[Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

[Andreas Kolbe]

--- On Mon, 20/9/10, Robert S. Horning <robert_horning at 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.