Wikipedia

[Beery]

I think the contempt some people hold for Wikipedia is funny. It's very much en-vogue these days to scornfully pooh-pooh internet sites, but with regard to Wikipedia I've found that people would rather complain that it's inaccurate than take a little time to fix the entries they find fault with. Anyway, personally I think reports of its inaccuracy are exaggerated. For one thing the people finding fault are no more likely to have their facts straight than are the people contributing articles to Wikipedia. Plus, I've found that in areas where I'm knowledgeable it has often been as accurate as online encyclopedias that I'd pay big $$ for and where it's inaccurate it's in details that really don't matter for the purposes I'm using it for. Then there's the fact that it's completely free. What should we expect from a free resource? Short answer - nothing, because it's free!

Personally I use Wikipedia a lot. It's relatively accurate in general and it gives informative links, so it's a great place to start research and a great place to look when you want to know simple info like who someone is (i.e. who is John Lydon) or what something is (what is a MacPherson strut). Do I need perfect info at that point in my research? No. I need a general overview and Wikipedia does at least as well as The History Channel in terms of getting its facts right.

In short, I have two options: I can look online at Wikipedia and get reasonably good general info or I can go downstairs and access my Encyclopedia Britannica and get well researched hard data. Since finding Wikipedia I've accessed it hundreds of times. Since that time, how many times have I needed to open the Britannica for more detailed and more certain info? Not once. Draw your own conclusions.

Also, Wikipedia can only get more accurate as more people (and more knowledgeable people) contribute. But as long as people are complaining about it rather than fixing it, it's only going to be as good as the willingness of the community to stop whining about it and make a positive change. After all, it's not as if it's hard to alter. If Wikipedia is flawed it's flawed because the public's preference for complaining and poking fun is only matched by its unwillingness to make positive change.

In terms of whether the guy in the picture is a historical reenactor or a Renaissance Faire attendee, well does it really matter? Historical reenactors are often not much more accurately attired than Ren Faire folks. Historical reenactments are often the grown-up equivalent of playing army (and I should know, since I'm a reenactor myself - I've been one since about 1995). In my experience with WWI reenacting at the biggest WWI site in the US the participants usually don't know how to wear their clothes (they often button their clothes in an unhistorical fashion), they don't know how WWI era people spoke, they don't know how to properly man a trench, they don't know how to advance across open ground or how to perform a trench raid, the organizers of the event build trenches too close to one another (so close that a man in the Allied forward trenches can often lob a grenade into the enemy forward trench - something that would never havbe been allowed to continue in real life), they can't tell a fire trench from a traverse or a parapet from a parados, and they build dugouts with their entrances uncovered and facing the enemy line. In short, WWI reenactors have the historical sense of a 5 year-old child. I have reason to believe that this level of ignorance is widespread throughout the reenacting community. I wouldn't trust most reenactors to accurately recreate a modern bring and buy sale.