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School vs. Wikipedia

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Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#441

Post by dtgriscom »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #191
aimor wrote: post #89

Every now and then I like to read through Wikipedia pages for things I know more than the average person on. It keeps me skeptical of the things I read on there. For people unfamiliar with a subject (students) I think Wikipedia pages are misleading, poorly organized, and sometimes wrong. That doesn't make Wikipedia useless, but the author's best advice is to use Wikipedia as a map to other sources of information. I d…

When was the last time you read through a copy of Encyclopedia Britannica? Have you done an apples to apples comparison? No encyclopedia is perfect, but as far as I can tell the "standard" encyclopedias are a lot worse. My grandparents had bought a copy of Britannica decades ago and they had something like 50 years of its yearbooks. I would cite it sometimes and no one at school batted an eye. I remember reading thro…

Back in the late '50s, my dad had just gotten his first significant paycheck. That evening, Mom and he were admiring the cash on the kitchen table, when the Encyclopedia Brittanica salesman knocked. And that's all she wrote.

By the time I was able to read, we had two separate complete editions of the Brittanica, and he'd read both through, A-Z.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#442

Post by emilfihlman »

m463 wrote: post #272
throwaway09223 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time you read through a copy of Encyclopedia Britannica? Have you done an apples to apples comparison? No encyclopedia is perfect, but as far as I can tell the "standard" encyclopedias are a lot worse. My grandparents had bought a copy of Britannica decades ago and they had something like 50 years of its yearbooks. I would cite it sometimes and no one at school batted an eye. I remember reading thro…

Maybe traditional encyclopedia might give wikipedia a run for the money on subjects, say toilet paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper But wikipedia is far ahead on more practical articles like which way the toilet paper goes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation

This makes me hate Wikipedia deletionists all the more.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#443

Post by teddyh »

jholman wrote: post #356
hindsightbias wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wiki is transparent in a self-referential sense only. History started in 1992. If there’s no hyperlink, it’s lost. Pick any wiki page and see all the dead, rotting citations. I’d bet any mining of actually working citations would average closer to 2015. It used to be people citing something from the 70’s or 80’s would get strange looks from people who lived then, now I see Millenials looking at Gen-Z kids that way. H…

Pedantry alert, but it drives me crazy: "Wiki" is a type of software, like "editor" or "web browser". It is not the name of wikipedia. Yes yes, language evolves, but this is like someone deleting the Internet Explorer link from their Windows desktop and saying "I deleted the internet from this computer, I don't have the internet any more".

See also “crypto” and “text”.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#445

Post by davegauer »

pogform wrote: post #380

> And holy hell, don’t get me started on how they teach math or English, or this new "Code Red" shit. I'm really interested in this off-handed remark from the author. Not having children of my own, and being many years removed from the US public school system, what exactly are they getting at here? I'm assuming it's related to common core?

School shooting drills.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#446

Post by janandonly »

chris_wot wrote: post #416
throwaway09223 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time you read through a copy of Encyclopedia Britannica? Have you done an apples to apples comparison? No encyclopedia is perfect, but as far as I can tell the "standard" encyclopedias are a lot worse. My grandparents had bought a copy of Britannica decades ago and they had something like 50 years of its yearbooks. I would cite it sometimes and no one at school batted an eye. I remember reading thro…

Yes, but good authors are routinely removed from Wikipedia by a mob of less than great editors. Happens all the time. Happened to me. For a sample of my work, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Baker

What if you happen to have a minority view that happens to be the correct one?.

No amount of wiki editors can protect you from “mob” changes on their platform.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#447

Post by teddyh »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #284
aimor wrote: post #89

Every now and then I like to read through Wikipedia pages for things I know more than the average person on. It keeps me skeptical of the things I read on there. For people unfamiliar with a subject (students) I think Wikipedia pages are misleading, poorly organized, and sometimes wrong. That doesn't make Wikipedia useless, but the author's best advice is to use Wikipedia as a map to other sources of information. I d…

Here is a simple idea that AFAIK has not been tried. Limit "External Links" to only websites found in Google Scholar. More specifically, limit them to only academic sources. (Maybe limiting to .edu or country-specific educational TLDs, e.g., ac.uk, etc. is better. I realise Scholar is hardly a reliable filter for non-commercial sources, given Google's incentives. Remember "Knol".) This could be an option. Maybe an HT…

> Limit "External Links" to only websites found in Google Scholar.

Do we really want Google to have even more authority of what is considered accepted truths in society?

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#448

Post by Archelaos »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #191
aimor wrote: post #89

Every now and then I like to read through Wikipedia pages for things I know more than the average person on. It keeps me skeptical of the things I read on there. For people unfamiliar with a subject (students) I think Wikipedia pages are misleading, poorly organized, and sometimes wrong. That doesn't make Wikipedia useless, but the author's best advice is to use Wikipedia as a map to other sources of information. I d…

When was the last time you read through a copy of Encyclopedia Britannica? Have you done an apples to apples comparison? No encyclopedia is perfect, but as far as I can tell the "standard" encyclopedias are a lot worse. My grandparents had bought a copy of Britannica decades ago and they had something like 50 years of its yearbooks. I would cite it sometimes and no one at school batted an eye. I remember reading thro…

I think Encyclopedia Britannica should not be the benchmark, but "real" scientific/scholarly encyclopedias and dictionaries.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#449

Post by amelius »

m463 wrote: post #272
throwaway09223 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time you read through a copy of Encyclopedia Britannica? Have you done an apples to apples comparison? No encyclopedia is perfect, but as far as I can tell the "standard" encyclopedias are a lot worse. My grandparents had bought a copy of Britannica decades ago and they had something like 50 years of its yearbooks. I would cite it sometimes and no one at school batted an eye. I remember reading thro…

Maybe traditional encyclopedia might give wikipedia a run for the money on subjects, say toilet paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper But wikipedia is far ahead on more practical articles like which way the toilet paper goes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation

Related: what do you do if the paper has 3 layers, and you are holding 2 layers of one turn and 1 layer from the next/previous turn, and the holder has a cover so you can't access the roll directly?

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#450

Post by nailer »

akolbe wrote: post #435
nailer wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve think people aren’t seeing the disclaimer, rather than ignoring it. An on screen notification that appears for first time users or when text is selected are possible user interfaces that would ensure people understand.

I get where you're coming from but it's not really practical. (For a start, how to decide which user is a first-time user, if there even is such a thing today?) What I will say is that for a while the Wikimedia Foundation was trumpeting things like that somewhat flawed Britannica study and gave out PR messages along the lines of "See, we are reliable and as good as Britannica. Even doctors trust us." (Some journalist…

Cookies indexeddb and localstorage are all good proxies for the first time a user has used Wikipedia on a device.
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