Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliable information source
Dear Colleagues, This letter is a suggestion that you address the problem of bad information in student papers from an increasingly poor source: Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not getting better. It is getting worse. One reason for this is the apparent case that the status of Wikipedia as a much-used reference resource makes it the target of opportunity for hoax efforts that would never enter an edited reference text. There are now enough serious incidents of false and defamatory information in Wikipedia biographies to warrant prohibiting this as a reference source in universities and university-level professional schools. The same is true of inaccurate or false assertions in many articles. The problem with Wikipedia is not that the Wiki system MAY develop a solid and reliable reference work, but that in the current form, it DOES NOT. It is as easy to change an article for the worse as for the better. Nearly any university student today has access to a decent library and good on-line reference texts. In addition, anyone willing to search a bit will also fine outstanding SIGNED references sources by major scholars in many fields, as well as useful albeit older versions of respected references source no longer covered by copyright. The current scandal concerning a false and defamatory biography of Robert Kennedy aide and friend John Siegenthaler (see below) and similar recent cases lead me to conclude that Wikipedia has no way to prevent problems like this from happening. This is made worse by the fact that Wikipedia is an automatic flow-through resource for other on-line sources. Wikipedia is unacceptable as a research tool. I have informed my students that they may no longer use Wikipedia as a reference or source on papers in my courses. I urge you to consider a similar statement. While Wikipedia may be a useful first step in seeking information, I no longer accept it as a credible source. Therefore, I advise students to look further when a project requires a reliable source. Use of Wikipedia by students and researchers is an important validation mechanism for Wikipedia. If enough of us prohibit Wikipedia as a reference source in our courses, programs, and schools, the message will eventually get through. When it does, Wikipedia will find an appropriate way to monitor contributions. If they do not, the reputation of Wikipedia will sink to that of another crank web site. Yours, Ken Friedman The Siegenthaler case in the New York Times and USA Today via Yahoo: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04seelye.html http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051130/cm_usatoday/afalsewikipediabiograp... -- Ken Friedman Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management Design Research Center Denmark's Design School email: ken.friedman@bi.no
What's your larger point? Or are you just trying to stir things up? These are issues that have been widely discussed. And largely things that are very evident to users of wikipedia... and often to students. --elijah On Sun, 4 Dec 2005, Ken Friedman wrote:
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 20:02:17 +0100 From: Ken Friedman <ken.friedman@bi.no> Reply-To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliable information source
Dear Colleagues,
This letter is a suggestion that you address the problem of bad information in student papers from an increasingly poor source: Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not getting better. It is getting worse. One reason for this is the apparent case that the status of Wikipedia as a much-used reference resource makes it the target of opportunity for hoax efforts that would never enter an edited reference text.
There are now enough serious incidents of false and defamatory information in Wikipedia biographies to warrant prohibiting this as a reference source in universities and university-level professional schools. The same is true of inaccurate or false assertions in many articles.
The problem with Wikipedia is not that the Wiki system MAY develop a solid and reliable reference work, but that in the current form, it DOES NOT. It is as easy to change an article for the worse as for the better.
Nearly any university student today has access to a decent library and good on-line reference texts. In addition, anyone willing to search a bit will also fine outstanding SIGNED references sources by major scholars in many fields, as well as useful albeit older versions of respected references source no longer covered by copyright.
The current scandal concerning a false and defamatory biography of Robert Kennedy aide and friend John Siegenthaler (see below) and similar recent cases lead me to conclude that Wikipedia has no way to prevent problems like this from happening. This is made worse by the fact that Wikipedia is an automatic flow-through resource for other on-line sources.
Wikipedia is unacceptable as a research tool.
I have informed my students that they may no longer use Wikipedia as a reference or source on papers in my courses. I urge you to consider a similar statement. While Wikipedia may be a useful first step in seeking information, I no longer accept it as a credible source. Therefore, I advise students to look further when a project requires a reliable source.
Use of Wikipedia by students and researchers is an important validation mechanism for Wikipedia.
If enough of us prohibit Wikipedia as a reference source in our courses, programs, and schools, the message will eventually get through.
When it does, Wikipedia will find an appropriate way to monitor contributions. If they do not, the reputation of Wikipedia will sink to that of another crank web site.
Yours,
Ken Friedman
The Siegenthaler case in the New York Times and USA Today via Yahoo:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04seelye.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051130/cm_usatoday/afalsewikipediabiograp...
