[WikiEN-l] A danger of massive homework and research requests

[Ray Saintonge]

David Gerard wrote:

> On 01/29/04 19:28, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
>
>> From: daniwo59 at aol.com
>
>>> It hardly delayed the expansion of Wikipedia. On the
>>> other hand, I do think a place or list for people to ask questions 
>>> of this
>>> kind is a good idea. In fact, it would be helpful to us in finding 
>>> out where
>>> we should focus some of our energies to fill in incomplete articles. 
>>> We could
>>> link to it from the Main Page. 
>>
>> Isn't that what Wikibooks's completely neglected
>> [[Study help desk]] was supposed to be for?
>
> As the Usenet 2 FAQ points out, naming is everything. 

I've been around for a while, and never knew about thise feature. 
Wikibooks sounds like the probably correct place for this.  It will 
still need to be linked from Wikipedia, or users may never find it.  By 
allowing these questions to serve as a basis for Wikipedia articles, we 
are building in a public responsiveness that traditional encyclopedias 
are incapable of doing.

Getting something like this to work will depend on the resolution to the 
article classification issue.  The list of questions could get very long 
very quickly, and thus not usable.  

> A link from the main page might be good. "Got a question
> and the answer isn't [http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awikipedia.org
> here]? Ask at the Wikipedia [[Wikipedia:reference desk]]!"
>
> The problem would be the bottom 1% of respondents: the people
> with an overwhelming sense of entitlement. "You didn't answer
> my question. You suck."

What complaint can they have when they got advice that's as good as the 
money they paid? ;-)

Like Ed I too would be concerned if all we ended up doing is other 
people's homework.  That is not sound educational technique.  If the 
question is about something that is already in Wikipedia it would be 
more appropriate to simply provide links to the relevant articles in WP, 
sometimes mixed with a little humourous sarcasm when it seems that the 
student is trying to get us to do the work that he should be doing 
himself.  If our approach is one that the teaching professionals 
approve, we could end up with teachers recommending Wikipedia as a resource.

Ec