<$BlogRSDUrl$> Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. Author/Speaker/Consultant
Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. Author/Speaker/Consultant
Internet Happenings, Events and Sources


Saturday, September 27, 2003  

How Information Goes Bad
http://www.infotoday.com/online/sep03/adams.shtml

Do you want that information now -- or do you want it to be correct? Searchers, both expert and part-time, are expected to produce results quickly with a high degree of accuracy. Unfortunately, just as garden weeds are hardier than the desired plants, bad information is "stickier," lasts longer and rears its ugly head more virulently than good information. Information can be wrong in several ways. For example, the quality may be inappropriate for a particular audience segment. Information geared toward one set of consumers may be perceived as lousy by a different set. Mathematicians, for example, might want a measurement defined to 25 decimal places, while handymen want the same value defined to just the nearest 16th of an inch. Information items can also be ambiguous or even deliberately fraudulent. Some are biased or non-objective, like the paid listings that accompany a search engine's results page. Information can also be incomplete or out-of-date. There is a further risk: the perpetuation of incorrect data. Many established journals publish retractions or errata notices, but unless the searcher has reason to suspect in advance that a correction or retraction has been issued, it doesn't normally appear in the standard search results. If modern retrieval mechanisms can locate the erroneous item, shouldn't they be able to find the correction? This would seem to be exactly why hyperlinks were invented, but so far journal publishers and secondary service providers don't appear to be using them for this purpose.

posted by Marcus Zillman | 8:17 AM
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