[Air-L] Canadian general warns that Wikipedia postings may be aiding the Taliban

[Barry Wellman]

>From the Toronto Star, February 15, 2008. (I am not making this up).
Allan Woods, "Military Issues Web Warning"

"Brig.-Gen Peter Atkinson... warned that seemingly innocuous photos,
videos and news reports can be the source for as much as 80% of the
intelligence that insurgents routinely gather on operations....

"Wikipedia is among the most dangerous of the public-access websites, he
said.... 'Due to its collaborative content contribution, anybody can add
to the content, providing a compilation of details on a specific incident,
like the descriptions of a casualty, photos, locations, and news articles
contributed by several sources,' Atkinson told reporters."

BW: To check this out, I searched on Canadian, Taliban and 2008, and found
nothing currently revelatory, even in the article, "War in Afghanistan
(2001-present)".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29

I do not have the time, inclination or resources to search the history of
every article to see who revealed what, when, where, why, or how.

As an influential essay on Wikipedia says, "Wikipedia is not a newspaper."
Therefore, I wonder if there will be much operational reporting on it that
lasts more than a short while.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_newspaper

YMMV.

 Barry Wellman
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