Author: David Peacham
Date: 2006-01-12 15:56
Lelia - Babelfish doesn't have fact-checkers because it is just a translation program. Actually, I put in the Babelfish translation of the German quoted by GBK partly as a joke, and partly to prove that my translation was actually my own work, not straight out of Babelfish. In this case, the Babelfish translation is near-garbage.
Wikipedia doesn't have professional fact-checkers either, I agree. What it does have is a community of users who tend to filter incorrect information fairly rapidly. If you look up subjects that you know a lot about in Wikipedia, you find that most of the information is correct most of the time. Movie cast lists may be an exception to this rule, I couldn't say. Actually, you can't say a whole lot more than that of most journalism, most printed encyclopedias or even a lot of textbooks. I have seen some appalling howlers in printed encyclopedias. When I quote from Wikipedia, I make that fact evident, as I did above. I am saying, in effect, this seems plausible, but I don't guarantee it. In this particular case the Wikipedia account, referring to a re-burial service 18 years after the funeral, was consistent with the source you had quoted, so it seemed a pretty fair bet that it might be correct. The other thing to say about Wikipedia is that, by and large, it is improving. That is just as one would expect.
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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