Reputation

I've always been a fan of the free access to information that the internet offers. It has been a preferred source to me, as more often than not paper materials are stale by the time they are printed. Media shouldn't be static, but as a matter of the attention we can give it, it can become unreliable, false, or obscure.

It is sad that major resources such as Wikipedia are the greatest sources of information- but that people can seed fiction either from ignorance or intent. Thus those that are naive or careless deepen the spiral of chaos and misinformation.

Ken Fisher wrote:

Of course, professionals do make mistakes as well. But online, there's so many voices, so many opinions, and so many "pretend facts" out there that it's quite easy to find someone, somewhere, who will say anything. It creates a kind of circular problem for readers, because you almost have to be an authority on a subject before you can weed out the wheat from the chaff, which in some cases defeats the point—especially when we're talking about an encyclopedia.

Unfortunately, burden of proof lies with us. Plagarism, false information, whether knowlingly nor not- once you write it, or say it, you are attesting to the good value of the material. Sadly, it is the responsibility of writer to corroborate his information, and the duty of the reader to define opinion from fact, ficition from news. Without your reputation, what do you really have to say?

I recommend everyone interested in the problem of the internet as a whole being a source to read the article, a lot of the feedback is pertinent and interesting.