I was very disappointed with the story for several reasons:
1. I understand that they only have a few minutes to cover this story, but the story was one-sided for the most part. What was the "erroneous" information? Was it a date? A whole paragraph? Some vandalism? Also, did the professor even bother fixing it? Otherwise, he has no right to complain about an encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
2. The reporter demonstrated how vandalism works without even mentioning the thousands of people who spend hours and hours each day reverting nonsense and issuing blocks. I always thought the press was supposed to be somewhat balanced.
3. I am glad they mentioned the fact that people should not be using this in a paper in most situations. They got that right, but they singled out Wikipedia without mentioning that encyclopedias AS A WHOLE are not good sources for papers.
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On 3/22/07, SonOfYoungwood@aol.com SonOfYoungwood@aol.com wrote:
- The reporter demonstrated how vandalism works without even
mentioning the thousands of people who spend hours and hours each day reverting nonsense and issuing blocks. I always thought the press was supposed to be somewhat balanced.
What article did they vandalize to show that?
There seems to have developed a rather stock story about Wikipedia. You'd think these journalists would want to present something at least a little bit interesting, maybe unique, but they all seem to go back to the, "And then I put in false information! Look, even I could do it! Ha!" and end it there. I'm not sure if they are really all imbeciles, or if they just assume their audience is made up of imbeciles, but it is sad to say the least. When I wrote for the high school newspaper we had higher standards than that.
FF
On 3/22/07, SonOfYoungwood@aol.com SonOfYoungwood@aol.com wrote:
I was very disappointed with the story for several reasons:
- I understand that they only have a few minutes to cover this story, but
the story was one-sided for the most part. What was the "erroneous" information? Was it a date? A whole paragraph? Some vandalism? Also, did the professor even bother fixing it? Otherwise, he has no right to complain about an encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
- The reporter demonstrated how vandalism works without even mentioning the
thousands of people who spend hours and hours each day reverting nonsense and issuing blocks. I always thought the press was supposed to be somewhat balanced.
- I am glad they mentioned the fact that people should not be using this in
a paper in most situations. They got that right, but they singled out Wikipedia without mentioning that encyclopedias AS A WHOLE are not good sources for papers.
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On 3/22/07, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
There seems to have developed a rather stock story about Wikipedia.
FF
Yep. Kinda like Dan Quayle being the deer in the headlights, or John Edwards as the Breck Girl. You only have one shot at establishing you reputation with the public, and timing is everything. It's not like Wikipedia wasn't warned about the direction they decided to travel.
On 22/03/07, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
There seems to have developed a rather stock story about Wikipedia. You'd think these journalists would want to present something at least a little bit interesting, maybe unique, but they all seem to go back to the, "And then I put in false information! Look, even I could do it! Ha!" and end it there. I'm not sure if they are really all imbeciles, or if they just assume their audience is made up of imbeciles, but it is sad to say the least. When I wrote for the high school newspaper we had higher standards than that.
I shouldn't worry about it. As Richard Feynmann pointed out, all journalists are whores.
Basically what will happen is we'll have a spate of these kinds of stories, over the fact that there's this thing called the wikipedia and how you can..like.. edit it and stuff, and how risky that is. They'll do this until their audience starts to yawn
Then they'll spin it the other way, talk up how amazing the wikipedia is, and how its got this huge team of people constantly tidying up, how its in the top 10 webisites and how the EB isn't any better for being citeable either(!). They'll do that a few times until the audience starts to yawn...
Then they'll go back down on the wikipedia again, really stick the boot in. Then they probably won't mention it much more after that.
And it's all to sell advertising. That's all they do, and all they're there for at the end of the day.
FF
On Mar 22, 2007, at 4:28 PM, Fastfission wrote:
There seems to have developed a rather stock story about Wikipedia. You'd think these journalists would want to present something at least a little bit interesting, maybe unique, but they all seem to go back to the, "And then I put in false information! Look, even I could do it! Ha!" and end it there. I'm not sure if they are really all imbeciles, or if they just assume their audience is made up of imbeciles, but it is sad to say the least. When I wrote for the high school newspaper we had higher standards than that.
This is proof of the poor state of affairs in journalism these days. Maybe we should demote the notion that newspaper and broadcast media are reliable sources, due to lack of basic fact-checking... :)
-- Jossi
On 3/22/07, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
You'd think these journalists would want to present something at least a little bit interesting, maybe unique
Such dry humor! :)
Judson enwiki:cohesion