[Foundation-l] "The problem with Wikipedia..."

phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki at gmail.com
Thu Jun 17 20:42:03 UTC 2010


On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 1:37 PM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 1:19 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Here's the phrase in a 1988 sociology paper:
>>
>> http://jpart.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/1/1/19
>>
>> I'd call it a pretty obvious play on words, though, so I really doubt
>> we got it from that.
>>
>> Anyone got a complete wikien-l archive to grovel through?
>>
>>
>> - d.
>
> going back that far it might be on wikipedia-l, I think, and Joseph
> Reagle has done quite a bit of work analyzing that -- maybe he can
> help. We're looking for the orgins of the quote: "The problem with
> Wikipedia is that it only works in theory. It could
> never work in practice."
>
> :)
> -- phoebe

Actually, the other way around, as others have stated.

Now that you mention it, I've seen that quote attributed to Gareth
Owen before, so that may actually be the origin of it. I think it's
quite a bit older than 2006 though.

-- phoebe




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