Wikid

Via the comments at AKMA's, this most interesting Wikipedia page.  The discussion of the entry's Wikiworthiness isn't interesting; the refusal to accept the subject's own corrections regarding the right way to spell her name (all lower-cased) is.  (Scroll about 2/3 of the way down.)   It might be worthwhile pondering the editor's explanation, as well as the Wikipedia policy on original research (hint: don't), when thinking about Wikipedia and pedagogical applications thereof.

Comments

[Jon Fernquest]

My take on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia seems to be about no ego and collaboration without authorship per se which is the way that every good computer programmer is taught to work and that's who founded and runs Wikipedia.

Everyone is free to set up a User page, but it should specifically be about the work that the user is doing on Wikipedia. I set one up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jonfernquest

Despite the no original research rule, anything that would be covered in a review of the literature is fair game and that can drill pretty deep, like I'd be willing to wager a posting on the author of Signal & Noise, covered in your last posting would be legitimate.

I think that the beauty of Wikipedia is that the no ego/n author rule encourages people to contribute and share information.

Pretty soon it should be better for a cursory view of a subject than any other reference work out there, particularly in areas of the world that are not so well-endowed with books.

[Another Damned Medievalist]

wikipedia is all about ego and personal agendas.

[Jonathan Dresner]

The distance between the standards and the practice is pretty large. And miswriting someone's name because that's the way news outlets frequently misspell it.... tasteless.