I agree Charles. I've come across this with museum folk too who have written on Wikipedia that they have a larger chunk of a particular mineral than anyone else in the world. When it comes down to it, they don't know if this is true and they have never published the claim .... so they cannot write what they feel is true and are shocked when someone else deletes it. I guess you need to edit what youve read and maybe not what you (just) know. Maybe I should not have said "their local history work" but "local history of their area". That way they can read whats published and hold it up to a "reliable sources" guide before they use it.
I'm aware that we do have quite gifted historians who are publishing stuff that only their mates will read, meanwhile their children are reading wikipedia which might need some checking by a gifted historian or two.
cheers
Roger
On 3 June 2011 14:20, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 01/06/2011 22:36, Roger Bamkin wrote:
> Two minor threads: Martin Poulter and I discussed how we could put
> together a teaching plan so that someone like yourself could organise
> an enevening course in "creating your own wiki page" ... not sure
> whether Martin made any progress. I know he was investigating ... I
> suspect there are a lot of people who would like to put their local
> history work into Wikipedia ... if we just explained it and demo ed it
> at the same time.
>
I think there's a significant strand here. It is probably quite true
that local history is a good way to bait the hook. As it happens I have
only once set out to write such an article, and that experience
confirmed an assumption of mine: "reliable sources" are ever more
important as a constraint, as you get off the beaten track in history.
Typical sources may be suspect, such as: random amateur websites; TV
documentaries or local papers; even local council information, though
this is more upmarket. Quite generally, those intending to edit rather
close to home have many things to worry about beyond getting some
wikitext together. Family history/genealogy is a tough area in which to
contribute well, for example. I feel all this is relevant to giving
correct advice to teachers. What is reasonably clear to us in the way of
pitfalls attached to classes of topics would require some getting over.
Charles
--
Roger Bamkin
(aka Victuallers)