A Fundamental Flaw
Stopped in for a while ay Wikkipedia (There’s no link because it’s not worth it).
Here’s the basic concept, see if you can spot the flaw: Everyone is an expert on something, so everyone is welcome to write/edit an entry in this conglomeration. That way we can take advantage of the collective knowledge of the entire net.
OK, did you spot the flaw? There’s no process by which it is determined you are indeed an expert, or even moderately knowledgeable, about the topic you’re writing about. Need I make it clearer? OK, let’s try.
Imagine the set of all people who are an expert on topic x. Got that set in mind? OK, now imagine the set of all people who honestly and sincerely believe they are an expert on topic x. The two sets are not identical. Some people who are experts will not believe themselves to be experts (either out of humility or low self-image) and others who are clearly not experts will believe themselves to be so (we’ve all met our share of Cliff Clavens in life, haven’t we).
Since the set of article writers/editors involved in wikkipedia is self-selected, you will miss out on people who are experts, and get the viewpoints of people who think they are experts. In fact, as has happened on it before, a real expert will edit an entry, correcting the mistakes, and a self-proclaimed expert will come along later and return the errors to the article.
It’s really impossible for such a system to approximate truth, no matter how long you let it operate. Talk about a complete waste of time.