Dear Elijah, I am trying to stir up some action that may lead to a solution. You are mistaken in the idea that these issues are evident to most Wikipedia users. These problems are evident to people on this list -- but far too few students recognize the need to use multiple sources. No matter how much I encourage people to use multiple sources for ALL facts, something like 40% of my students use only one source for most facts, and that source is increasingly Wikipedia. My larger point is that if students are satisfied with only one source, I want that source to be Encyclopedia Britannica or a similar excellent reference source. I'd prefer that more students checked issues and facts against many sources. Until this becomes a common habit of mind, I am no longer willing to accept Wikipedia. My second large point is that if enough of us take the same stand, Wikipedia will necessarily find a way to do better fact-checking and to prevent egregious cases of libel, defamation, hoax information, and fraud. Yours, Ken
What's your larger point? Or are you just trying to stir things up?
These are issues that have been widely discussed. And largely things that are very evident to users of wikipedia... and often to students.
--elijah
-- Ken Friedman Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management Design Research Center Denmark's Design School email: ken.friedman@bi.no
Hi Ken, so, like any single source, wikipedia is not entirely reliable in every single entry. Writing At 20:24 Uhr +0100 4.12.2005, Ken Friedman wrote:
for ALL facts, something like 40% of my students use only one source for most facts, and that source is increasingly Wikipedia.
you may notice that just by the content of what you write here it is easy to derive that this is not a conglomerate of factual statements to be trusted ;-) Same heuristic works on wikipedia. How many citations of wikipedia entries have your students really handed in to you that were a) not backed up by another source, and b) found to be inaccurate? Please, provide us with those figures! Best regards, --u
I know, as Elijah mentioned, that issues surrounding quality of information on Wikipedia have been widely discussed, but I wanted to offer a few comments: - Wikipedia handles information quality with brute force. It assumes that many eyeballs make good information. Whether or not this is true in the end, the question is whether it is true at the moment that one might access the article. Has the quality of the information been recently compromised? And if so, has ample time passed for inaccuracies to be corrected? - Compounding the above point is the fact that Wikipedia's quality assurance mechanism only works on a macro-level. We have little information about whether individual articles have been properly vetted by many users at a specific point. We end up deciding in general whether we believe the mechanism works or not. - One common tool that people use to make decisions about information quality is authorship. But in the name of promoting the commons-authorship model, Wikipedia actually obscures the notion of the author at an individual level. If you wanted to find out who wrote an individual piece an article, there would be no reasonable way to do that. Though MediaWiki keeps detailed page histories, wading through them, especially for articles that have 1000s of edits, is overwhelming if not impossible. Although there are certainly problems with Wikipedia, I do not agree with Ken's assessment that it should be banned as a reference. Wikipedia puts its community of users in charge, and so we should not assume that any action on our part will result in their instituting some mechanism of control. Rather we should take it upon ourselves to promote both the production of high quality information in Wikipedia and its responsible use. I do agree, however, that Wikipedia should rarely - or never - be the only reference. For my own part, I often find that Wikipedia is a valuable place to start exploration, especially in areas that I know little about. Wikipedia articles often provide me with the background and context I need to begin exploration. This, IMHO, is the type of use we should promote. Finally, I want to advertise that we are working on a software-tool that will allow users to navigate Wikipedia based on the notion of trusted authors through a variety of interactive tools and visualizations. Its core is an algorithm that sifts through a page's revision history to assign an author to each line of text in the current revision of an article. History Flow (http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/) is another wonderful tool that works on a similar principal. We would welcome any suggestions for functionality or applications of this tool. Once we've reached a reasonable point in the implementation, we will also open source the tool. Best, --Judd --Judd Antin School of Information Management & Systems (SIMS) University of California Berkeley jantin@sims.berkeley.edu http://technotaste.com blog: http://technotaste.com/blog Ken Friedman wrote:
Dear Elijah,
I am trying to stir up some action that may lead to a solution.
You are mistaken in the idea that these issues are evident to most Wikipedia users. These problems are evident to people on this list -- but far too few students recognize the need to use multiple sources. No matter how much I encourage people to use multiple sources for ALL facts, something like 40% of my students use only one source for most facts, and that source is increasingly Wikipedia.
My larger point is that if students are satisfied with only one source, I want that source to be Encyclopedia Britannica or a similar excellent reference source.
