[WikiEN-l] Why Academics are Useful to Wikipedia

[Stan Shebs]

Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>>I think that your stand on this is overly reactive, and not pro-active.  
>>These responses are a sign of success, not of failure.   Your reaction 
>>to the teacher and the librarian is premised on their being right.  
>>
>
>When they say that they do not trust Wikipedia, will not use it, and will go so
>far as warn others from using it, then they *are* right about that. I do not
>suppose that their reasoning behind those actions and positions are correct. 
>
Ironically, telling students not to use Wikipedia is about the surest
way there is to get them to look at it! :-) Sort of like corporate IT
departments ordering people not to install Linux...

Many people will become convinced when they go to look at articles
on subjects where they're knowledgeable, and find that the content
matches what they know. My dad the retired research chemist looked
at the Mossbauer effect article and found it pretty accurate, and it
even mentioned a few technical details that he'd long forgotten about.
He also had a couple relevant personal anecdotes, but alas, no
published source to verify against.

Stan