[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia references a source of anxiety (TheAustralian)

[Fred Bauder]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Frederick Noronha [mailto:fred at bytesforall.org]
>Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 03:35 AM
>To: wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia references a source of anxiety (The	Australian)
>
>Wikipedia references a source of anxiety (The Australian)
>Academe's concern is misplaced, writes Eric Raunchway...
>
>Quote:
>
>The history department at Middlebury College in Vermont, the US, has
>banned students' citation of Wikipedia, saying the free online
>encyclopedia that anyone can edit "suffers inevitably from
>inaccuracies deriving in large measure from its unique manner of
>compilation."
>
>What's at stake here isn't error. It's how we in the professional
>knowledge business greet our new overlords: the plain people of the
>internet. Right now, we're lobbing fibs at them of just the kind the
>internet is good at puncturing and, indeed, of just the kind the
>losing side used the last time our civilisation endured a revolution
>in the ownership of knowledge.
>
>Wikipedia's founder Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales agrees with the Middlebury
>historians. "Basically, they are recommending exactly what we
>suggested: students shouldn't be citing encyclopedias. I would hope
>they wouldn't be citing Encyclopaedia Britannica, either." All
>encyclopedias stand several degrees of separation away from the events
>on which they report.
>
>But by "barring Wikipedia citations without mentioning other
>encyclopedias", as Middlebury American studies professor Jason Mittell
>says, "it would seem that their problem is with the Wiki, not the
>pedia"....
>
>Close quote.
>
>THE AUSTRALIAN, Wed, Apr 11, 2007 Page 36 (Higher Education)

I was watching the Evening News on ABC the other night and out of Peter Jenning's mouth came a bunch of garbage about how making ethanol from corn was going to increase the price of food: bread, pork, etc were all going to rise in price due to production of ethanol. No analysis of the corn market, alternative sources of supply, of the general worldwide depression of agriculture that has existed since the horse was abandoned for the motor vehicle.  No mention that doubling of the price of corn would only result in a few cent price rise of a loaf of bread. (most of the costs are due to production and distribution).

I listened to how wrong and poor the information was and contemplated the wiki world, where such biased garbage would have a half-life of only a few minutes. I've been a captive audience in a few college classes that were no better. They got you, keep you in the dark and feed you horseshit.

Fred