Unchecked websites

[Ken Kinman]

    Looks like someone threw this site in a hurry, and probably typed by a
secretary with little biological background.  It certainly wasn't proofread.
     On the mammal page they misspelled Eutheria 8 times in a row (Euheria).
  Just a lot of sloppiness that many high school biology students would
shake their heads at.
                     So it goes, Ken

>From: "Margaret K. Thayer" <mthayer at FMNH.ORG>
>Reply-To: "Margaret K. Thayer" <mthayer at FMNH.ORG>
>To: TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG
>Subject: Re: Unchecked websites
>Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 10:52:42 -0500
>
>At 11:52 AM 13-05-2000 +0200, Prof.Francis Dov Por wrote:
>
>...
> > Frequently the web sites containing zoological information have  gross
> >errors which normally would be weeded-out in a properly edited hard copy
> >publication. As an example  I bring one of such web sites, that of
>Illinois
> >( www.il-st-acad-sci.org/kingdom)  In its zoological pages  there are
>such
> >kind of  errors as ...
>
>Yes, it is certainly unfortunate to see such errors creep in, especially on
>sites that users might reasonably expect to be authoritative (in this case,
>a state academy of science, but I have sometimes seen similar things on
>university pages).
>
>I hope you sent your corrections to the site's webmaster or whatever
>contact address is there as well as to your colleagues on TAXACOM - did
>you?  Although I agree with (what I believe to be) your point that people
>who put up such information should check it or have it checked, it doesn't
>do any good to complain about such errors to others and not to the source.
>In my experience, most sites that are even somewhat academically oriented
>(and probably many others as well) are quite interested in correcting
>errors when made aware of them.  Web users, of course, need to be aware
>that unless web content is stated to be peer-reviewed and/or produced by
>suitable "experts", it probably isn't. Caveat emptor.
>
>
>Margaret K. Thayer      mthayer at fmnh.org     http://www.fmnh.org
>Zoology--Insects
>Field Museum of Natural History
>1400 South Lake Shore Drive
>Chicago IL 60605-2496, USA
>PHONE: 312-665-7741 (direct-dial)
>FAX: 312-665-7754
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com