Given the latest fire-storm on questions of authority and peer review, this might make some smile! :):)
*Fifth-Grade Science Paper Doesn't Stand Up to Peer Review*
A three-member panel of 10-year-old Michael Nogroski's fellow classmates at Nathaniel Macon Elementary School unanimously agreed Tuesday that his 327-word essay "Otters" did not meet the requirements for peer approval.
Read the rest: http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4116&n=3
Joseph Reagle wrote:
Given the latest fire-storm on questions of authority and peer review, this might make some smile! :):)
The article is a public humiliation of a hard-working 10-year-old student, and condones the bullying he receives from classmates. That kind of story makes you smile?
On 4/24/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Joseph Reagle wrote:
Given the latest fire-storm on questions of authority and peer review, this might make some smile! :):)
The article is a public humiliation of a hard-working 10-year-old student, and condones the bullying he receives from classmates. That kind of story makes you smile?
I'm trying to decide whether you're being ironic, or you don't get irony.
I guess it could just be that you think the piece misses its target - which I presume is the concept of Peer Review, coupled with the idea of "preparing" children for adult life by submitting to the kind of process they will find there. As far as I know, The Onion's readers are not primarily in the "5th-grade" age range, so it is presumably meant to be read with a certain degree of perspective, so I don't think it's "condoning" anything.
And just in case: you do realise it's fiction, don't you. ;)
Rowan Collins wrote:
On 4/24/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Joseph Reagle wrote:
Given the latest fire-storm on questions of authority and peer review, this might make some smile! :):)
The article is a public humiliation of a hard-working 10-year-old student, and condones the bullying he receives from classmates. That kind of story makes you smile?
And just in case: you do realise it's fiction, don't you. ;)
Where does it say that? The site passes itself off as a "news source", so I don't think it was unreasonable of me to think it was real.
As far as I know, The Onion's readers are not primarily in the "5th-grade" age range
I'm sure The Onion's readers are not *primarily* Jews, either, so is it okay for The Onion to be anti-Semitic?
Timwi
On Sun, 24 Apr 2005, Timwi wrote:
And just in case: you do realise it's fiction, don't you. ;)
Where does it say that? The site passes itself off as a "news source", so I don't think it was unreasonable of me to think it was real.
Why not, these headlines are all over CNN, you know:
"New Tech-Support Caste Arises In India" "Pope Admits: "God Ain't Said Shit To Me""
:-))
Alfio
On Sun, Apr 24, 2005 at 10:15:39PM +0100, Timwi wrote:
Rowan Collins wrote:
On 4/24/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Joseph Reagle wrote:
Given the latest fire-storm on questions of authority and peer review, this might make some smile! :):)
The article is a public humiliation of a hard-working 10-year-old student, and condones the bullying he receives from classmates. That kind of story makes you smile?
And just in case: you do realise it's fiction, don't you. ;)
Where does it say that? The site passes itself off as a "news source", so I don't think it was unreasonable of me to think it was real.
Err . . . The Onion is satire. It doesn't seriously purport to be a "news source" in the normal sense. Its stories are intended to be taken as satirical treatments of the news, and as far as I'm aware none of its stories have ever been true.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Chad Perrin wrote:
And just in case: you do realise it's fiction, don't you. ;)
Where does it say that? The site passes itself off as a "news source", so I don't think it was unreasonable of me to think it was real.
Err . . . The Onion is satire. It doesn't seriously purport to be a "news source" in the normal sense. Its stories are intended to be taken as satirical treatments of the news, and as far as I'm aware none of its stories have ever been true.
'Course, it's not the first time it's been mistaken for the real thing - there was the famous Harry Potter flap...
http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/potter.htm
--sannse
sannse wrote:
'Course, it's not the first time it's been mistaken for the real thing
- there was the famous Harry Potter flap...
And also the time the newspaper _/Beijing Evening News_/ (circulation 1.25 million) reported as fact the Onion story about how Congress was threatening to leave Washington DC for another city if they didn't build a new Capitol building with a retractable dome.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2002/6/7/41557/70467 http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,53048,00.html
Chad Perrin wrote:
Err . . . The Onion is satire. It doesn't seriously purport to be a "news source" in the normal sense. Its stories are intended to be taken as satirical treatments of the news, and as far as I'm aware none of its stories have ever been true.
