Below is an email I sent to the author of an article that was semi-critical of Wikipedia. I think it illustrates the way many in academia don't get it and how many of those are polluting the critical thinking skills of students.
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 06:45:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com Subject: Wikipedia is fun, but credibility varies a lot To: Susan.Barnes@rit.edu CC: maveric149@yahoo.com
Just a note about this article
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050717/BUSI...
First, the English Wikipedia had about 640,000 articles at the time your article was published. Not 444,000. Second, Jimmy Wales started Wikipedia under the ownership of Bomis in 2001 - The Wikimedia Foundation was not formed until June of 2003.
If your article had been published on Wikinews, then these errors would have been very quickly corrected before being marked for publication.
This just goes to show that *all* forms of media have reliability issues. This also shows that media published on paper with a PhD as an author is also prone to obvious errors. Giving students the impression that they can trust that by focusing on the unreliability of web resources like Wikipedia is a great disservice to them. All media needs to be scrutinized by students.
It is true that we sometimes discount what an expert says ; the reason is that we value getting it right vs blindly accepting what an expert says without checking.
Daniel Mayer, A Wikipedian
Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
First, the English Wikipedia had about 640,000 articles at the time your article was published. Not 444,000. Second, Jimmy Wales started Wikipedia under the ownership of Bomis in 2001 - The Wikimedia Foundation was not formed until June of 2003.
If your article had been published on Wikinews, then these errors would have been very quickly corrected before being marked for publication.
Touché!
Haukur
Haukur Þorgeirsson a écrit:
First, the English Wikipedia had about 640,000 articles at the time your article was published. Not 444,000. Second, Jimmy Wales started Wikipedia under the ownership of Bomis in 2001 - The Wikimedia Foundation was not formed until June of 2003.
If your article had been published on Wikinews, then these errors would have been very quickly corrected before being marked for publication.
Touché!
Haukur
Nod. I loved this part :-)
Ant
Out of curiosity, did you get a response?
--gkhan
On 7/20/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Below is an email I sent to the author of an article that was semi-critical of Wikipedia. I think it illustrates the way many in academia don't get it and how many of those are polluting the critical thinking skills of students.
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 06:45:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com Subject: Wikipedia is fun, but credibility varies a lot To: Susan.Barnes@rit.edu CC: maveric149@yahoo.com
Just a note about this article
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050717/BUSI...
First, the English Wikipedia had about 640,000 articles at the time your article was published. Not 444,000. Second, Jimmy Wales started Wikipedia under the ownership of Bomis in 2001 - The Wikimedia Foundation was not formed until June of 2003.
If your article had been published on Wikinews, then these errors would have been very quickly corrected before being marked for publication.
This just goes to show that *all* forms of media have reliability issues. This also shows that media published on paper with a PhD as an author is also prone to obvious errors. Giving students the impression that they can trust that by focusing on the unreliability of web resources like Wikipedia is a great disservice to them. All media needs to be scrutinized by students.
It is true that we sometimes discount what an expert says ; the reason is that we value getting it right vs blindly accepting what an expert says without checking.
Daniel Mayer, A Wikipedian
Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
From the article:
I should note that hittable is not in the Wiktionary either
From Wikitionary:
http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=hittable&action=history
Good work, Uncle G :-)
Dan
Be kind to journalists. They are friends, not enemies... I wrote a rather kinder and lighthearted response, pointing out a few correction. She did reply to me, that same day, agreeing that writing under deadlines is hard; and saying that it was nice to be in touch with someone from the community.
SJ
On 7/20/05, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
Out of curiosity, did you get a response?
--gkhan
On 7/20/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Below is an email I sent to the author of an article that was semi-critical of Wikipedia. I think it illustrates the way many in academia don't get it and how many of those are polluting the critical thinking skills of students.
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 06:45:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com Subject: Wikipedia is fun, but credibility varies a lot To: Susan.Barnes@rit.edu CC: maveric149@yahoo.com
Just a note about this article
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050717/BUSI...
