Assorted Blog CommentsI am finding that each new blog I run across recycles pretty much the same old hash of clueless twitterings from Wikipediot Press Releases and P-Mis-R, so why should I waste any creativity on them, either — does a rhetorical question need to end with a question mark? At any rate — and you know it'll be slow — I'll collect a number of my more scintillating blog comments here in hopes of recycling them into ever more focused laser beams of simply irresistible wit and e-lightenment.
QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Tue 18th December 2007, 10:14am)
Read 'Em And Weep : Myths To Cry By
It may be necessary to create a separate thread for it eventually, but I'd like to start a dynamic page or two for collecting real-life examples of fond notions about Wikipedia that one finds are still being chanted like mindless mantras in the more clueless corners of the blogosphere. When we have done that, maybe we can begin a more systematic deconstruction of how they diverge from the reality of Wikipedia.
Links For Later Development —Chronicle : Wired Campus ¤
Wikipedia's Founder Says the Site Has a Place in AcademeQUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ 07 Dec 2007 UTC 15:23)
Your assertion-in-passing about “the online encyclopedia’s efforts to improve the quality of its articles†could do with a modicum of the proverbial “further researchâ€.
One resource for that task, staffed by knowledgeable, if occasionally Rabelaisian, in-&-out-siders, is
The Wikipedia Review.
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ 08 Dec 2007 UTC 23:28)
Too much commentary on what students learn from Wikipedia stops with the content of articles and fails to examine what students learn from participating in the culture of Wikipedia.
Educators know that education is as much about process as it is about product. They understand that students “learn by doingâ€, by taking part in communities of practice. What do students learn by playing the Wikipedia online game? Answers to that question can be gleaned from those who have participated in the full range of Wikipedia activities and seen how it really operates beneath the surface. Those who wish to learn more, while escaping the troubles of personal participation, may sample the narratives and the occasional critical reflection that one finds at
The Wikipedia Review.
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ 10 Dec 2007 UTC 09:58)
The effects of using Wikipedia as a source of information is a research question.
The effects of participating more broadly in Wikipedian activities, from the editing game to the policy-making game, is another research question.
Even a bad source of information and a bad guide to the norms of research methodology can “
up the ante on critical thinking and information literacy†—
if the user is capable of reflecting on its deficiencies.
Whether Wikipedia helps or hinders the user in gaining that capacity is yet another research question.
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ 11 Dec 2007 UTC 15:39)
From
Wikipedia Review : Guide to Wikipedia for Reporters and ResearchersEducators are aware that learners have many different paths to knowledge. Among the most obvious are these:
- Learning by being told.
- Learning by doing things for oneself.
- Learning by watching what others do.
What do people learn from participating in the full range of activities provided by the Wikipedia website, considered with regard to each of these modes?
Some of the questions that educational researchers would naturally think to ask about the Wikipedia experience are these:
- What do people learn about the ethical norms of journalism, research, and scholarship?
- What do people learn about the intellectual norms of journalism, research, and scholarship?
For example, questions that one might ask under the indicated headings are these:
{1 b} «
What do people learn about the relative values of primary and secondary sources from reading the relevant policy pages in Wikipedia?»
{3 a} «
What do people learn about plagiarism from watching what others do in Wikipedia?»
¤
Can Google's New Open Encyclopedia Best Wikipedia?QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ 18 Dec 2007 UTC 00:39)
The notion that “Wikipedia works by letting everyone write articles that are then often corrected by experts†is sadly out of keeping with the reality of Wikipedia, where articles created by knowledgeable authors are more likely to be degraded over time by hordes of inept users and power-tripping administrators who neither know nor care anything about the subject matters in question.
Dan Colman : OpenCulture ¤
Betting Against Google’s Answer to WikipediaQUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ 17 Dec 2007 PST 22:28)
The notion that “a community of writers focusing on the same text will correct one another and improve the overall product over time†or that “the final text becomes greater than the sum of its authors†is sadly out of keeping with the reality of Wikipedia, where articles created by knowledgeable authors are more likely to be degraded over time by hordes of inept users and power-tripping administrators who neither know nor care anything about the subject matters in question.
This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
Meta-Templates For Meta-Con-Templation, If I've Said This Once, I'll Say It 10³ Times
Jonny Cache Meta-Templates For Meta-Con-Templation 
