The Wikipedia Effect

  On 4/15/2010 at 3:40 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 4/14/2010 at 9:50 PM, TwiddleBot said:

yeah or politicians who try to remove criticism from their articles, that kind of stuff. it's hilarious when they get caught, too.

 

but that's why the talk pages are so nice.

 

as for research articles i think that rule is completely 100% fair. you should only be able to use research that has been published in peer-reviewed journals, otherwise you'd be wading through articles published by every joe who decided he figured out the mysteries of the universe on his first trip. featuring such wonders as 'joe's theory of free spiral oblivion orgone energy'.. because like spirals, they're everywhere in like nature, man.

 

 

So let's say Einstein wants to post on the Quantum Physics page. Who does he cite?

he does not

wikipedia is neither citable or a primary source

  On 4/15/2010 at 4:55 AM, kaini said:

  On 4/15/2010 at 3:40 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 4/14/2010 at 9:50 PM, TwiddleBot said:

yeah or politicians who try to remove criticism from their articles, that kind of stuff. it's hilarious when they get caught, too.

 

but that's why the talk pages are so nice.

 

as for research articles i think that rule is completely 100% fair. you should only be able to use research that has been published in peer-reviewed journals, otherwise you'd be wading through articles published by every joe who decided he figured out the mysteries of the universe on his first trip. featuring such wonders as 'joe's theory of free spiral oblivion orgone energy'.. because like spirals, they're everywhere in like nature, man.

 

 

So let's say Einstein wants to post on the Quantum Physics page. Who does he cite?

 

he does not

wikipedia is neither citable or a primary source

I know that. i mean that if Einstein wanted to post some information on the quantum physics page (or on relativity), on wikipedia, he would have to add a citation to something. Which is ummm, ridiculous.

  On 4/15/2010 at 3:59 AM, chenGOD said:

i dunno, i thought he got on relatively well with quantum physics.

His attitudes on QM were pretty complicated/interesting; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr–Einstein_debates (beware geeked-out wikipedia-effect).

  On 4/15/2010 at 8:16 AM, baph said:

  On 4/15/2010 at 3:59 AM, chenGOD said:

i dunno, i thought he got on relatively well with quantum physics.

 

His attitudes on QM were pretty complicated/interesting; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr–Einstein_debates (beware geeked-out wikipedia-effect).

obvious pun was not obvious?

  On 4/15/2010 at 3:40 AM, chenGOD said:

So let's say Einstein wants to post on the Quantum Physics page. Who does he cite?

  On 4/14/2010 at 9:50 PM, TwiddleBot said:

research that has been published in peer-reviewed journals

  On 4/15/2010 at 3:00 PM, TwiddleBot said:

  On 4/15/2010 at 3:40 AM, chenGOD said:

So let's say Einstein wants to post on the Quantum Physics page. Who does he cite?

 

  On 4/14/2010 at 9:50 PM, TwiddleBot said:

research that has been published in peer-reviewed journals

I mean he wants to post his new original research, after he's won all his awards and shit.

What if this guy who won the Fields Medal wants to post original research?

  On 4/15/2010 at 4:55 AM, kaini said:

  On 4/15/2010 at 3:40 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 4/14/2010 at 9:50 PM, TwiddleBot said:

yeah or politicians who try to remove criticism from their articles, that kind of stuff. it's hilarious when they get caught, too.

 

but that's why the talk pages are so nice.

 

as for research articles i think that rule is completely 100% fair. you should only be able to use research that has been published in peer-reviewed journals, otherwise you'd be wading through articles published by every joe who decided he figured out the mysteries of the universe on his first trip. featuring such wonders as 'joe's theory of free spiral oblivion orgone energy'.. because like spirals, they're everywhere in like nature, man.

 

 

So let's say Einstein wants to post on the Quantum Physics page. Who does he cite?

