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WebWord Weblog Posting Posting Date: May 23, 2002 Netchecking -- I've noticed something evolving over the last couple of years. People are getting tired of other people making claims about things without first checking their facts using Google or some other search engine. For example, I might claim that the Ford Focus didn't sell very well in 2000. Well, instead of just saying that, perhaps I should do a little bit of quick research. As it turns out, according to Edmunds, the Ford Focus was the 8th best selling car in 2000. So, I should have modifed my initial comment to perhaps say the Focus didn't sell as well as the Ford Explorer, or something else. And, I should have provided a link or two. Doing this sort of quick fact checking is easy and I assume that more people are doing it every day. This is a slow shift in thinking but I think it is a real shift. The core idea is that we can tap into the collective mind of the internet. The collective mind is a very powerful authority and no single person can be smarter than every other person. Furthermore, even if the material available is just data or information, versus real knowledge or wisdom, I think we all expect other people to tap into that stream. This is happening, in part, because we are all starting to realize that the material is available. It is also courteous because we are all pressured for time. Finally, I think "regular" people are getting more comfortable using hyperlinks in their day to day lives. Just for fun, I'll call this netchecking, unless someone has a better term for it. "Next time you write something, would you please netcheck it?"
Reader Comments...
I'm living in Belgium and when I read your literature, I'm thinking that saying "the Ford Focus is the 8th best selling car in 2000" is not sufficient: you must also precise that it's only in the US... Posted by: Etienne PIRON on May 23, 2002 06:52 AM
The only caveat, of course, is that Edmunds has to be a trustworthy source. Posted by: Chi Lambda on May 23, 2002 08:06 AM
Along similar lines, it is standard operating practice to have a computer handy during any conversation so that any facts can be quickly verified. On the one hand, it's nice in that we always get our facts straight, but perhaps at the expense of some interesting debate. Posted by: E on May 23, 2002 12:38 PM
About trustworthy sources: For quite some time, the Kennedy Middle School (in Albuquerque) alumni page listed me as having attended there. I didn't move to Albuquerque until my sophomore year in high school. I had younger siblings who did attend Kennedy, which is presumably where the confusion came in. (This page is gone now) The way I look at it, this gets at a fundamental aspect of the way Google works. What it's really doing with its PageRank is saying, When people say X, what do they mean by X, what do they think about X, NOT what is the most factually accurate information. In other words, Google is excellent at the linguistic/psychological definition of reality. This is the reality that trips up grammar wonks: if everybody qualifies unique, it's no longer an either/or like "dead" or "pregnant." I'm old-fashioned enough where qualifying unique bothers me, but I'm new-fashioned enough to where "The data are suspect." sounds about as logical to me as "The sand are wet." so I'm on both sides of that particular coin. So what I do is always look for multiple sources whenever possible. Google makes these easy by combining similar pages from the same site, and quite often, identical pages from mirror sites.
...and we definitely have to watch for Google Bombs. Posted by: John S. Rhodes on May 23, 2002 01:14 PM
I tend to netcheck whenever I am sent something that reeks of urban legend. I think that out of the last five I checked, four were urban legends and one wasn't (or, at least, I didn't find it on any of the urban legend repositories I reached). I then get back to the person who sent the urban legend to me and say "check this out" and forward them the link to the info about the legend. Posted by: David Tallan on May 24, 2002 10:19 AM
My team members have started checking Google before asking me for programming language reference information, because they know I always direct them there first (alternatively look it up on Google myself :-) For for example Java / JavaScript and probably loads of other programming languages, the web is a treasure trove of API documentation, code snippet libraries etc etc... Posted by: Anders on July 17, 2002 09:55 AM
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