[Foundation-l] Charity Navigator rates WMF

[Anthony]

On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 3:23 AM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
>> On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 5:14 PM, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> They are
>>> aware we aren't a primary source, and the risks of any secondary
>>> source... Such as Britannica and World Book, too.
>>>
>>
>> One would think from these discussions you might have learned that
>> Wikipedia, Britannica, and World Book are tertiary sources.
>>
>
> What is accomplished by trying to label encyclopedias as tertiary
> sources?  They probably are, but so what?

That's why they generally shouldn't be used, even at a high school
level.  Encyclopedias are summaries of information.  At a high school
level, most students should be making their own summaries.
Furthermore, every step you take on the [[telephone game]] of
information you lose reliability.

Interestingly, Wikipedia tries (through the NPOV policy) to be a
tertiary source without these limitations, but ultimately that is
impossible.  You inherently introduce a point of view when you
summarize other sources.  Perhaps you don't introduce *bias*, if you
define bias as an improper or incorrect point of view.  But you have
to decide what to include and what to leave out, and that choice is
determined by what you believe to be most relevant to the truth
(assuming you're intellectually honest, anyway).

>> My wife is a high school teacher, but she doesn't really pay more
>> attention than "Someone copied the Wikipedia entry for their
>> homework".  You'd think as a Calculus teacher she wouldn't run into
>> that very often, but actually it happens all the time.
>
> I hope that she makes sure that they give Wikipedia proper credit. It
> seems like a great teaching moment for her.

I don't know about a great teaching moment, but she warns them that
plagiarism is against school policy and that if they get caught again
she's going to report them to the administration.

If they gave Wikipedia credit, then instead of a plagiarism warning
they'd just get a zero :).  These particular assignments are not
supposed to be copied at all.  I guess I should point out at this
point that this is an online high school.

> More interesting for us
> would be why these kids use Wikipedia.  Are the authorized proprietary
> textbooks that bad?

No, kids just understand that they're going to get caught if they
plagiarize from their textbooks.  What they don't realize is that the
"NPOV" language of Wikipedia tends to be glaringly obvious, even when
you're talking about calculus.

I guess in that sense it is a teaching moment - one about honesty.
Still don't know about a great one.  I would think by high school kids
have already learned whether or not they're capable of getting away
with deceit - but maybe not, not all teachers (or parents) are as
attentive as my wife.

On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 3:50 AM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I think that education systems are thoroughly shook
> up about the internet.

Definitely agreed, although I think this has gotten much better over
the past decade or so.

> To take Wikipedia "as a serious
> source of information" will take time, and depend less on what we do
> than on what they do.

I honestly can't see it ever happening.  Not unless Wikipedia abandons
"anyone can edit", anyway.

"Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write
anything they want about any subject. So you know you are getting the
best possible information." - I think that quote from The Office
pretty much sums it up.  I've heard Wikipedians make similar
statements with a perfectly straight face, and I don't think they,
unlike the writers of The Office, were doing so with tongue-in-cheek.

On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 6:41 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/10/10 Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org>:
>> "I read it on Wikipedia" is taken as about
>> equivalent to "I read it on the Internet".
>
> Which is, of course, entirely true. My consistent line for press calls
> is: We're useful but we're not "reliable" as such, so always always go
> to the references. If there aren't any, that tells you something too.

I'm glad you understand it and are preaching it, but there don't seem
to be enough people doing so.  I've created a guide detailing best
practices for reading Wikipedia.  If you'd like to hand out copies
along with your "not 'reliable' as such" speeches, we could probably
work something out.  http://akahele.org/2009/07/how-to-read-wikipedia/

Maybe you could even change your tagline from "the free encyclopedia
that anyone can edit" to "good enough knowledge, depending on what
your purpose is".  You should probably get permission from Jimbo
before using his quote, since that quote was from a paid speaking
arrangement which was completely unrelated to the WMF.  But such a
tagline would probably cut way down on people using Wikipedia
inappropriately.