 

he does not

wikipedia is neither citable or a primary source

agreed, but i cant stand people and intellectuals that just berate wikipedia as a horrible idea.

there are pros to it that many seem to ignore. I agree, DONT take wikipedia as face value, that should be a fucking default in interpreting information. there are tons of errors, but its a huge amalgamation of contributions from all parts of world societies.

That said, any wikipedia article that has some sort of value to it has numerous citations, which reviewed individually would prove immensely more valuable than the articles themselves. If not, as a social "pedia", you have a right to challenge what has appeared on the website to undergo an edit.

Dont get me wrong, Im not advocating citing wikipedia articles in any form of scholarly writing, but its potential as an incredibly useful social AND academic tool cannot and should not be ignored.

wikipedia as a primary source? absolutely not. however there is a benefit to the site, say I need to brush up on a certain Soviet order issued...I can check the wikipedia article, and if it is of substance, there will be some sort of link or reference to a book or site containing the original unadulterated order.

  On 4/16/2010 at 4:37 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 4/15/2010 at 3:00 PM, TwiddleBot said:

  On 4/15/2010 at 3:40 AM, chenGOD said:

So let's say Einstein wants to post on the Quantum Physics page. Who does he cite?

 

  On 4/14/2010 at 9:50 PM, TwiddleBot said:

research that has been published in peer-reviewed journals

 

I mean he wants to post his new original research, after he's won all his awards and shit.

What if this guy who won the Fields Medal wants to post original research?

if he wants to do this, why is he using wikipedia rather than initially peer-reviewed scientific journals and papers, then IEEE and subsequently new scientist, scientific american etc?

the majority (not all) of complaints about wiki are due to misunderstanding of what it is and what its purposes are.

or, to put it another way - if an einstein wants to publish his research tomorrow, he would not choose wiki, which everyone knows is unreliable by definition, as his way to do so.

good point. any scholar worth his meddle shouldn't be concerned with expounding and justifying his own ideas on a social network. as much as i hate to say this, there is a good reason in most cases for the need for intellectual consensus.

it's designed to discourage people like the timecube guy

it is a good policy, imo.

  On 4/16/2010 at 5:00 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

I can't stand when braindead and self centred americans make edits to wikipedia and say something like "the film is due out this summer" or just anything that forgets that america does not count as the entire world.

revise that to anything time-dependent - 'in her recent movie, waiting to exhale...' as well as 'very own' - 'in her very own recent movie'.

i can understand why wiki editing is declining, because i would definitely contribute more actual content if i didn't have to spend time reverting this crap.

  On 4/16/2010 at 4:47 AM, kaini said:

  On 4/16/2010 at 4:37 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 4/15/2010 at 3:00 PM, TwiddleBot said:

  On 4/15/2010 at 3:40 AM, chenGOD said:

So let's say Einstein wants to post on the Quantum Physics page. Who does he cite?

 

  On 4/14/2010 at 9:50 PM, TwiddleBot said:

research that has been published in peer-reviewed journals

 

I mean he wants to post his new original research, after he's won all his awards and shit.

What if this guy who won the Fields Medal wants to post original research?

 

if he wants to do this, why is he using wikipedia rather than initially peer-reviewed scientific journals and papers, then IEEE and subsequently new scientist, scientific american etc?

 

the majority (not all) of complaints about wiki are due to misunderstanding of what it is and what its purposes are.

or, to put it another way - if an einstein wants to publish his research tomorrow, he would not choose wiki, which everyone knows is unreliable by definition, as his way to do so.

Maybe he believes that information should be free, and not locked away behind prohibitive subscription fees?

I understand exactly what you're saying, but surely wasn't the idea behind wikipedia supposed to be that it became a peer-reviewed source of information?

if Time-Cube people post, the peers review and send that shit off the site. Someone makes too many bad/wrong edits and their edits are automatically subject to preview before going live.

I swear if I win the lottery, I'm buying subscriptions to as many journals as possible and paying a bunch of people a reasonable amount to catalogue that shit in a free searchable database.

