America At Large:When he suggested, over two centuries ago, that a little knowledge could be a dangerous thing, Alexander Pope hadn't even contemplated the internet, which has made it possible for virtually anyone owning a computer to share his ignorance.

The danger comes when the misinformation is generated under the flag of expertise. The breathless "exclusive" from Pedro Fernandez speculating that Belfast middleweight John Duddy had suffered a potentially career-wrecking detached retina comes to mind.

The internet has spawned hundreds of boxing-specific websites. A handful are excellent (in the interest of full disclosure, I regularly write for thesweetscience.com). But most of them call to mind Wayne's World - one-man operations whose proprietors, barely able to spell their own names, much less the Marquis of Queensberry's, blog away at their pleasure.

Fernandez, whose site is called Ring Talk, describes himself as an "award-winner writer". Where the award comes from isn't made clear, but neither spelling nor the declarative sentence appears to be his forte.

When Duddy withdrew last month from a scheduled January New York bout he told us it had been on the advice of his plastic surgeon, who felt the cuts sustained in his September win over Yory Boy Campas needed time to heal.

The same day, Ring Talk posted an item headlined "Irish prospect's career threatened?", which read, in part: "Although the nature of his 'actual' injury is being kept under wraps, Duddy looked like he had been damaged after the Campas fight, as he was bleeding from both optics. This isn't like the old days, when prior to Ray Leonard, anybody with a torn or detached retina was forced to retire . . ."

The rumour spread like wildfire across the internet. Since Duddy is scheduled to headline a card at Madison Square Garden on March 16th, the Derryman's camp had to issue a widely circulated rebuttal lest ticket sales be damaged.

"It was pure, grade-A bull," said matchmaker Jim Borzell. "It's not like anybody even tried to pick up the phone and ask us."

Fernandez promised Duddy's people he would publish a retraction, but if he ever did, I haven't seen it, and it's been a month now.

Links to Ring Talk are enthusiastically circulated by one Greg Goodrich, who a few years ago founded the "Boxing Press Coalition". Goodrich claims over 630 "writers" are members of his organisation, which by my calculation is about 500 too many. There aren't two dozen bona fide boxing writers working for US newspapers. Even allowing for an equivalent number in the rest of the English-speaking world and all the internet writers who can spell "Klitschko", the number is way over the top, but since the primary function of the Boxing Press Coalition appears to be circulating spam from every publicist and press agent on earth, there's usually no great harm done.

Goodrich, who describes himself as "an avid boxing writer and sports enthusiast", is listed as the editor-in-chief. A few days ago I incurred the wrath of this editor-in-chief after he posted a reference to the "Marquis of Queensbury (sic) Rules". I pointed out the name is "Queensberry", and that while it is frequently misspelled by those who know no better, it shouldn't be by one representing himself as a boxing authority.

Now, I don't know much about this Goodrich fellow, but he is presumably young, since in one email he described me as "old" and in another suggested I "go back to my retirement home". Defending himself as a "linguistic scholar", he cited an internet link that listed "Queensbury" as an archaic spelling of Queensberry.

Although it had indeed sometimes been spelled, or misspelled, that way, I pointed out that by the latter half of the 19th century it was universally spelled "Queensberry". "That was how it was spelled in the peerage roster of the House of Lords, that was how it was spelled in the court papers of his libel action with Oscar Wilde, and that was how it was spelled in the Queensberry Rules," I noted.

As for using the internet as a source, I also noted it was possible to Google up the spelling of the former heavyweight champion's name as "Joe Lewis", but it didn't make that right, either.

Now, you might have supposed Dr Goodrich (the "linguistic scholar" informed me he had "four degrees") would have been grateful, but his response was that I had been "rude, inflammatory, and out-of-line".

"I could cite Fistania (sic), Boxiana, and at least a dozen other sources that still use the Marquis of Queensbury," he claimed.

I might have pointed out that since Pierce Egan's Boxiana was published in 1812 and Fistiana in 1856, and the Marquis of Queensberry Rules were codified in 1865, I rather doubted that, but since Dr Goodrich insisted I not further respond, I didn't bother.

Goodrich, by the way, also claims to have "written material on nine separate languages", but none would appear to be English. (In his last missive he misspelled "venacular" (sic) and used another word - "jardon" - that must exist in one of his other languages.) Goodrich told me I had been the only one "of 630 members who literally represent the creme de la creme of classy, respected journalists" to have pointed out his (egregious, to my mind) spelling error.

Yeah? And what does that say about the rest of them? This goes beyond semantic quibbling. The distinction is between responsible journalism and sloppy, self-absorbed, online posturing.

"Look, I'm all for freedom of the press," said Jim Borzell, "but there's something dangerous about these guys who can put anything they want on the internet. The trouble is when they claim to be "experts", because there are people out there who actually believe them."