Good points below.
Also, on the academic side I can see it is academics looking for grants.
On the govt side, I have to wonder. After all, in Wikipedia people will
fight to get articles NPOV the govt would like to see biased, like
against govt surveillance and Iran, Russia, Palestinians and for
surveillance state, Ukrainian nationalists, Israel, etc. So if they can
fund a few studies that make Wikipedia look bad, should they need to
crack down on alternative voices, they'll have stuff to demonize
Wikipedia with.
But that's the just the tiny conspiracy theorist part of my brain
talking :-)
CM
On 8/1/2014 11:31 AM, Kathleen McCook wrote:
It is my perspective that working through the processes on Wikipedia
are too democratic for most academics. It is easier to get a grant
and become the defacto expert than to be part of the conversation.
What I went through last week trying to get support for the South
African novel, October, by Zoe Wicomb is a lot more than most
professors could bear.
But it seems to me that the group process, while more inclusive, can
be obscured when experts study us. I have found this to happen to many
grass roots efforts when studied. (labor union actions, migrant worker
initiartves, etc.)
--Kathleen
Kathleen de la Peña McCook
Distinguished University Professor of Librarianship
USF/SI:
http://si.usf.edu/faculty/kmccook/
Academia.edu:
https://usf.academia.edu/KathleendelaPe%C3%B1aMcCook
Library Thing::
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/klmccook/allcollections
========
Zandt argues that Wikipedia is biased because the majority of its
editors are "young, white, child-free men."
"There's nothing inherently wrong with a young, white, child-free
man's perspective, of course---it's just that there are tons of other
perspectives in the world that should influence how a story gets
told," Zandt wrote
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/deannazandt/2013/04/26/yes-wikipedia-is-sexist-thats-why-it-needs-you/>
in
an editorial for /Forbes/ last year, entitled, "Yes, Wikipedia Is
Sexist---That's Why It Needs You."
On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 11:21 AM, Sarah Stierch
<sarah.stierch(a)gmail.com <mailto:sarah.stierch@gmail.com>> wrote:
This is amazing.
That's a lot of money.
Sarah
On Aug 1, 2014 6:04 AM, "Carol Moore dc" <carolmooredc(a)verizon.net
<mailto:carolmooredc@verizon.net>> wrote:
http://freebeacon.com/issues/government-funded-study-why-is-wikipedia-sexis…
Government-Funded Study: Why Is Wikipedia Sexist?
$202,000 to address 'gender bias' in world's biggest online
encyclopedia
BY: Elizabeth Harrington
Coincidentally(?) even as we're trying to get the Task Force
more together, there have been raging discussions on WP:ANI
and Jimmy Wales talk page about this issue. Someone posted
this article link on the talk page.