OK, thanks for clearing that up. I guess I quite embarrassed myself here. Will I ever be able to post here again without being ridiculed for not knowing about The World-Famous Onion?
On Mon, Apr 25, 2005 at 09:28:52PM +0100, Timwi wrote:
Chad Perrin wrote:
Err . . . The Onion is satire. It doesn't seriously purport to be a "news source" in the normal sense. Its stories are intended to be taken as satirical treatments of the news, and as far as I'm aware none of its stories have ever been true.
OK, thanks for clearing that up. I guess I quite embarrassed myself here. Will I ever be able to post here again without being ridiculed for not knowing about The World-Famous Onion?
Well, I don't intend to ridicule you. As for others, I suspect they'll make their own decisions on an individual basis. Heh.
Mistakes happen.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
On 4/24/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
And just in case: you do realise it's fiction, don't you. ;)
Where does it say that? The site passes itself off as a "news source", so I don't think it was unreasonable of me to think it was real.
Well, had the seed of doubt, or even a questing mind's wish to know "who the bleep are these people?", led you to click the logo to bring you to the front page, you would have found that this week's "Top Story" is "Pope Emerges From Chrysalis A Beautiful Butterfly".
Tell me that you believe *that* story is real, and I really will be worried. :D
As far as I know, The Onion's readers are not primarily in the "5th-grade" age range
I'm sure The Onion's readers are not *primarily* Jews, either, so is it okay for The Onion to be anti-Semitic?
Well, that wasn't really what I was trying to say - I was responding to a claim that they were "condoning bullying", not one that they were being "anti-5th-grade". The equivalent would therefore be something more like "The Onion's readers aren't primarily non-Jewish caucasians" - those being the people that it would matter if the Onion *condoned* anti-semitism. It's a very crude equivalence, but the point is that if the piece *were* aimed at 5th-graders, there would be a worry that, not seeing the irony, they would take it as support for such behaviour. I'm not convinced they would, but I don't think they'd be reading it anyway.
Meanwhile, I would tend to say it was at worst non-comittal on the issue of bullying - if taken literally, it fails to criticise the comments, but doesn't give them credence beyond reporting them. If taken as a satire on genuine Peer Review processes, the comments can be taken as stinging parodies, and implicitly a thorough rebuke of the all-too-easy habit of mixing personal attacks up with genuine criticisms.
It's always an interesting question with irony and satire - how far *can* you push the boundaries of criticism without becoming hypocritical - hence the scandal surrounding the UK television series "Brass Eye" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_Eye) Just thought I'd drop that one in... :)
On Apr 24, 2005, at 2:15 PM, Timwi wrote:
Rowan Collins wrote:
On 4/24/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Joseph Reagle wrote:
Given the latest fire-storm on questions of authority and peer review, this might make some smile! :):) http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4116&n=3
The article is a public humiliation of a hard-working 10-year-old student, and condones the bullying he receives from classmates. That kind of story makes you smile?
Adults are humiliated with peer-review all the time....
And just in case: you do realise it's fiction, don't you. ;)
Where does it say that? The site passes itself off as a "news source", so I don't think it was unreasonable of me to think it was real.
Uhm, FOX news plays itself as "real", too. Do you believe them, as well?
As far as I know, The Onion's readers are not primarily in the "5th-grade" age range
I'm sure The Onion's readers are not *primarily* Jews, either, so is it okay for The Onion to be anti-Semitic?
Did I miss something? Was something in the onion report anti-Semitic?
-Bop
Joseph Reagle wrote:
Given the latest fire-storm on questions of authority and peer review, this might make some smile! :):)
*Fifth-Grade Science Paper Doesn't Stand Up to Peer Review*
A three-member panel of 10-year-old Michael Nogroski's fellow classmates at Nathaniel Macon Elementary School unanimously agreed Tuesday that his 327-word essay "Otters" did not meet the requirements for peer approval.
Read the rest: http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4116&n=3
Maybe he should have used this: http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/
A new way of making Wikipedia articles perhaps?
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