I was reading a post by Paul Thurrott, famed Windows expert, Editor-in-chief of WindowsITPro Magazine, and creator the Supersite for Windows. It was one in which he drops the proverbial hammer on an irresponsible & Machiavellian journalist named Randall C. Kennedy for his heinously deceptive quotes, actions, and most of all, intentions. Kennedy was recently shamed and admonished into unemployment (Translation: FIRED) by his employer, IDG Media for impersonating a person of authority on technical matters under a pseudonym while also magically generating/producing false information about technology – Microsoft Windows in particular.
In the post, he writes about the many incidents in which he and Randall Kennedy came into conflict like that below:
“Kennedy himself emailed me some time ago to point me to his own BS data about Vista SP1, which I refuted to him personally, so he backed off.This criticism of Vista SP1 is still in Wikipedia, by the way, which says everything you need to know about what I think about that particular piece of c#$% too. (OK, I’ll spell it out. Wikipedia is everything that’s wrong with the Internet: People love it, and it makes them lazy. It’s the McDonalds of knowledge, good intentions with bad end results that, somehow, no one ever saw coming.)”
[taken from “Insane Blogger Fools Reporter – Gets Fired” – http://bit.ly/c9DKrB”]
“Good intentions with bad end results.” Eloquently put, Paul. I find it unbelievable that advocates of Wikipedia are completely willing to sidestep & ignore the falsehoods, inaccuracies, and in some instances outright LIES posted on the site, all in the name of community collaboration & contributional parity. Didn’t these people learn anything from the fall of communism?
No one should EVER have to vigilantly scour a web site just to defend themselves from lies posted about them without accountability. Want a longer more exhaustive rant?
- COMMENTARY: Who trusts Wikipedia anyway?
http://kurtsh.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!DA410C7F7E038D!656.entry
kurtsh
Kurt's Thoughts 