[WEB4LIB] Re: Librarian: Don't use Wikipedia as source

[Morbus Iff]

 >That article might be very really interesting, however I was sorry to find
 >another site, syracuse.com, that wants to know my zip code, well maybe, but
 >my year of birth and sex, just to read an article. I don't care what 
anyone >says about their privacy policies, I prefer not giving out more 
information

Yup. I hear ya. If they're gonna waste my time with privacy questions,
I'm gonna waste their time by inputing false data. I'm a female from
zipcode 11111 (why bother accepting zipcodes if you're not gonna check
integrity?) who is 50 or so years old. Excelsior!

Anyways, I pasted it below for you.


Librarian: Don't use Wikipedia as source

Wednesday, August 25, 2004
AL FASOLDT
STAFF WRITER

In a column published a few weeks ago by my companion Dr. Gizmo, readers 
were urged to go to the Wikipedia Web site at www.wikipedia. org/wiki/Main 
Page , an online encyclopedia, for more information on computer history. 
The doctor and I had figured Wikipedia was a good independent source.

Not so, wrote a school librarian who read that article. Susan Stagnitta, of 
the Liverpool High School library, explained that Wikipedia is not what 
many casual Web surfers think it is.

It's not the online version of an established, well-researched traditional 
encyclopedia. Instead, Wikipedia is a do-it-yourself encyclopedia, without 
any credentials.

"As a high school librarian, part of my job is to help my students develop 
critical thinking skills," Stagnitta wrote. "One of these skills is to 
evaluate the authority of any information source. The Wikipedia is not an 
authoritative source. It even states this in their disclaimer on their Web 
site."

Wikipedia, she explains, takes the idea of open source one step too far for 
most of us.

"Anyone can change the content of an article in the Wikipedia, and there is 
no editorial review of the content. I use this Web site as a learning 
experience for my students. Many of them have used it in the past for 
research and were very surprised when we investigated the authority of the 
site."

Stagnitta gives two quotes from the Wikipedia site that illustrate the 
problem.

 From the home page:

"Wikipedia is an encyclopedia written collaboratively by its readers. The 
site is a Wiki, meaning that anyone, including you, can also edit any 
article right now by clicking on the edit this page link that appears at 
the top of every Wikipedia article."

 From the disclaimer page:

"WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY.

"Wikipedia is an online open-content encyclopedia, that is, a voluntary 
association of individuals and groups who are developing a common resource 
of human knowledge. Its structure allows any individual with an Internet 
connection and World Wide Web browser to alter the content found here.

"Therefore, please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been 
reviewed by professionals who are knowledgeable in the particular areas of 
expertise necessary to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable 
information about any subject in Wikipedia."

I was amazed at how little I knew about Wikipedia. If you know of other 
supposedly authoritative Web sites that are untrustworthy, send a note to 
technology at syracuse.com and let me know about them.

The best thing about the Web is also the worst thing: Information is all 
over the place. You need to be careful about trusting what you read.


-- 
Morbus Iff ( you are nothing without your robot car, NOTHING! )
Culture: http://www.disobey.com/ and http://www.gamegrene.com/
Spidering Hacks: http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596005776/disobeycom
icq: 2927491 / aim: akaMorbus / yahoo: morbus_iff / jabber.org: morbus