I'd prefer that more students checked issues and facts against many sources. Until this becomes a common habit of mind, I am no longer willing to accept Wikipedia. My second large point is that if enough of us take the same stand, Wikipedia will necessarily find a way to do better fact-checking and to prevent egregious cases of libel, defamation, hoax information, and fraud.
Yours,
Ken
What's your larger point? Or are you just trying to stir things up?
These are issues that have been widely discussed. And largely things that are very evident to users of wikipedia... and often to students.
--elijah
I have a professor of legal studies this term who used some wikipedia pages for teaching about war crimes. This was the first I had seen of wikipedia in school. Many of my professors will not allow Internet references at all. Others instruct us how to do bibliographic cites for the internet. Large parts of our studies come from on-line legal databases and government web sites publishing the latest laws. This professor is not knowledgeable about internet issues. The articles concerned war crimes. I would suggest based on this study that a reference like Wikipedia will defeat euro-centrism or American centric references. I can study statistics or physics from America books. But law needs to have a local context and Canadian Law is not Australian law nor American law even if all three are common law. I look forward to writing more for wikopedia even though as I write this my first article for wikepedia is marked for deletion because of its quality. Did the academy study rock music in the 1970s? No that was an elitism that has since been regretted. Quality v. everyone having a right to speak?
To be consequent you have to ban all other internet sources too. And all the magazines that are peer reviewed too, because lately they made some major mistakes too. Yes i am polemic. You correctly say that: It is as easy to change an article for the worse as for the better. Well why didn't Mr Siegenthaler change it to the better by himself? He used all the power of old media (and he is very powerful) to discredit new media. And you are jumping on the bandwagon, as if the credibility concerns are something new. But apparently it takes the power of the New York Times... This is a different discussion.
If enough of us prohibit Wikipedia as a reference source in our courses, programs, and schools, the message will eventually get through. And by the way, what is the message that will eventually get through? Trust no one except your teacher???
I suggest its better to discuss the problem with the students than to simply ban a source. Personally I think using Wikipedia as the only source, as it is with any single source, is bad scientific style. And this problem can not be solved by prohibiting Wikipedia. But maybe I understand the teachers job wrong. Best regards, peter
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Ken Friedman Sent: Sonntag, 04. Dezember 2005 20:02 To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliable information source
Dear Colleagues,
This letter is a suggestion that you address the problem of bad information in student papers from an increasingly poor source: Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not getting better. It is getting worse. One reason for this is the apparent case that the status of Wikipedia as a much-used reference resource makes it the target of opportunity for hoax efforts that would never enter an edited reference text.
There are now enough serious incidents of false and defamatory information in Wikipedia biographies to warrant prohibiting this as a reference source in universities and university-level professional schools. The same is true of inaccurate or false assertions in many articles.
The problem with Wikipedia is not that the Wiki system MAY develop a solid and reliable reference work, but that in the current form, it DOES NOT. It is as easy to change an article for the worse as for the better.
Nearly any university student today has access to a decent library and good on-line reference texts. In addition, anyone willing to search a bit will also fine outstanding SIGNED references sources by major scholars in many fields, as well as useful albeit older versions of respected references source no longer covered by copyright.
The current scandal concerning a false and defamatory biography of Robert Kennedy aide and friend John Siegenthaler (see below) and similar recent cases lead me to conclude that Wikipedia has no way to prevent problems like this from happening. This is made worse by the fact that Wikipedia is an automatic flow-through resource for other on-line sources.
Wikipedia is unacceptable as a research tool.
I have informed my students that they may no longer use Wikipedia as a reference or source on papers in my courses. I urge you to consider a similar statement. While Wikipedia may be a useful first step in seeking information, I no longer accept it as a credible source. Therefore, I advise students to look further when a project requires a reliable source.
Use of Wikipedia by students and researchers is an important validation mechanism for Wikipedia.
If enough of us prohibit Wikipedia as a reference source in our courses, programs, and schools, the message will eventually get through.
When it does, Wikipedia will find an appropriate way to monitor contributions. If they do not, the reputation of Wikipedia will sink to that of another crank web site.
Yours,
Ken Friedman
The Siegenthaler case in the New York Times and USA Today via Yahoo:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04seelye.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051130/cm_usatoday/afalsewi kipediabiography
--
Ken Friedman Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management
Design Research Center Denmark's Design School
email: ken.friedman@bi.no _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
There are now enough serious incidents of false and defamatory information in Wikipedia biographies to warrant prohibiting this as a reference source in universities and university-level professional schools. The same is true of inaccurate or false assertions in many articles.
