David Goodman wrote: > A much more serious problem is the availability of this material in > the less-developed world, which includes a great many people who rely > on the English Wikipedia--many of whom do not have practical access to > any good library. Quite. But then the traditional solution has been ... compile an encyclopedia (since the 17th century). The cream of scholarly info without all the underlying scholarship.
The fact that we have extremes of scepticism, often driven by divisive or ideological or partisan starting points, should not eclipse the fact that _we_ offer a solution to the inequities of access to basic information. As they say, if not us, who? Those of us who have been around here a while have seen the ultra-verificationist perspective spread out from the most vexed areas to appear as a problem all over the 'pedia. (Not without justification.) But let's keep things the right way round: if we post the facts, and they are verifiable, and the verifying sources are behind subscription walls, the readers are still better off than without the info. Charles _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
