The discussion of this article's criticism is interesting, too. I remember in high school, and even college, that the poorer students just copied paragraphs, unread and uncited, from whatever encyclopaedia came to hand. Encyclopaedias ought not to replace primary and secondary historical sources, but then so few are scholars.
In seventh grade I violated a rule by whispering to a classmate while our Health and Physical Education teacher was lecturing. For punishment he told me to write a 1,000-word essay.
At home I took Emerson's Essays from the book shelf, flipped it open, and accurately copied exactly 1,000 words from "Self Reliance." My copy ended in the middle of a sentence, but ...
Next day I handed it in, and when our teacher returned it to me he commented "You did well. That's pretty good writing." He made no mention of my blatant plagiarism.
Posts: 6708 | Location: Kehena Beach, Hawaii, U.S.A.
How timely! I just workshopped an inaccurate limerick on OEDILF and found the author got his information from Wikipedia. It was on a nursing subject, and I am 100% certain that I am right. I've never edited an article there, but I went there tonight and did so and then explained why in their discussion section. I had no idea it was that easy.
As I recall it caught out quite a few. It's in my nature to read things carefully and completely before reacting and so I clicked on the link at the bottom that said something like "more information" and the hoax was revealed.
I can't find the article now and suspect that Snopes has removed it.
Richard English
Posts: 8038 | Location: Partridge Green, West Sussex, UK
Alright...I will link to it then. Yes, CJ was miffed, but he at least got over it. Not only did I believe it, too, but I wasn't as forgiving as CJ was. I really can't believe I believed it, though it was pretty funny reading CJ's "Reasons for my disbelief."
A different kind of critique of Wikipedia is offered in this article on Wired Online called "What Would Jesus Wiki?"
quote:
[Lawyer and Conservapedia founder Andy] Schlafly argues that Wikipedia's content displays a liberal bias, and that the site is rife with so much gossip, vulgarity and long-winded writing that it has become unusable as an educational resource.
Fascinating, Z, thanks for that link. I hadn't heard about either of those other Wikis. Funny that the Conservatives would find Wikipedia so very biased and then create a new wiki to be even more blantantly so. Interesting strategy.
******* "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama
The thing with bias is that everyone accuses everyone else of being biased. The way that you know you are unbiased in politics is that left wingers accuse you of right wing bias and right wingers accuse you of left wing bias.
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
I have never thought of Wikipedia as being biased...inaccurate sometimes, but not biased. Of course, I suppose it depends on who does the editing. If indeed Wikipedia were to have a liberal bias (much less an anti-American bias!), I guess it would show that that liberals (and anti-Americans) are smarter than conservatives because there is a whole lot of information in Wikipedia, compared to the conservative ones. Heck, they didn't even have an entry to "Florence Nightingale" in Conservapedia.
There was a news article/interview a few months back with the founder of Wikipedia - who has broken ranks with his former comrades.
His key issue in breaking ranks was their refusal to admit that they had a problem.
At the risk of seeming authoritarian (Ok, I am), I distrust any medium in which any anonymous "editor" can change things to suit his or her taste. I haven't looked lately, but about 5 or 6 months ago, I looked up our current president (W) since I was sure he'd get a goodly share of barbs. It was like looking at a spray-paint defaced billboard. I'm pretty sure that he wasn't a member of the "skull and boners" society. I'm not taking his part or any other here, but that's clearly (at best) an inaccuracy for his bio. And I dare say that with their historical model, Wikipedia is prone to editing by anyone who feels slighted by whatever happens to be on any subject.
In fairness, I have seen evidence that they are trying to clean up their (collective) act. Whether you like or dislike Bush, Clinton (either), Obama, Cheney or whoever, an "authoritative source of information" ought to be free of "spray can" editing.
What's really sad is that our daughter (college frosh at the moment) tells me that many of her acquaintances consider Wikipedia as an authoritative source of information - and look no further.
It looks like Wikipedia is saying, "We're trying to have no bias", and Conservapedia is saying, "You can't help having a small bias, so let's have a big one!"
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