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Robert Dale McHenry (born April 30, 1945) is the editor of a number of mainly biographical works and was Vice President and Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopædia Britannica from 1992 to 1997.
In a 2004 article, "The Faith-based Encyclopedia", McHenry made several criticisms of the structure of Wikipedia. The core of his argument can be summarised as follows: Anybody can edit Wikipedia, no matter how ill-qualified. As a result, even a somewhat well-written article will tend to degrade over time as ignorant or incompetent people make subsequent alterations. As a result, he argued that Wikipedia could never become a reliable source of information. McHenry used the Wikipedia article on Alexander Hamilton to illustrate his point.
McHenry on Wikipedia:
- The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him.
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