Wicked Wikipedia
Many authors now do their research online. Many journalists rely on information they pick up online. But perhaps we all ought to be a bit careful. How does one control the kind of abuse Dawn Cooper describes below? :
Wikipedia Online Encyclopaedia
Help or Hindrance?
If you want information these days the buzz word is ‘Google’. Apparently the Internet is there to provide you with searches online from the comfort of your own computer. If you are searching for information the maxim seems to be it ‘will be here and it will be right’. Wrong.
Let me explain: I and my four trustees act as the literary executor of a well-known author’s estate. We have the facts and we have no need to make assumptions; we are aware of the fabrication of family tales and we can and have been able to correct these and help all those interested in the said author’s life and works. Since the latter has all been catalogued we are confident that we can provide a full, complete and correct answer to any query.
The trustees decided to place information about our author on Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia. No sooner had we put up our entry than it was removed and another entry replaced it with all the wrong information lifted from a website that we had been taking a great deal of precious time trying to correct as much misinformation was appearing. So we corrected it by blanking the whole entry and starting again; our purpose in blanking the whole page was to conform to Wikipedia’s own request that everything on the site should be verifiable. The information we provided was just that. The other party changed back any alteration we made. Wikipedia called us vandals for blanking the page. Wikipedia were told who we were and refused to allow reversion to our original correct entry.In addition to people altering our submissions they were also re-writing the entry explanations in what can only be described as execrable English.
While this was going on the said parties were e-mailing us privately and their remarks did little add to our conclusion that we were dealing with aliens whose educational reach extended to little more than the oft repeated four letter word and incipient threats.
Wikipedia replied that we could only change what was incorrect, but since by now the whole entry was incorrect we began again! We felt we had not just a right but a responsibility to our author to put the correct information ‘out there’. Wikipedia again said we were vandals for blanking the page. But since it is obvious that even verifiable entries could be changed by anyone then exactly of what use is an entry in Wikipedia?
Someone even added to the entry that our author had been involved in the world of sewers some hundred years before his birth! As far as our feelings for Wikipedia go it sums up our frustrations entirely.
There has been considerable correspondence in the Guardian about Wikipedia and its facility in allowing self imposed editors to change work on line without first proving their credibility to do so. This is an important issue as any mistake on Wikipedia goes worldwide. Does anyone know a way out of this twenty first century labyrinth of madness?
Dawn Cooper
dfpcantab@yahoo.co.uk
Wikipedia Online Encyclopaedia
Help or Hindrance?
If you want information these days the buzz word is ‘Google’. Apparently the Internet is there to provide you with searches online from the comfort of your own computer. If you are searching for information the maxim seems to be it ‘will be here and it will be right’. Wrong.
Let me explain: I and my four trustees act as the literary executor of a well-known author’s estate. We have the facts and we have no need to make assumptions; we are aware of the fabrication of family tales and we can and have been able to correct these and help all those interested in the said author’s life and works. Since the latter has all been catalogued we are confident that we can provide a full, complete and correct answer to any query.
The trustees decided to place information about our author on Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia. No sooner had we put up our entry than it was removed and another entry replaced it with all the wrong information lifted from a website that we had been taking a great deal of precious time trying to correct as much misinformation was appearing. So we corrected it by blanking the whole entry and starting again; our purpose in blanking the whole page was to conform to Wikipedia’s own request that everything on the site should be verifiable. The information we provided was just that. The other party changed back any alteration we made. Wikipedia called us vandals for blanking the page. Wikipedia were told who we were and refused to allow reversion to our original correct entry.In addition to people altering our submissions they were also re-writing the entry explanations in what can only be described as execrable English.
While this was going on the said parties were e-mailing us privately and their remarks did little add to our conclusion that we were dealing with aliens whose educational reach extended to little more than the oft repeated four letter word and incipient threats.
Wikipedia replied that we could only change what was incorrect, but since by now the whole entry was incorrect we began again! We felt we had not just a right but a responsibility to our author to put the correct information ‘out there’. Wikipedia again said we were vandals for blanking the page. But since it is obvious that even verifiable entries could be changed by anyone then exactly of what use is an entry in Wikipedia?
Someone even added to the entry that our author had been involved in the world of sewers some hundred years before his birth! As far as our feelings for Wikipedia go it sums up our frustrations entirely.
There has been considerable correspondence in the Guardian about Wikipedia and its facility in allowing self imposed editors to change work on line without first proving their credibility to do so. This is an important issue as any mistake on Wikipedia goes worldwide. Does anyone know a way out of this twenty first century labyrinth of madness?
Dawn Cooper
dfpcantab@yahoo.co.uk
posted by SOAF Chairman at 2:16 AM
2 Comments:
I just came across an article that reported that an American college had formally informed students and professors that Wikipedia could no longer be cited as a source in the submission of papers. It is expected more educational institutions are expected to follow the same course.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/6423659.stm
"Internet site Wikipedia has been hit by controversy after the disclosure that a prominent editor had assumed a false identity complete with fake PhD.
The editor, known as Essjay, had described himself as a professor of religion at a private university.
But he was in fact Ryan Jordan, 24, a college student from Kentucky who used texts such as Catholicism for Dummies. He has now retired from the site"
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