Space/Science — HabitableZone

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re: 2 Corrections
EnergyExpert — (archived)

Reliability of a research requires both accuracy and permanence.

As you noted in your uncited study the error rate of Wikipedia is 30% greater then for real encyclopedias. Key would be how they measured it. Was it just measuring objective facts like the speed of light and diameter of the Earth? or more subjective ones like what Simon Newcomb was saying in his article? You could have a “factual” article and still leave out critical information, for example never mentioning that he wrote such an article.

Second, and this is also important in permanence. If I quote a source from page 100 of the 1994 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannia the same information, exactly the same, will be found on the same page of all copies of that edition, no matter where they are. And if I check it again in 50 years from now, the information on page 100 of the 1994 edition of Encyclopedia Britannia will still be exactly the same.

No so with Wikipedia. The information on the page the “Fact Checking Yeti” went to might have been much different then when I went to it, and it might be even different now. And if someone read this thread in an archive a year hence it will be different still.

A reliable source is both Accurate and Permanent. Wikipedia fails on both counts.

Aslo folksa re talking about Supersonic transports. It doesn't mean anyone is rushing to build one of those environmental turkeys again.

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