05-09-2009, 09:55 AM | #31 | |
Provocateur
Posts: 1,859
Karma: 505847
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Columbus, OH
Device: Kindle Touch, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, iPhone 3GS
|
Quote:
And yet Wikipedia's estimated diameter of Pluto is likely more accurate than any printed text over a decade old. |
|
05-09-2009, 09:57 AM | #32 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 7,452
Karma: 7185064
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Linköpng, Sweden
Device: Kindle Voyage, Nexus 5, Kindle PW
|
Quote:
I think that the thing about Wikipedia and it not being correct and could not be used academically was something that was valid in the beginning when Wikipedia first appeared but this have changed and academic institutions have also begun to change there rules regarding Wikipedia. |
|
05-09-2009, 10:06 AM | #33 | ||||
Provocateur
Posts: 1,859
Karma: 505847
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Columbus, OH
Device: Kindle Touch, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, iPhone 3GS
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
I don't mean to single you out specifically; many of your fellow educators share the same distrust of Wikipedia, and you personally may be an excellent professor otherwise. |
||||
05-09-2009, 10:11 AM | #34 |
sleepless reader
Posts: 4,763
Karma: 615547
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Germany, near Stuttgart
Device: Sony PRS-505, PB 360° & 302, nook wi-fi, Kindle 3
|
This incisive/cynical wording is just silly and not what i'm willing to read here at MobileRead. Imho it's exactly the same thing that caused the decision to close the conservatory. I don't see what should be wrong when one is referring to the experience of a professional high school teacher.
|
05-09-2009, 10:15 AM | #35 |
Provocateur
Posts: 1,859
Karma: 505847
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Columbus, OH
Device: Kindle Touch, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, iPhone 3GS
|
Most errors on Wikipedia fall into two categories:
1. Major unrelated to the substance of the article. This is easily seen and usually corrected in a matter of minutes. 2. Minor vandalism which may be related to the substance of the article but which is quite obviously absurd on the face of it. These sorts of errors may take longer to correct but again are usually evident just by reading. A vandal is extremely unlikely to make a more subtle change; for example, changing a number slightly or replacing a scientific word with another. Even so, these are usually seen and corrected. The chances of a student citing such an article, during the relatively small window of time it's vandalized, and not noticing the error based on context or other reading at the time are extremely small. This leaves original mistakes by the article author in factual information, which then has to pass through many, many different others who never notice it. This can happen, but again, the chances are very low, and are just as likely to happen in other encyclopedias or reference works. |
05-09-2009, 10:15 AM | #36 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 7,452
Karma: 7185064
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Linköpng, Sweden
Device: Kindle Voyage, Nexus 5, Kindle PW
|
Quote:
|
|
05-09-2009, 10:19 AM | #37 | |
Wizard
Posts: 2,895
Karma: 6995721
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Idaho, on the side of a mountain
Device: Kindle Oasis, Fire 3d Gen and 5th Gen and Samsung Tab S
|
Quote:
But I am completely in favor of getting rid of the weight! My 11 year-old's backpack kills me! |
|
05-09-2009, 10:23 AM | #38 |
sleepless reader
Posts: 4,763
Karma: 615547
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Germany, near Stuttgart
Device: Sony PRS-505, PB 360° & 302, nook wi-fi, Kindle 3
|
Did deltop claim that the example is something like a scientific evidence? I don't think so. But that's not my point anyway. Please don't let us discuss this further, i have no interest in getting involved in a discussion where argumentations are written in a very cynical tone.
