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Tim Bray on Grokipedia

(www.tbray.org)
175 points Bogdanp | 1 comments | 31 Oct 25 21:41 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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physarum_salad ◴[31 Oct 25 22:27 UTC] No.45777378[source]▶
"Wikipedia, in my mind, has two main purposes: A quick visit to find out the basics about some city or person or plant or whatever, or a deep-dive to find out what we really know about genetic linkages to autism or Bach’s relationship with Frederick the Great or whatever."

Completely agree with the first purpose but would never use wikipedia for the second purpose. Its only good at basics and cannot handle complex information well.

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1. dragonwriter ◴[01 Nov 25 04:29 UTC] No.45779253[source]▶
Its often good for the latter when, as a tertiary source should be, it is used not just for its narrative content but for its references to secondary sources, which are themselves used for both their content and their references.