[Ffmpeg-devel] Re: [OT] Wikipedia

[Måns Rullgård]

Diego Biurrun <diego at biurrun.de> writes:

> On Fri, Mar 03, 2006 at 11:13:38PM +0000, M?ns Rullg?rd wrote:
>> Diego Biurrun <diego at biurrun.de> writes:
>> 
>> > On Fri, Mar 03, 2006 at 10:36:34PM +0000, M?ns Rullg?rd wrote:
>> >> Diego Biurrun <diego at biurrun.de> writes:
>> >> 
>> >> > On Fri, Mar 03, 2006 at 01:05:45PM -0800, Roman Shaposhnick wrote:
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> P.S. It funny how nowadays I tend to hand WikiPedia links much more
>> >> >> frequently than I used to -- OpenSource approach to knowledge
>> >> >> definitely is the best thing since OpenSource software ;-)
>> >> >
>> >> > I wholeheartedly agree.  Wikipedia is just amazing...
>> >> 
>> >> And just like open source software the quality varies immensely.  Some
>> >> articles are excellent, while others contain outright lies.  Not to
>> >> mention the editing wars going on with some articles...  The technical
>> >> articles tend to be above average though.
>> >
>> > The real question, though, is how it compares to traditional paper
>> > encyclopedias.  Yes, the quality varies, but overall I'm very satisfied.
>> > Furthermore it's very hard to find a topic that is not covered nowadays.
>> > Have you ever tried to look up - say - mathematical subjects in an
>> > encyclopedia?
>> 
>> The Encyclopaedia Britannica has a solid treatment of quite complex
>> scientific topics.  IIRC, there is an article on calculus spanning on
>> the order of 100 pages in fairly fine print.  It's not comparable to a
>> proper book on the matter, but that's not the purpose of an
>> encyclopedia.
>
> I'll give you an example: I recently needed to know the exact difference
> between perfect and maximal matchings on graphs, because the book I was
> studying from was unclear.  I looked through several math books to no
> avail, but I immediately found it on Wikipedia...

Good for you.  The problem with Wikipedia, like almost everything on
the Internet, is that you can't quite trust it.  I put more faith in
something I read in a book by a reputable author than what some
anonymous person has scribbled on a web page.

-- 
M?ns Rullg?rd
mru at inprovide.com