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

oneil at homemail.com.au oneil at homemail.com.au
Thu May 7 04:51:56 PDT 2009


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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