--- On Mon, 20/9/10, Robert S. Horning <robert_horning(a)netzero.net> wrote:
When I see those involved with the Humanities, it is a
very
different
environment. I merely mentioned to one historian that
I was writing a
Wikipedia article and wanted to ask him a relatively minor
question that
could easily be answered.... I was just trying to find the
source for
some information he wrote on a website to see if there
might be some
additional information I could use in a related Wikipedia
article.
Instead, he unleashed on me how I was wasting my time and
how I should
stay away from Wikipedia if I knew what was good for me. On
top of that,
he mentioned that as a professor he would automatically
flunk a student
out of his class (not just give an "F" on the assignment)
if he found a
student even consulting Wikipedia for an initial overview
of a topic.
There was that much hostility to the project.
I had much the same experience when I contacted a sociologist, widely considered one of
the world's top scholars in his field, for clarification of a passage in a book he had
written. I mentioned it was for a Wikipedia article. In his reply, he said,
"... I do not permit any of my students to cite your encyclopedia as any kind of
reliable source when they write papers for me. Wik. is too much a playground for social
activists of whatever editorial bent wherein the lowest common denominator gets to
negotiate reality for readers. No thanks."
His next e-mail was friendlier, but this is what Wikipedia is up against in terms of
winning humanities scholars' goodwill ...
A.