[Air-L] using aoir researchers in non-academic paper on wikipedia

Samuel Klein meta.sj at gmail.com
Thu May 7 05:59:15 PDT 2009


That is a nice overview, Mathieu.  Thanks for sharing.

Unfortunately there's no way to edit it, or leave comments, to correct
its occasional errors... (Essjay did not "repeatedly [use] credentials
to bolster his views during content disputes," nor, as you note
earlier in the essay, are purported credentials effective at
bolstering views on Wikipedia.  And it is not true that 'no one knows'
why Wikipedia articles appear highly in Google rank for most topics.)

SJ

On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 7:51 AM,  <oneil at homemail.com.au> wrote:
> You may remember a few months ago I posted a call for people to share with
> me their experience of being the subject of a Wikipedia article. Well, I
> got a few responses and decided to use communications scholars as an
> illustration of how the much-debated notion of "notability" sometimes works
> on WP.
> The result has now been published in English; French and other versions
> were published last month.
> See http://mondediplo.com/2009/05/15wikipedia
> Cheers,
> Mathieu
>
>
>
> On Thu, 7 May 2009 10:23:11 +0200, Christophe Prieur
> <christophe.prieur at liafa.jussieu.fr> wrote:
>> Quite agree with Ismael, a reference to Wikipedia sounds to me like a
>> footnote saying 'hey dude, look at the dictionary', if not just 'rtfm'.
>> If you think an explanation is needed for some technical term, put it
>> either in a few words or in a whole section, but if you choose not to,
>> then leave it to the grown-up reader to look for further information.
>>
>> My humble opinion of course but i guess you don't want to annoy those
>> pedantic readers (including reviewers) that share it :)
>>
>> --    Christophe.
>>
>>
>>
>> Le 7 mai 09 à 09:50, Ismael Peña-López a écrit :
>>
>>> Dear Stefano,
>>>
>>> Had I been the reviewer, I would have made the same observation.
>>>
>>> It's not that I don't like Wikipedia: it's that I don't find it
>>> appropriate
>>> to cite _any_ dictionary and/or encyclopaedia at all in any kind of
>>> essay,
>>> including K-12.
>>>
>>> And it's not that I take for granted that my potential audience
>>> might be
>>> aware of all the concepts, but I do take for granted that they are
>>> aware of
>>> the existence of dictionaries or handbooks (I neither include
>>> references to
>>> e.g. "Handbook of SPSS usage") they will use in case they don't
>>> understand a
>>> word or (say) "basic" concept.
>>>
>>> In my opinion, it is opposite (as you already point at) to citing
>>> specific
>>> authors, or even specific methodologies developed by specific authors
>>> (following the former example I _would_ cite a statistical methodology
>>> developed and explained in a technical paper - but not on a generic
>>> handbook).
>>>
>>> Put short, I personally find it annoying to find papers that begin
>>> as e.g.
>>> "Engagment, as it is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, deals
>>> with...". I'd rather have the main authors that have developed the
>>> term and
>>> have it defined by their own quotes.
>>>
>>> Of course, strictly personal opinion :)
>>>
>>> All the best,
>>>
>>> Ismael Peña-López
>>> ICTlogy.net
>>>
>>> Public Policies for Development and ICT4D
>>> School of Law and Political Science
>>> Open University of Catalonia
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>>
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