Questioning Authority • Evaluating Wikipedia Articles, NYT • The Learning Network Options

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Questioning Authority • Evaluating Wikipedia Articles

New York Times • The Learning Network
If Wikipedia is a collaborative project open to all, why are fewer than 15 percent of the site's …

[Jon Awbrey]

Re:
New York Times : Room for Debate
Where Are the Women in Wikipedia?
Henry Etzkowitz and Marina Ranga : Nerd Avoidance

Being an old-fangled Peirce-James-Dewey pragmatist, I strongly believe in a life of learning by doing.

And what I see the “Common 87% Man” doing and learning in Wikiputia is more than anything else an unexamined life of moral and intellectual cowardice.

Whether it's by nature or by accident I don't really care, but I can hardly help but rejoice that any fraction of humanity is spared that manner of learning by doing.

— Jon Awbrey • February 4, 2011 (8:18 pm)

[Jon Awbrey]

Re:
New York Times : Room for Debate
Where Are the Women in Wikipedia?
Henry Etzkowitz and Marina Ranga : Nerd Avoidance

Best Comment —

I'm a woman who contributed briefly to Wikipedia. What I found was that it was overrun [with] administrators who rivalled Robespierre in their humor quotient. Who the hell needs it? Not me. I don't mind a flame war once in a while, but the selfseriousness is too much.

I keep this in mind, by the way, when I read Wikipedia entries. The smartest people I've known have all been very funny, and Wikipedia is … not funny. So I assume that these things have been written by young shut-ins with a lot of time on their hands, and not really enough sense when it comes to proportion or how things go in life. Often the most useful things are the links.

— Amy • February 9, 2011 (5:48 pm)