I'm not so sure this is a problem. If you want students to start thinking critically then what better way to do it? The problem here seems to be that students accept a single reference as fact rather than go about confirming their facts through multiple sources. That's a not a problem with Wikipedia, that's a problem with pedagogy. Andy
Thanks for raising this issue, Ken. I had heard about defamation and inaccuracy, but wasn't aware of those recent cases. It's really useful to know what other universities' policies are on this. Our department has recently instated a similar prohibition against using the Wikipedia as a source in student papers. Our line has been that the Wikipedia is one of many useful places to start doing research on a topic, but that it is rarely valid as a final source for research. Many articles do provide good overviews and more importantly, they often link to primary sources which CAN be good, citable resources in student papers. There are cases when it is appropriate to cite a Wikipedia article - for instance if writing a paper ABOUT the Wikipedia, or about a topic that is developing and where it is interesting to cite changing Wikipedia articles. In such cases students are told they need to include a discussion of why it's appropriate to use the Wikipedia. Our prohibition has been partly due to the uneven quality of various subject areas coverage in the Wikipedia - some (particularly new and developing areas with a lot of online resources and activity) are wonderfully covered, with far better articles than The Britannica, for instance, but others (like electronic literature) are very partially and not always accurately presented. Another reason is simply that Wikipedia citations in student papers are usually so lazy - students tend to use them when they haven't bothered to either do a little more research to find primary sources or when they haven't bothered to write their own summaries of papers and books that are on the curriculum and they are supposed to have read. I don't think encyclopedias of any kind should be primary sources for most student work. I'll continue contributing to the Wikipedia, when I have time - I think it's wonderful, but usually not an authoritative source for research papers or student papers. And having said all this: despite the Wikipedia prohibition being repeated in lectures, we continue to get citations in paper after paper... Most students, it appears, would far rather cut and paste from the Wikipedia than do their own work. Jill Dr Jill Walker, Dept of Humanistic Informatics, University of Bergen, Norway
Dear Colleagues,
This letter is a suggestion that you address the problem of bad information in student papers from an increasingly poor source: Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not getting better. It is getting worse. One reason for this is the apparent case that the status of Wikipedia as a much-used reference resource makes it the target of opportunity for hoax efforts that would never enter an edited reference text.
There are now enough serious incidents of false and defamatory information in Wikipedia biographies to warrant prohibiting this as a reference source in universities and university-level professional schools. The same is true of inaccurate or false assertions in many articles.
The problem with Wikipedia is not that the Wiki system MAY develop a solid and reliable reference work, but that in the current form, it DOES NOT. It is as easy to change an article for the worse as for the better.
Nearly any university student today has access to a decent library and good on-line reference texts. In addition, anyone willing to search a bit will also fine outstanding SIGNED references sources by major scholars in many fields, as well as useful albeit older versions of respected references source no longer covered by copyright.
The current scandal concerning a false and defamatory biography of Robert Kennedy aide and friend John Siegenthaler (see below) and similar recent cases lead me to conclude that Wikipedia has no way to prevent problems like this from happening. This is made worse by the fact that Wikipedia is an automatic flow-through resource for other on-line sources.
Wikipedia is unacceptable as a research tool.
I have informed my students that they may no longer use Wikipedia as a reference or source on papers in my courses. I urge you to consider a similar statement. While Wikipedia may be a useful first step in seeking information, I no longer accept it as a credible source. Therefore, I advise students to look further when a project requires a reliable source.
Use of Wikipedia by students and researchers is an important validation mechanism for Wikipedia.
If enough of us prohibit Wikipedia as a reference source in our courses, programs, and schools, the message will eventually get through.
When it does, Wikipedia will find an appropriate way to monitor contributions. If they do not, the reputation of Wikipedia will sink to that of another crank web site.
Yours,
Ken Friedman
The Siegenthaler case in the New York Times and USA Today via Yahoo:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04seelye.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051130/cm_usatoday/ afalsewikipediabiography
--
Ken Friedman Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management
Design Research Center Denmark's Design School
email: ken.friedman@bi.no _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Funny... At 20:02 Uhr +0100 4.12.2005, Ken Friedman wrote:
The Siegenthaler case in the New York Times and USA Today via Yahoo:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04seelye.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051130/cm_usatoday/afalsewikipediabiograp...
