On 11/20/05, Brown, Darin Darin.Brown@enmu.edu wrote:
Actually, Charles is one of the few people at wikipedia with significant life experience both in and out of academia, so he probably is in a good position to judge how accurate those "ivory tower" stereotypes really are.
Maybe you missed my meaning, but anecdotal accounts about academia, especially those which are from people who have spend significant time "in and out of academia" are not really very useful data, in my view.
And my point still stands that we are apparently receiving significant support from those same apparent ivory tower intellectuals.
I won't even get into the other methodological problems -- which academics (which fields), what time period (is experience from 10 years ago applicable to academics and Wikipedia today?), or what location (state schools vs. privates, etc.), all of which have a certainly noticeable effect when one is talking about the attitudes of "academics".
But don't let me stop anyone from offering arm-chair opinions, parroting tired stereotypes, and maybe a few anecdotes or two which are supposed to inform a larger point. Better yet if they don't actually pertain to Wikipedia itself, but are broad generalizations about how academics think!
FF