[WikiEN-l] Are we doing homework, or is this a privilege?

Mon Feb 14 18:03:43 UTC 2005

For what its worth, I still cannot find the webpage with IP
evidence that RickK says he is viewing. Can anyone find
this page?  In any case, I have been sitting on two
excelent articles (one Judaism related, one science
related) for the last three months.  If I had my druthers I
would have added the material from these articles a long
time ago!

> If RK tried to edit while his account was blocked, these
> would show up in the IP block list, but they would be
> gone from it shortly afterwards. If he tried to edit,
> well, we needn't assume nefariousness: it could just
> mean that he followed a red link or has "edit pages on
> double-click" turned on; I know that switching that
> option on leads to the occasional accidental edit.

Last year I was observing several students search for
information on the Internet, and watched them use various
sites including Wikipedia.  I also watched a few (by
accident) edit blank articles by following red links (links
to articles not yet written.)  This, I would imagine, is
fairly common.  I didn't stop these students from doing so,
and instead only intervened the moment after - asking them
what their intentions were, and what they thougt this new
screen means.  (You know, the screen that pops up when you
follow a red link to a blank article.)

It was interesting to see their reactions when they learned
that they could add content! Unfortunately, none at the
time showed an interest in putting in serious editing time,
probably because I lectured them on the necessity of using
real sources, and not just writing off the top of their
heads!  They will spend hours text-messaging each other,
but they didn't want to spend time in research.

Too many saw the ability to work on Wikipedia (or any other
Wiki) as "like homework", and not as the privilege that it
actually is.  Writing for the public in general is a
privilege, one not given to many people in other nations.

Robert (RK)

=====
I’m astounded by people who want to "know" the universe when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown. - Woody Allen

__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. 
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail