Saw a news story the other day saying that Middlebury college has banned Wikipedia citations in papers submitted by students. One professor said that the reason is that Wikipedia entries may not have been “fully vetted.” The NY Times article seems to try to frame this as a New-Media-Vs-Old-Media battle, but Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales agrees that Wikipedia shouldn’t be cited,because no encyclopedia should ever be cited in a research paper. Makes sense to me.
Anyone can add to Wikipedia, which I consider one of its strengths. Someone begins by adding information to a subject. Others are then free to mold that information as closely as possible to the truth. Experts often weigh in with factual information that is orders of magnitude more detailed and accurate than any publishing fact-checker could achieve.
Wikipedia is Open Source for facts. Everything’s laid out there to be debated. It doesn’t guarantee the information’s accuracy, but it does guarantee exposure to debate that will eventually lead it to accuracy.
I also love that Wikipedia’s entries are constantly evolving. Traditional encyclopedias are frequently out of date as soon as they are printed. Wikipedia is updated constantly.
Our understanding of things evolves as well. A description of electricity from the early 1900’s would look far different than today’s. The same with nuclear theory. Our perspective on historical events changes over time as well. As the saying goes, winners write the history books.
The truth on any matter often varies upon whom you ask. Wikipedia allows any of us to add our knowledge of a topic up for debate – a most democratic means of soliciting truth. The more eyes that can review information for accuracy, the more accurate that information can become.
Have you seen the conservative’s version of wikipedia (now with 50% more truthiness)? It’s hilarious. http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page
A couple of fitting examples:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Evolution
and
http://www.conservapedia.com/Kangaroo
“Origins
Like all modern animals, modern kangaroos originated in the Middle East[1] and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah’s Ark prior to the Great Flood. It has not yet been determined whether kangaroos form a holobaramin with the wallaby, tree-kangaroo, wallaroo, pademelon and quokka, or if all these species are in fact apobaraminic or polybaraminic.
After the Flood, kangaroos bred from the Ark passengers migrated to Australia. There is debate whether this migration happened over land[2] — as Australia was still for a time connected to the Middle East before the supercontinent of Pangea broke apart — or if they rafted on mats of vegetation torn up by the receding flood waters[2]. ”
By the way, where did you find the contact info for reporting litter? I tried calling about the litter in front of (the previous) cheviot hills golf course, but was told I had to call someone else. That number is always busy or goes straight to voicemail, which is thus far unreturned (so I don’t know if they actually got it).
It depends on who maintains the road – the city or state. You can call 1-800-DOT-4YOU and usually find that out.