[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's provable anti-expertise bias

[Jack Lynch]

The academics at my uni think the wikipedia is mildly offensive, in
the sense that they enjoy being paid to write
books/journals/whathaveyou, and don't enjoy seeing amateurs giving it
away for free. Because of this, and our noticable failings, students
are penalised if they attempt to cite the wikipedia as a source at my
uni.

I just now returned from an 8 hour seminar wherein we were repeatedly
informed that free, non-governmental information on the internet is
dubious at best, and should be avoided for anything other than
commercial or general knowledge queries. Instead, the online
university  database was praised (it includes a subscription to
britannica, btw ;)

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 11/18/05, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Fastfission wrote
>
> >As an aside, it would be interesting to have a fairly comprehensive
> discussion of what academic experts think of Wikipedia, in relation to
> teaching as well as just generally.
>
> They're going to think it's patchy, aren't they?
>
> Most academics are remarkably poor at popularization.  They write as
> experts, for experts.  Any technical slip will catch their eye, before all
> the work going into access and presentation.
>
> Most non-user academics are going to miss the point about hypertext.  An
> area of WP with good navigation can get you in an hour what might cost a
> week of a well-appointed library.  But only academics who actually remember
> the mazy, hazy grad student days  of bombardment by things about which one
> should already know will rate that aspect.
>
> Most popularizing academics will find the tone of WP rather subdued.  (This
> is a good thing.  We have no need to do boosterism. )
>
> Charles
>
>
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