of interesting nibbles - and a ruthless swatter of economic gibberish.
Harry's Place
Must-read left of centre blog from writers who understand the threat to the West.
Clive Davis
Always interesting selection of culture and politics, from an Anglo-American bent.
Samizdata
Libertarian blog, packed every day.
Norm's blog
The thoroughly sensible thoughts of renowned left-wing academic Norman Geras, Professor of Government at Manchester. And cricket, too.
Public Interest
Peter Briffa's inimitable take on The Yazzmonster and other assorted demons.
Reform
The public sector reform group; their website is an invaluable source of data and ideas.
Centre for the New Europe
The leading European public policy think tank.
Developed by:
| April | 26 |
| 2007 |
Oliver Kamm has an interesting post about Wikipedia. Regular readers will know that I disagree with him on the merits of blogging, but when it comes to Wikipedia I am with him 100 per cent.
I cannot understand how anyone with the least interest in factual accuracy gives Wikipedia the time of day. I have yet to read an entry on a subject about which I know something that has not been marred by glaring errors. The entry on me, for instance - probably the only subject about which I can claim to the the world's leading expert - has so many basic errors of fact that it is laughable.
I have made a point of never correcting it because once I start, there will be no end to it, as it is forever altered with new errors.
But here is just one sentence:
He is the official biographer for David Blunkett and is an occasional guest on the BBC's flagship Question Time discussion show.
Both statements are wrong. My biography was not official. Nor was it ever stated, anywhere or at any time, by me, my publishers or David Blunkett that it was. I started it off my own back, wrote it to my own schedule and editing criteria and published it as I saw fit. Mr Blunkett gave me interviews for it, but that in no way made it official, since I chose what to report and how. But because someone wholly ignorant of the facts about which they have chosen to write makes that claim on Wikipedia, it will now be repeated elswhere as fact.
As for my being "an occasional guest on the BBC's flagship Question Time discussion show"; I have never appeared on it. Not once. And I think I should know.
I could go through the rest of my entry and point to the similar inaccuracies which litter it, but what would be the point?. Wikipedia is a pernicious tool, and no one should rely on it. Ever.
(No doubt someone will read this and change the entry to reflect my corrections, but that will merely prove my point. If I hadn't happened to be vain enough to look at my entry, and then to write about it here, the errors would stay.)
MessageSpace
Many of the political articles I have looked at Wikipedia are about as reliable as the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. But then again that is also true of humanities departments in British universities - why anybody would want to pay for an Arts degree is beyond me. If you are interested in a subject use the Internet to buy a good book - they do exist!
However, on the subjects about which I know something, I find that Wikipediais generally accurate, and so I'm very happy to continue using it. Perhaps you know of some source of freely-available information that is infallibly correct on every subject: if so, please tell us about it.
Wikipedia is a marvellous thing, and a great example of Hayekian Spontaneous Order; Amazon's Recommendations thingie is another. Just you try finding out about, let alone buying, conservative/libertarian books without it! It's a God-send, and so is Wikipedia – we should be cheering these things to the echo.
Wikipedia is meant to be a decentralised collaborative effort. If you find a mistake on Wikipedia, and don’t correct it, you can hardly complain, can you?
No doubt the content of articles about which there is very little controversy do "evolve" towards reliability, but in the political "market" Wikipedia is constrained by the "monopolist" efforts of Leftists who delete the views of opponents.
That's a fair point - though Wikipedia does have mechanisms for countering that sort of behaviour too. Also, it's up to non-leftists to challenge/modify blatant leftisms, I suppose - but who has the time for that?
When I check, the offending items had been corrected. That's the advantange of Wikipedia, if an ignorant, malicious or mitaken person add something untrue, there is always an honest, well-informed person to correct it. As an optimist in this area, I believe there are more of the latter catergory than the former
Stephen,
You miss the point big time! While wiki is no replacement for solid research it is what it is and good enough for that purpose. In your example with yourself you listed several errors, however are these errors relevant to some one looking up Stepehen Pollard? In most cases a user of wiki will for example need a quick tutorial of say finding out who Pollard is. Wiki clearly shows that Pollard is some English geezer who writes about politics and has a blog. This is good enough! Want to know more? Read the blog which is clearly linked to! Wiki is fantastic for the "who is that what is that" stuff and if so inclined one can do proper research, but as a first port of call is the best. And free. Try using it a bit more and you will find that an excellent tool for what it is.