I just went to wikipedia and looked up the man named "Siegenthaler" Ken mentioned and didn't find an entry, until I noticed from the two other sources Ken had posted that the name is actually "Seigenthaler" ;-) Never trust a single source... --u P.S. At the end of the wikipedia entry on Seigenthaler it now reads: "Between May and September 2005, a biographical article on Seigenthaler carried by the encyclopedia Wikipedia contained incorrect statements to the effect that he might have had some involvement in the John F. Kennedy assassination and Robert F. Kennedy assassination. The comment, added by an anonymous editor, prompted Seigenthaler to write an op-ed in USA Today on November 29, 2005, in which he stated that "...Wikipedia is a flawed and irresponsible research tool...for four months, Wikipedia depicted me as a suspected assassin." Seigenthaler said that he had tried to determine the identity of the anonymous editor but had been unable to do so since "Congress has enabled them and protects them"-a reference to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which states "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker."[6]"
Hi This is a 'media literacy' question isn't it, about how people develop their critical skills to be able to evaluate what they find in all forms of media? Most of the research I've seen so far shows that young people in particular are overtrusting of what they find on the web. We need programmes that develop these skills alongside those taught around tv, newspapers, for instance. I'm currently working on a European project called Mediappro which aims to develop these kinds of interventions for young people. Sue -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Ken Friedman Sent: 04 December 2005 19:02 To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliable information source Dear Colleagues, This letter is a suggestion that you address the problem of bad information in student papers from an increasingly poor source: Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not getting better. It is getting worse. One reason for this is the apparent case that the status of Wikipedia as a much-used reference resource makes it the target of opportunity for hoax efforts that would never enter an edited reference text. There are now enough serious incidents of false and defamatory information in Wikipedia biographies to warrant prohibiting this as a reference source in universities and university-level professional schools. The same is true of inaccurate or false assertions in many articles. The problem with Wikipedia is not that the Wiki system MAY develop a solid and reliable reference work, but that in the current form, it DOES NOT. It is as easy to change an article for the worse as for the better. Nearly any university student today has access to a decent library and good on-line reference texts. In addition, anyone willing to search a bit will also fine outstanding SIGNED references sources by major scholars in many fields, as well as useful albeit older versions of respected references source no longer covered by copyright. The current scandal concerning a false and defamatory biography of Robert Kennedy aide and friend John Siegenthaler (see below) and similar recent cases lead me to conclude that Wikipedia has no way to prevent problems like this from happening. This is made worse by the fact that Wikipedia is an automatic flow-through resource for other on-line sources. Wikipedia is unacceptable as a research tool. I have informed my students that they may no longer use Wikipedia as a reference or source on papers in my courses. I urge you to consider a similar statement. While Wikipedia may be a useful first step in seeking information, I no longer accept it as a credible source. Therefore, I advise students to look further when a project requires a reliable source. Use of Wikipedia by students and researchers is an important validation mechanism for Wikipedia. If enough of us prohibit Wikipedia as a reference source in our courses, programs, and schools, the message will eventually get through. When it does, Wikipedia will find an appropriate way to monitor contributions. If they do not, the reputation of Wikipedia will sink to that of another crank web site. Yours, Ken Friedman The Siegenthaler case in the New York Times and USA Today via Yahoo: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04seelye.html http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051130/cm_usatoday/afalsewikipediabiograp hy -- Ken Friedman Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management Design Research Center Denmark's Design School email: ken.friedman@bi.no _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
In our house, we have a World Book from the early 60s. The article on television is written by folks from RCA. It barely mentions Farnsworth. Many of the articles on the Roman Catholic Church are written and approved by the Church. You might imagine what is not in those articles. When I was in Junior High (now known as Middle School), students regularly used only one source -- World Book. Were these happier times? This doesn't make up for wikipedia's failings. But I will point out that wikipedia's failing are part of a public debate with attempts to make corrections and to clarify the use of wikipedia as a primary reference. Such was not the case with World Book to my knowledge. See this article on CNet which has not I think been posted to this list: http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-5981119.html Growing pains for Wikipedia By Daniel Terdiman Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: December 5, 2005, 4:00 AM PST For Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, last week was a tough one. And he's going to change the ground rules for the popular anyone-can-contribute encyclopedia because of it. First, in a Nov. 29 op-ed piece in USA Today, a former administrative assistant to Robert Kennedy lambasted the free online reference work for an article that suggested he may have been involved in the assassinations of both Robert F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy. Then, on Dec. 1, a new flurry of attention came when former MTV VJ and podcasting pioneer Adam Curry was accused of anonymously editing out references to other people's seminal podcasting work in an article about the hot new digital medium. [...] ========================================================================== Paul Jones "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation." Alasdair Gray http://www.ibiblio.org/pjones/blog/ pjones@ibiblio.org voice: (919) 962-7600 fax: (919) 962-8071 ===========================================================================
