User:Ragesoss has been doing a lot of great work in publicizing
Wikipedia collaborations within his (and my) relevant academic
communities. Aside from creating a History of Science Wikiproject, he
also sends notices of the History of Science Collaboration of the
Month to the largest listserv in the profession.
I think this is a great thing to do. It not only bridges much of the
gap between academics and Wikipedia (it makes it clear that academics
DO work on Wikipedia as well -- it is not just something "external" to
academia), but it also encourages further participation from experts
as well as normalizing the idea that an academic might find it
worthwhile to contribute. He also puts his own name and reputation on
the line, since he does not edit anonymously and makes his academic
affiliations very clear.
I think steps like this are the sort of thing which can help build a
better, or at least less one-sided, rapport between Wikipedia and
relevant expert communities. Even though Wikipedia is open for all
there is no great reason that experts should be discouraged from
participating. We have a lot of academics at Wikipedia, it would be
great if they were willing to defend it to their relevant communities,
especially since it appears to have a fairly low standing in academia
(due to its sloppy use as a source by sloppy students -- the problem
here is not Wikipedia specifically; they'd probably use uncritically
whatever came up first in Google, and we happened to be it).
FF
On 8/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
Apologies to those who read it, but there was an interesting article
about the value of Wikipedia in academia, based on several academic
mailing lists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-07-31/Listseā¦
It includes this rich quote: "...it is extremely useful as a
springboard for further research. It will be impossible to find
anything on "goosing" or "Dirty Sanchez" in the more respectable
(elitist?) encyclopedias, or much on more obscure forms of sexual
behaviour."
I can't wait to see this get used in future AfDs :)
Steve
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