[WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia is fun, but credibility varies a lot

Thu Jul 21 20:54:19 UTC 2005

Be kind to journalists.  They are friends, not enemies... I wrote a
rather kinder and lighthearted response, pointing out a few
correction.   She did reply to me, that same day, agreeing that
writing under deadlines is hard; and saying that it was nice to be in
touch with someone from the community.

SJ

On 7/20/05, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Out of curiosity, did you get a response?
> 
> --gkhan
> 
> On 7/20/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Below is an email I sent to the author of an article that was semi-critical of
> > Wikipedia. I think it illustrates the way many in academia don't get it and how
> > many of those are polluting the critical thinking skills of students.
> >
> > --- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 06:45:27 -0700 (PDT)
> > > From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
> > > Subject: Wikipedia is fun, but credibility varies a lot
> > > To: Susan.Barnes at rit.edu
> > > CC: maveric149 at yahoo.com
> > >
> > > Just a note about this article
> > >
> > http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050717/BUSINESS0105/507170321/1001/BUSINESS
> > >
> > >
> > > First, the English Wikipedia had about 640,000 articles at the time your
> > > article was published. Not 444,000. Second, Jimmy Wales started Wikipedia
> > > under the ownership of Bomis in 2001 - The Wikimedia Foundation was not
> > > formed until June of 2003.
> > >
> > > If your article had been published on Wikinews, then these errors would have
> > > been very quickly corrected before being marked for publication.
> > >
> > > This just goes to show that *all* forms of media have reliability issues.
> > > This also shows that media published on paper with a PhD as an author is also
> > > prone to obvious errors. Giving students the impression that they can trust
> > > that by focusing on the unreliability of web resources like Wikipedia is a
> > > great disservice to them. All media needs to be scrutinized by students.
> > >
> > > It is true that we sometimes discount what an expert says ; the reason is
> > > that we value getting it right vs blindly accepting what an expert says
> > > without checking.
> > >
> > > Daniel Mayer,
> > > A Wikipedian
> > >
> > >
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> >
> >
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-- 
++SJ