Re: Definitions

John Cowan wrote:

>
> Peter T. Daniels scripsit:
>
> > Then the fact-checking, peer review, and editing processes are faulty.
>
> As opposed to what f.c./p.r./e. processes elsewhere in the publishing world?

I don't know about "the publishing world" (after all, they put out Ann
Coulter's books), just about academic publishers of books and journals
in linguistics and ancient Near East. (When general journals, like
Scientific American and New Scientist and Science and Nature, turn to
linguistics, they clearly don't solicit competent reviewers.)

> In Wikipedia there are far more eyeballs looking for problems, and if
> occasionally fixes actually make things worse, the *net* effect, reinforced
> by such things as the neutral point-of-view norm, is towards greater
> accuracy and freedom from bias.
>
> It's like the maxim on designing your own cryptographic system that
> cryptographers use: only do that if you trust no one and your abilities
> are second to none.

--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...