First, the English Wikipedia had about 640,000 articles at the time your article was published. Not 444,000. Second, Jimmy Wales started Wikipedia under the ownership of Bomis in 2001 - The Wikimedia Foundation was not formed until June of 2003.
If your article had been published on Wikinews, then these errors would have been very quickly corrected before being marked for publication.
This just goes to show that *all* forms of media have reliability issues. This also shows that media published on paper with a PhD as an author is also prone to obvious errors. Giving students the impression that they can trust that by focusing on the unreliability of web resources like Wikipedia is a great disservice to them. All media needs to be scrutinized by students.
It is true that we sometimes discount what an expert says ; the reason is that we value getting it right vs blindly accepting what an expert says without checking.
Daniel Mayer, A Wikipedian
Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 21/07/05, SJ 2.718281828@gmail.com wrote:
She did reply to me, that same day
My mail must've sucked somewhat - she hasn't replied to me, and I mailed just over 24hrs ago :-)
Dan
The article did'nt have any real substance to respond to anyway, so why bother? I know, I know--care requires correctionality. Hmph.
-SC
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Below is an email I sent to the author of an article that was semi-critical of Wikipedia. I think it illustrates the way many in academia don't get it and how many of those are polluting the critical thinking skills of students.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050717/BUSI...
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
--- steve v vertigosteve@yahoo.com wrote:
The article did'nt have any real substance to respond to anyway, so why bother? I know, I know--care requires correctionality. Hmph.
Irony. The article was critical of Wikipedia for not being vetted by experts and thus not reliable. Yet it was written by a person with a PdD who made very obvious factual errors that have yet to be corrected.
I have yet to get a response from her, but I don't expect one either.
-- mav
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Speaking of obvious errors, here is a typo: PdP -> PhD
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
--- steve v vertigosteve@yahoo.com wrote:
The article did'nt have any real substance to respond to anyway, so why bother? I know, I know--care requires correctionality. Hmph.
Irony. The article was critical of Wikipedia for not being vetted by experts and thus not reliable. Yet it was written by a person with a PdD who made very obvious factual errors that have yet to be corrected.
I have yet to get a response from her, but I don't expect one either.
-- mav
Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Plus, she wrote it at about a high school level. Yeesh.
SV
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
--- steve v vertigosteve@yahoo.com wrote:
The article did'nt have any real substance to
respond
to anyway, so why bother? I know, I know--care requires correctionality. Hmph.
Irony. The article was critical of Wikipedia for not being vetted by experts and thus not reliable. Yet it was written by a person with a PdD who made very obvious factual errors that have yet to be corrected.
I have yet to get a response from her, but I don't expect one either.
-- mav
Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
--- steve v vertigosteve@yahoo.com wrote:
Plus, she wrote it at about a high school level. Yeesh.
To be fair, most newspapers (at least in the U.S.) require stories to be written at that level or a bit below in order to maximize readership.
She did send me a kind email in response. Basically she is willing to learn more about us and agreed that all media need to be looked at critically.
-- mav
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Daniel Mayer (maveric149@yahoo.com) [050722 03:20]:
She did send me a kind email in response. Basically she is willing to learn more about us and agreed that all media need to be looked at critically.
This is one of the most important lessons of Wikipedia: that it's unreliable, but *everything else is too*.
- d.
Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- steve v vertigosteve@yahoo.com wrote:
Plus, she wrote it at about a high school level. Yeesh.
To be fair, most newspapers (at least in the U.S.) require stories to be written at that level or a bit below in order to maximize readership.
The IRS went through that with the 1040 Tax Guide some years back. The result was a guide that was twice as thick and failed to have any effect on those who had a hard time reading it in the first place. It was certainly no help to those who might previously have grasped the concepts, and who now found themselves wading through excess verbiage.
She did send me a kind email in response. Basically she is willing to learn more about us and agreed that all media need to be looked at critically.
Hooray! A convert. :-)
Ec