I had a glance at the history on [[Short story]] and couldn't spot the
alleged edits. Anyone else got any ideas? A public call to vandalism
deserves a reply.
- d.
Sunday Times (London) June 10, 2007
Online disinformation
WICKEDLY INACCURATE? As a member of the Society of Authors, I felt it
my duty to correct Wikipedia creative-writing articles which stated "a
short story can be anywhere between 5,000 and 50,000 words" or had
grammatical errors, such as "Mary laid on her bed". The originator had
included the following invitation: "I hope someone would (sic) feel
free to add concepts and examples." I took him at his word, and
edited. The next day all my edits had been reversed.
Anyone dismayed by this "dictatorship of idiots" should not waste time
on futile attempts to turn Wikipedia into a reliable source. Instead,
help it to self-destruct by adding misinformation. Wikipedia has no
mechanism to deal with this other than the army of itchy-fingered
know-it-alls who know nothing.
Margret Geraghty Chandlers Ford, Hampshire
- d.
The Wikipedia Story is on BBC Radio 4:
Tuesday 24 July 2007 11:30-12:00 (Radio 4 FM)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/pip/efv21/
<quot>
Clive Anderson looks at one of the world's fastest growing websites,
the online encyclopedia to which anybody can contribute. Is Wikipedia
a valuable source of human knowledge or a symptom of the spread of
mediocrity and the devaluation of research?
</quot>
Gordo
--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly(a)pobox.com///
Hi David,
The press service AlphaGalileo are free to use and have a good techie reach.
best wishes
Jenny Gristock / Open_Research at Wikimedia
===========================
There's a press release going out for Tuesday for a UK organisation
working with WMF. So the organisation asked me about addresses to
email it to. *ahem* guess who's so used to doing press reactively that
he's never actually gathered a press release email list.
We have addresses for the major (and many minor) newspapers, but not
for computer/internet press. So far I have the Inquirer
(press.releases[AT]theinquirer.net) and the Register
(news[AT]theregister.co.uk). I welcome your assistance with other
suitable press addresses.
It would probably be a good idea for WMF to get into the habit of
proactive press releases, as we do, after all, have an agenda to push
(free content, education, wikis, the stuff in the mission statements
of WMF and WMUK). So this'll be useful far and wide.
Note that no-one here has any money for media directories ...
- d.
On 25/07/07, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly(a)pobox.com> wrote:
> I always like Clive Anderson's stuff, since his legal training and
> humour combine well. He was able to question well, and I like the
> story about Michael Portillo and Diane Abbott, and how you could
> prove something did *not* happen, and hence change an article in
> Wikipedia.
That one was interesting. His angle on that was going to be that there
was this statement in [[Michael Portillo]] that he *knew* was wrong,
and wanted to know how to fix it. As it happened, while the producer
was working out mic placement, I checked through, found the same
assertion on [[This Week (BBC One TV series)]] and saw that the
reference given was the "This Week" site ... and that the source for
the story seemed to be Portillo and Abbott's official biography pages
for the show.
At this point Clive got that look you get when you look up your
references and realise you might in fact be wrong ...
Moral of story: even if you're an expert, find and give the reference
when you write it in Wikipedia. *cough*
- d.
I look forward to hearing it.
On 21/07/07, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly(a)pobox.com> wrote:
>
> The Wikipedia Story is on BBC Radio 4:
>
> Tuesday 24 July 2007 11:30-12:00 (Radio 4 FM)
>
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/pip/efv21/
>
> <quot>
> Clive Anderson looks at one of the world's fastest growing websites,
> the online encyclopedia to which anybody can contribute. Is Wikipedia
> a valuable source of human knowledge or a symptom of the spread of
> mediocrity and the devaluation of research?
> </quot>
>
> Gordo
>
> --
> "Think Feynman"/////////
> http://pobox.com/~gordo/
> gordon.joly(a)pobox.com///
>
> _______________________________________________
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> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK
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>
--
Alex (Majorly)
