Although i agree with you DennisD.
Bad information should be fixed or removed. But as ribs1 said. On the internet this is never gonna happen to a degree that matters.
To confound this, some bad information on the internet is bad/misleading on purpose. So even if you where to try and correct it. The author would not want to.
The realistic fix: Learn to recognise good sources.
- loook for university extensions
- get a good book to start you off with some basic knowladge.
- look for references where information came from. A good book, should reference to where they got the information from.
- look up a few of the references. It the reference goes to a blog or wikipedia page. Id trust the source less than if it goes to an established/trusted institution or peer reviewed scientific consensus (meta analasis) paper.
- look for “strange” clue’s. If you got some basic know-how from a trusted source. And then when looking for more information. You usualy will spot "clue’s that something is fishy. (like apple being member of the prunus family. When i come accros shuch i thing i continue my search elsewhere)
- look for the results of “the advise”. Plenty of online sources show you “how to do somthing” but most of them never show you the amazing results they predicted.
That should be a red flag itself! - on media that allouw it. Ask questions (proof/more information/explenation of underlying principle)
- look for supporting evidence. Agreement by multiple sourches from different people/institutions (prefurable institutions).
The agreement ofcourse is not valid if the compared sources give virtually the same information besides the thing your comparing. A lot of copy pasting going on online.
Most of the points made above, do not exclude the information/sourche being reliable. But on anverage they do help. It is also no garantee. Univerisity’s publish “bad” information to. Although usualy to a lesser degree or less often.
The “bad” shortcut.
if you tried all of the above or care less about the accuracy/validity.
you could take the following “shortcut” with less effort.
-look at who is saying it.
although being a “licensed psychotherapist and professional writer” Does not exclude some one from having good grafting knowladge. It does not compare well to for example a “horticulturist”
However keep in mind that horticulture is a large field. And people without a degree in botany, also calll themself horticulturists. So some-one having a relevant sounding title or discription is not a gasrantee they actualy have expertise in the field. And even if they do. A lot of trained botanists are verry speciliased and might for example know nothing about grafting or fruit tree’s witch in itself are verry specialised things.
There is always an “expert” outlier to.
Im pretty sure somewhere there is a dentist that recoments brushing your teeth with sand. or somthing like that.
However if 90% of other dentists say “don’t brush your teeth with sand”
the better idee might be that of those 90% of dentists.
There is always some one claiming to be an “expert” who is not.
The problem with trusting “a single” expert thus becomes obvious. If there are always outliers and “false” experts. It becomes easy to find an “expert” agreeing with any possible idea.
And if you can find an “expert” that agree’s for any idea you can think of (no matter how bad an idea). Than almost by defenition that “proves” this trusting of a single expert to be an bad idea.
The “good” shortcut.
-Look for consensus / the average of what “experts” are saying.
-this usualy comes in the form of a “peer revieuwed article published by a renouwned journal or institution”
-or institutions themself. It is part of the job of an institution to internaly vet their “eperts” and internaly peer revieuw their results and sources.
The catch
Even if you do all of the above, and you get reliable information/data. You still might interpert it wrong. Or it might not be applicable for you.
A simple example might be growing zones. Advise given that is “good” for zone 4a. Might not be ideal for zone 10B or vise versa. Does not mean the 'advice" is “bad”. But your interperting/using it wrong.
Remain critical 