Posted on 03/09/2007 10:37:25 PM PST by neverdem
An academic ban and an editor's false credentials put a spotlight on the website's claim to truth.
Students in history classes at Middlebury College this spring may have to change the way they do research for papers or tests. Although they can consult the online encyclopedia Wikipedia for background, they are not allowed to cite it as a source.
Professors who drafted the new policy at the Vermont college praise the free website as a "wonderful innovation." They note the more than 1.6 million entries, the up-to-date bibliographies, and the links to relevant, often more reliable sites. But they caution that its open-editing system, which allows anyone to write or edit entries anonymously, carries a risk of error.
Just this month a dark cloud fell over Wikipedia's credibility after it was revealed that a trusted contributor who claimed to be a tenured professor of religion was actually a 24-year-old college dropout. He was also one of the appointed "arbiters" who settled disputes between contributors.
For the many "wiki"-type sites – ones that compile knowledge with volunteers – such an ethical misstep would be a test of their ability for internal correction. But it also reinforces educators' warnings to students to be "informationally literate" in how to use the six-year-old Wikipedia and to rely more on the thousands of more-scholarly databases online.
Wikipedia not only challenges the concept of what an encyclopedia is; it also raises an intriguing question: What qualifies as intellectual authority in an age of information overload, when society relies increasingly on the Internet?
Some critics are troubled by what they regard as a tendency on the Web to value anonymous, collective thought over individual intellect. Some claim Wikipedia devalues traditional scholarship. Supporters counter that the online encyclopedia's constant and easy revision of articles only strengthens their credibility...
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
It's an ok source if you enjoy a somewhat left-leanimg tilt to certain types of info,but it'll never replace World Book
It's a good site for military stuff,,,different countries
arms,,,good stuff...
But how does it do this under the current contributory model?
But they caution that its open-editing system, which allows anyone to write or edit entries anonymously, carries a risk of error.
I wonder a rocket scientist made this discovery??
Figure out how to authenticate the contributions some how? I link it as a reference of last resort only.
I get tons of good info from Wikipedia all the time, but still take anything I read there (or anywhere else) with a big grain of source.
Sheesh. I can't believe students at Middlebury were ever allowed to cite Wikipedia as a source.
For that matter, by the time you get to college -- at least past the 100-level -- NO encyclopedia should be a cited source for anything other than the most basic facts. Not Britannica, not World Book. They're a springboard to seek out primary sources or more sophisticated analysis.
An encyclopedia article is a concise summary, and writing a paper as a summary of summaries is like doing math with rounded numbers and rounding the results. It's lazy and sloppy. It's fine for middle or high school, when the goal is to teach the process as much as the subject, but not for any serious academic pursuit.
The best thing that can be said for Wikis is that it is possible to track any claim back to the person who made it. So a responsible academic, like a responsible journalist, can track a statement to its source, quote it, and then evaluate its factual basis from other sources.
Problem is that you won't get certain kinds of information. Some sources are simply banned. In one case I know of, big labor types swarmed the entry every time someone tried to post dissenting information. The overseer got tired of complaints and simply locked new contributions out. Also said that pieces with "opinions," like "policy A produced a bad result," were not allowed. But link to labor web site with nothing but opinion was o.k. Big labor, in that case, rules.
Life is to short to continue dealing with Wikipedia.
With 1.6 million entries, there are bound to be errors, but I use Wikipedia all the time as a quick reference for all kinds of things. My guess is that the error rate in the collected works of these Vermont professors would be just as high (if the truth were known.)
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