Just a reminder that when you reply to the list, only press reply, not reply all, that way we don't receive two copies of your message. Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments http://www.aoir.org The Association of Internet Researchers http://www.stswiki.org/ stswiki
This has been a very interesting discussion. Nobody has mentioned what seems to me to be the biggest problem in using Wikipedia as a source: the fact that its articles are not stable. Since, obviously, articles can and do change over time, simply citing an article would seem insufficient, as the content may change. It is interesting that the Wikipedia's design does not make it easy to do a citation that will continue to point at the version actually used. If one clicks on the history tab (for "past versions of this page"), one sees the history list and can copy those URLs. And in fact, contrary to what the flyout text for the history tab suggests, the history page also contains a URL for the current page, so in fact one could cite the specific instance of the article with something that would presumably act like a permalink. It seems to me that, for courses where Wikipedia citations are permitted, that this might be a good discipline to follow, as it foregrounds the issue of the stability or lack thereof of knowledge. --Tom -- ------------------------------------------ Tom Erickson IBM T.J. Watson Research Center Email: snowfall@acm.org (preferred); snowfall@us.ibm.com(IBM confidential) http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/
actually this is fairly easy to solve and is solved by all the current citing practices of online materials. when one cites online materials, one is always supposed to give date and if appropriate time of access in the citation. on wikipedia, you can then go to the history and find that particular version of the article, or if it has been moved to archive, you could request it. On Dec 5, 2005, at 1:59 PM, Tom Erickson wrote:
This has been a very interesting discussion. Nobody has mentioned what seems to me to be the biggest problem in using Wikipedia as a source: the fact that its articles are not stable. Since, obviously, articles can and do change over time, simply citing an article would seem insufficient, as the content may change.
It is interesting that the Wikipedia's design does not make it easy to do a citation that will continue to point at the version actually used. If one clicks on the history tab (for "past versions of this page"), one sees the history list and can copy those URLs. And in fact, contrary to what the flyout text for the history tab suggests, the history page also contains a URL for the current page, so in fact one could cite the specific instance of the article with something that would presumably act like a permalink. It seems to me that, for courses where Wikipedia citations are permitted, that this might be a good discipline to follow, as it foregrounds the issue of the stability or lack thereof of knowledge.
--Tom -- ------------------------------------------ Tom Erickson IBM T.J. Watson Research Center Email: snowfall@acm.org (preferred); snowfall@us.ibm.com(IBM confidential) http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/
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Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments http://www.aoir.org The Association of Internet Researchers http://www.stswiki.org/ stswiki
It is interesting that the Wikipedia's design does not make it easy to do a citation that will continue to point at the version actually used. Scratch that! I was wrong:
At 7:50 PM -0500 12/5/05, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Every article has a 'permanent link' link which gets you directly to the permanent url for the current revision. This could probably be made more obvious, since you didn't see it. But it is there. :-) In the leftmost column, under "Tool box" there is "permanent link" and "cite this article," both of which provide a pointer to the current instance.
--Tom -- ------------------------------------------ Tom Erickson IBM T.J. Watson Research Center Email: snowfall@acm.org (preferred); snowfall@us.ibm.com(IBM confidential) http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/
See this site for kids about media for instance http://www.media-awareness.ca/ sorry for those reading who don't like a changed thread email. On Dec 5, 2005, at 12:01 PM, Sue Cranmer wrote:
Hi
This is a 'media literacy' question isn't it, about how people develop their critical skills to be able to evaluate what they find in all forms of media? Most of the research I've seen so far shows that young people in particular are overtrusting of what they find on the web. We need programmes that develop these skills alongside those taught around tv, newspapers, for instance.
I'm currently working on a European project called Mediappro which aims to develop these kinds of interventions for young people.
Sue
participants (12)
-
Andy Williamson -
elijah wright -
Jeremy Hunsinger -
Jill Walker -
Judd Antin -
Ken Friedman -
Paul Jones -
Peter Timusk -
Steinberger Peter -
Sue Cranmer -
Tom Erickson -
Ulf-Dietrich Reips