mutable truth

[luciab]

Wow. I just found out what Wikipedia is, and I am appalled. An encyclopedia that anyone can write, with no fact checking? WFT? I quit reading the Opinion section of our local Sunday paper when they replaced in-depth commentary on topics of national or international interest with pages of writing by local yokels. They said they just rolled the in-depth stuff into the regular news sections, but I never found it. It sure made reading the Sunday paper go a lot faster, though I never thought that was a good thing, particularly. The paper has a reputation locally as having a screaming liberal bent, but this "innovation" matches Georgie's "faith based" governance horrifyingly well. I mean, why doesn't anyone care about facts and research and truth? Oh, okay. I suppose it's possible that everyone who submits an entry to Wikipedia spends weeks or months researching the specific topic they write about, and only writes about stuff they've studied generally for years. Uh-huh. Youuuuuu betcha.

In other news, this showed up on a D'land buddy's page today. She thought it cute, I found it sweet in a sad way. Still interesting, though.

I have lots of things I should do today, especially to get ready for the apprenticing ceremony on Saturday. Hell, I've never done this! How am I supposed to know what to do? I am terrible at remembering this sort of thing or I could draw on my own apprenticing ceremony. Then again, my relationship with my laurel-- and the ensuing cermony-- were not really typical. Livia fed me dinner last night (delicious!) and we talked about what we want to do, both immediately and long term. "Immediate" includes some goodies for the reception/tea afterwards; I've got the Banbury tart filling soaking now, (thanks for the recipe AoD!) and my (apparently infamous) Rum balls have been requested. Heh. Or Whee! Depending on your approach to life, I guess.

I think I'll go get started now. Rum balls coming up! I hope that particular truth isn't mutable...

Comments

[lady-guenievre.livejournal.com]

The thing about Wikipedia is that it's strengths are not on indepth research, it's strengths are more on *basic* knowledge and pop culture-y stuff. And the sheer number of people who contribute to it - that's where the fact checking comes in, just because if something's wrong, somebody else will fix it. I would never *cite* wikipedia as a reference for anything, but if I'm just curious about something current, there's usually some interesting info on there (like, say, the pope's funeral rites, or something like that that wouldn't make a normal encyclopedia), and it's good for "settle a bet" kind of questions. And the extensive hyperlinking makes it kind of a fun thing to browse for topics that I might be interested in actually researching in depth later, interesting historical people, that kind of thing. I mean, yes, it has LOTS of weaknesses, but it's not trying to be a "real" encyclopedia.

I don't read the local paper, but your description of the new "opinion" section makes me glad of that...:-)

[luciab.livejournal.com]

That's a relief, ref the relative gravitas of Wikipedia, I mean. And it even makes sense. I just had visions of people editing entries about wars or political big wigs to reflect their own view of the world. Not that I haven't disagreed with the official version a few times myself...

[lady-guenievre.livejournal.com]

Nah, there's a fairly stringent criteria for entries that the mods and other users enforce pretty harshly. If you want to see it in action, go to something controversial on there, and hit the "discussion" tab - you can kind of see how the entry has evolved...

[3-purple-irises.livejournal.com]

Things are coming along smoothly for the goodies for after the ceremony. What time and place are you planning to hold the ceremony? I will be in the kitchen till after feast, then I will be finishing the last minute preping and setting up the trays of food. I will have a lot of trays of stuff so I hope where you choose to have the ceremony is not too far away from the hall. :) I am getting in touch with ramblingheritic for extra tables. I will also bring my extra one as well. I think this is going to be a really cool deal on Saturday!

[luciab.livejournal.com]

Extra tables (plural)? How much food you cookin', girlfriend? I'll have a table we can use, probably 6' long. That'll hold a lot of food. Do you have the serving dishes taken care of, or should I recruit a few?

Oh, and the location I hope will be beside the field. Idonea will be using the pavilion during the day for her casting demo.