It’s not on the net, but it’s in the hard copy of today’s The Australian(pg 36), an article entitled ‘Wikipedia references a source of anxiety‘ detailing how “male, crude and given to the concerns of the rich middle class” is the internet, but, not subject to the xanax control of media barons.
The article begins by outlining how Middlebury College in Vermont, in the US, has banned its students from citing Wikepidia and goes on to quote Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales suggesting that the school should also ban the Enclyclopaedia Britannica because all ‘pedias “stand several degrees of separation away fron the events on which they report”.
The article also makes mention of British journal Nature’s critique of the Encylopedia Britannica and Wikipedia which found the two sources comparable as regards reliability.
In short, the article was all about ‘the internet’ suggesting those who attempt to shun it will lose out eventually, because it’s here and it’s influential.
And it all reminded me of a note I received from David Tribe some weeks ago introducing what he described as a
“better alternative to Wikipedia” at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Main_Page.
It’s all explained in an article ‘Citizendium aims to be better Wikipedia’ which you can read here: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/2007-03-25-wikipedia-alternative_N.htm
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Nothing will ever rival Wikipedia for in depth articles on Anime.
It’s perfectly justifiable to ban citing Wikipedia as a source, for the same reason that citing the E. Britannica should be disallowed.
It has nothing to do with racism, sexism or classism. It’s simply that these two resources only offer primers on the topics they cover, written by people whose credentials may or may not justify the faith a lazy researcher may wish to have in them.
I’ve found both of these resources to be excellent starting points for research, but I would feel rather embarrassed to cite either of them as “authoritative.”
and I was sent this link
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Life
with you 100% shiller. wikipedia might be non-authoritive when you are writing an academic paper, but it is fantastic for general knowledge/trivia etc, and often points you to the weightier articles on a topic if you need it too. its always a great starting point.
I disagree that citizendium will be better than wiki. it doesnt have a niche. why go for citizendium when you can buy the Britannica?
Wikipedia’s advantage is that it can cover lots of topics very quickly and is updated constantly.
Citizendium requires moderator approval. this just slows it down, and puts an artificial stamp of authority on it that is unnecessary, because academics won’t be referencing it any more than they will wikipedia or e.brittanica.
It also suffers the potential for unjustified authority problem that any moderated forum suffers from (including the IPCC it seems on this blog!) ie it purports to be authoritative, but . . . isn’t.
At least everyone knows that wikipedia is a free for all and there are no illusions.
I’ve had a look at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Main_Page and it looks like a wiki worth citing.
The trouble with a lot of online research is the cost: there are lots of papers out there that you have to pay $30 or more to look at.
But these are vetted authors, so this “free access” notion for vetted authors is an exponentially better deal.
Maybe one of our contributors could contact Middlebury College and see what their opinion is.
The article IS online:
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070319&s=rauchway032107
I stumbled upon Conservapedia a while ago:
“Because we all know that reality has a liberal bias”
http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page
Don’t worry, all wiki climate topics adhere to IPCC standards. William Conolley takes care of that.