"K P" kpbotany@gmail.com writes: .....
University professors are not as out of touch with the real
world as
some may think. They know what Wikipedia is. No scientist the
world over,
no matter how famous, has ever refused me anything that I needed
for work on
Wikipedia. This will probably not hold true for all Wikipedia
editors, and
I have enough access to peer reviewed journals that I haven't
asked for a
lot of articles. But I have spend a lifetime reading scientific
literature
and requesting information from professors. I have *never* had
a request
refused. Scientists communicate their research to the
world--it's an almost
universal aspect of the profession.
Wikipedia editor is the only credential anyone needs to ineract
on behalf of
Wikipedia with a university professor. Essjay's creation was
for his own
ego. Wikipedia went astray in giving any respect to Essjay
based on his own
self-proclaimed credentials. But the press were the responsible
parties who
had an obligation to fact check what they printed. I wish
people wouldn't
inflated themselves. But I think that who people are is of far
less
importance than the results of their editing on Wikipedia. And
the last I
can judge with my own OR.
KP
I'll second this. In my editing, I've contacted a number of computer scientists or similar persons (like Richard P. Gabriel or Steven D. Carter), and when I've gotten a reply, they have uniformly been helpful and answered my questions (indeed, perhaps more helpful than I deserved).