The World and Wikipedia - Andrew Dalby Options Rating

[Angela Kennedy]

I won't say I really read this as that would be a lie, but I took a look (it was very difficult to get my hands on a copy). I present the following review/quotes for your enjoyment...

Thanks very much for this Limey. A very useful review.

[A Horse With No Name]

Finally, as a little nugget to all of you. Dalby mentions the Review only briefly, but this is what he has to say. "Wikipedia Review is a forum populated by Wikipedia editors, whose attitudes range from fairly happy to extremely disgruntled. Like all forums you aren't involved in, the Review is penetratingly boring" (p. 76). There's another brief mention in the context of the Essjay scandal, but that's all he has to say for this little forum.

He actually mentions our Tarantino, though the sentence is so sloppily written that you don't know if Tarantino is on WP, WR or the Weinstein Company.

[GlassBeadGame]

I won't say I really read this as that would be a lie, but I took a look (it was very difficult to get my hands on a copy). I present the following review/quotes for your enjoyment...

Thanks very much for this Limey. A very useful review.

I agree. Writing a review of a good book is enjoyable work. Getting through this, even to the level Limey was willing to delve, is yeoman's service. His analysis and comments about this book seem perceptive and detailed.

[thekohser]

Count me among the consumers of Dalby's book. My brother bought me a copy as a belated birthday gift on Amazon back in late October (too late now to ask for a return credit).

However, I have to say that after reading the first 4 or 5 pages, I am engaged in the writing.

I may have to change my rating on Amazon! (Can you do that?)

[danielaword]

Wikipedia might be a reflection of the so-called "dumbing down" of society, but I have not seen any evidence that reference publishing has lost one cent due its presence.

Other than the fact that smaller and less-successful entities have gone out of business in recent years? It may be that the survivors of the shakeout caused by WP (such as Britannica) are aided by that too, but ultimately they're in the same sort of trouble as the others. Moreover, it's not so much the traditional-reference-work publishers themselves that we should be concerned about, but rather the professional editors who staff them. The publishing companies will do whatever they can to keep their profit margins intact as long as they can survive, and that usually means layoffs, pay reductions, and a variety of other cost-cutting measures that would reduce bottom-line impact, almost up to the point of complete dissolution.

The book publishing industry (at least in the US) has been a mess for years. The Internet has not helped, of course, but many of the problems facing the publishers have been self-induced and were in place long before WP showed up.

: well its across america, clearly goin to the dogs!

WIKIPEDIA IS WHERE POWERFUL RULE ONLY WITH BS EXCUSES!@

Wikipedia is such a corrupting influence on so many educational, ethical, and scholarly fronts that any contribution to it does nothing but lend aid and comfort to an enemy of education, ethics, and scholarship.

I am happy and delighted to at long last find a remark from Jon that I can enthusiastically endorse, highlight, and whole-heartedly agree with.

"Facing personal attacks" is often something one endures when you have anti-social (sociopathic?) tendencies yourself.

There is a gray area between constructive criticism and pejorative remarks about a person's character. It takes a fair amount of maturity to improve one's labors with the help of constructive criticism while soldiering on in the face of taunts, jibes, and similar forms of narcissistic wounding.

<b><I>Wikipedia is such a corrupting influence on so many educational, ethical, and scholarly fronts that any contribution to it does nothing but lend aid and comfort to an enemy of education, ethics, and scholarship, BASIC INTELLIGENCE.
ONLY GOOD ABOUT WIKIPEDIAREVIEW IS WHEN POSTING WIKIPEDOS CANT DELETE LOL, LET EM CHOKE!

[thekohser]

New-found appreciation for Dalby's book. Reading perhaps a paragraph or two per week, I'm finally up to page 77, where I discover the following:

Wikipedia Review hosts (among other things) self-promoting articles, deleted from Wikipedia, about people and businesses; it takes an anti-Wikipedia stance.

How did we all miss that, all this time?

[EricBarbour]

Well, it appears that Dalby's book was a sales disaster, so he's headed for minor-footnote status.

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,278,309 in Books

Even Wikipedia fans don't want to read crapola like that. Lih and Reagle are still the most popular books about WP, and neither of them
could be called "useful". Just puff pieces, which is apparently all that most Wikipedia people want to read. I see no evidence any of
this stuff has had a real impact on mainstream culture.

You were right to criticize Reagle, Greg. He's violently opposed to the promulgation of "bad news", meaning you can't trust
anything the guy says. Or writes.

This post has been edited by EricBarbour: Tue 13th September 2011, 4:35am