:) (:

  On 4/16/2010 at 5:25 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 4/16/2010 at 4:47 AM, kaini said:

  On 4/16/2010 at 4:37 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 4/15/2010 at 3:00 PM, TwiddleBot said:

  On 4/15/2010 at 3:40 AM, chenGOD said:

So let's say Einstein wants to post on the Quantum Physics page. Who does he cite?

 

  On 4/14/2010 at 9:50 PM, TwiddleBot said:

research that has been published in peer-reviewed journals

 

I mean he wants to post his new original research, after he's won all his awards and shit.

What if this guy who won the Fields Medal wants to post original research?

 

if he wants to do this, why is he using wikipedia rather than initially peer-reviewed scientific journals and papers, then IEEE and subsequently new scientist, scientific american etc?

 

the majority (not all) of complaints about wiki are due to misunderstanding of what it is and what its purposes are.

or, to put it another way - if an einstein wants to publish his research tomorrow, he would not choose wiki, which everyone knows is unreliable by definition, as his way to do so.

 

Maybe he believes that information should be free, and not locked away behind prohibitive subscription fees?

I understand exactly what you're saying, but surely wasn't the idea behind wikipedia supposed to be that it became a peer-reviewed source of information?

if Time-Cube people post, the peers review and send that shit off the site. Someone makes too many bad/wrong edits and their edits are automatically subject to preview before going live.

 

I swear if I win the lottery, I'm buying subscriptions to as many journals as possible and paying a bunch of people a reasonable amount to catalogue that shit in a free searchable database.

 

:) (:

believe me i completely get what you're saying - more than once blackdown (martin clark) has put stuff in citable material so the dubstep article could be improved. the purpose of wikipedia is to replicate other information that has been verified true. the verification is not wiki's job or purpose, that's for other journals or websites or whatever. the original idea of peer-reviewed information is better replicated by larry sanger's nupedia. but that hasn't taken off to 1/100th the extent wiki has. so i'm making do with most popular tools that i have access to when it comes to conveying information.

i find wikipedia to be a pretty valuable resource. in my experience, it's been pretty accurate, though a lot of its hardcore science articles tend to be pretty poorly presented (i'm pretty sure there was a big comparison of articles from wikipedia and popular, published encyclopedias that found wikipedia to be more accurate). i never use wikipedia when writing a paper, but i sure as hell use it just about everywhere else -- hell, it could be pretty useful as a first-stop when writing papers, too. it's a shame the editing community is becoming so inbred... pretty soon the hardcore editor douches will drive all the more casual, but balanced, editors leaving the wiki with a small set of close-minded douchebag editors. that would suck.

  On 4/14/2010 at 5:54 AM, doorjamb said:

my roommate used to do this all the time on acid or E

 

I'd wake up to piss at 4 in the morning and he'd be like "dude did you know there's a college in the Mall of America?"

LOL

post of that day for sure

How 'should' I make pork rinds?

  On 4/16/2010 at 6:00 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

  On 4/16/2010 at 5:04 AM, kaini said:

  On 4/16/2010 at 5:00 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

I can't stand when braindead and self centred americans make edits to wikipedia and say something like "the film is due out this summer" or just anything that forgets that america does not count as the entire world.

 

revise that to anything time-dependent - 'in her recent movie, waiting to exhale...' as well as 'very own' - 'in her very own recent movie'.

i can understand why wiki editing is declining, because i would definitely contribute more actual content if i didn't have to spend time reverting this crap.

Yeah truth. I think one of the biggest drawbacks to wiki is that too many people make edits without first reading how to write a wikipedia article. the amount of times I see blatantly non-NPOV stuff, it's just...eugh.

i used to be very very enthusiastic about it but my edit stats speak for themselves. last significant thing i did was create a GAS discography.

information without action is like having balls but no penis.

repeat this three times aloud everytime you find yourself reading for no definite purpose.