|
05-09-2009, 10:24 AM | #39 | |
Provocateur
Posts: 1,859
Karma: 505847
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Columbus, OH
Device: Kindle Touch, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, iPhone 3GS
|
Quote:
I'm quite sure teachers have problems with wrong information being cited from Wikipedia. I'm also quite sure teachers have problems with wrong information being cited from other sources which they are completely oblivious too because they are not Wikipedia and hence do not arouse suspicion. I'm also quite sure that many teachers are having problems specifically because the information is from Wikipedia, not because it is wrong. And finally, I'm quite sure that if the information is so wrong that the teacher catches it, it's probably something that a properly-educated student should have caught before they made the citation. |
|
05-09-2009, 10:26 AM | #40 | |
Provocateur
Posts: 1,859
Karma: 505847
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Columbus, OH
Device: Kindle Touch, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, iPhone 3GS
|
Quote:
|
|
05-09-2009, 10:30 AM | #41 |
sleepless reader
Posts: 4,763
Karma: 615547
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Germany, near Stuttgart
Device: Sony PRS-505, PB 360° & 302, nook wi-fi, Kindle 3
|
@sirbruce: Thanks for the clarification. At the moment just a lot of members (including me) are concerned about a growing variety of "heated" discussions here at MR.
|
05-09-2009, 11:18 AM | #42 | |
Wizard
Posts: 2,366
Karma: 12000
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Texas, USA
Device: Kindle; Sony PRS 505; Blackberry 8700C
|
Quote:
|
|
05-09-2009, 12:18 PM | #43 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 11,470
Karma: 13095790
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Grass Valley, CA
Device: EB 1150, EZ Reader, Literati, iPad 2 & Air 2, iPhone 7
|
Quote:
I personally review the changes on our wiki on a daily basis (or almost daily) and Alex checks it also. That doesn't mean that there are no errors in it but anyone adding completely biased or incorrect data will get caught and the person inputting is likely to be banned or warned. Wikipedia does a lot more checking and more often than I do. Dale |
|
05-09-2009, 01:48 PM | #44 | |
Evangelist
Posts: 478
Karma: 451808
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: California, USA
Device: my two eyes, KLiiK, Sony PRS-700
|
Quote:
Did you hear about that editor for Wikipedia who claimed to be a religion professor but turned out to be just a 24-year old from Kentucky with no advanced degree? Check out this article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1544...0-entries.html Now, this is not to say that every Wikipedia entry is marred by scandals. Rather, this is to illustrate the possibilities and ease of damaging Wikipedia entries. If I wanted to, I could right now go into Wikipedia and make drastic and erroneous changes to any entry I want. And if at that moment someone were looking at that entry they could be citing my erroneous information for their academic paper and they'd be in error. I have been to Wikipedia entries where I found the information inaccurate, changed it and then because someone else thought the changes were wrong they changed it back. We did that for a short while and then I just left it alone. Again, Wikipedia is good to get some general knowledge but not necessarily scholarly credible pieces of information. |
|
05-09-2009, 01:53 PM | #45 | |
Evangelist
Posts: 478
Karma: 451808
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: California, USA
Device: my two eyes, KLiiK, Sony PRS-700
|
Quote:
I'm a huge fan of ebooks too and find it useful for the kind of work I do. However, when I was writing my qualifying exam papers (which took a whole year) I don't think I would want to use primarily the ebook format because I only have one reader which means only one page open at a time. When I wrote my qualifying exam papers, I had multiple books open at the same time and would sometimes flip through one book and then another to get some general idea about something and then write a bit, then flip some more. Ebooks simply do not facilitate that kind of writing and reading process. At this stage I don't need to do that kind of writing and reading but may have to soon again for some other pieces of writing I'm doing. |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
TomeRaider to go open source | MatYadabyte | News | 27 | 11-18-2012 12:23 PM |
Open source | bradrice | Kindle Formats | 2 | 12-21-2009 09:30 AM |
Open Source Text Books for California Schools | shrimphead | News | 6 | 05-09-2009 03:37 AM |
iRex and Open Source | jrial | iRex | 8 | 03-03-2009 10:34 AM |
TrueCrypt V2.0 Open-Source | Alexander Turcic | Lounge | 1 | 06-21-2004 02:02 PM |