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Kynä Nimi
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Kynä commented on the article |Criss,Well, that's understandable, and thanks for being so receptive to my call-out in the first place! :D
Have a goodun. -
Kynä commented on the article |
(I think it's worth noting that the formatting of my last post was butchered by the comment system, for some reason.)
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Kynä commented on the article |
Thank you for getting back to me. I'm sorry to hear about your little... experience... with the site. I assure you, something so obvious would have been removed in minutes of submission. I'm all but certain it was blind misfortune that led your students to the article in time.
You said you thought Wikipedia "pretty worthless and silly", but if you still tell your students to go there, then apparently you don't actually think that. Why say it, then?
I'll be honest: I use Wikipedia on a daily basis, and I think most people should, so seeing such hyperbole leveled at the site sends me into defense mode. Please forgive my subsequent wordiness.
Again, I'm glad you aren't as closed to the site as your first post made it appear. Since it looks like you're exactly where a teacher should be on the subject (apparently you were there anyway), I suppose I'm done here-- Thank you for listening to my side of things, and always remember: Free information's the best kind of information! -
Kynä commented on the article |
I just want to start this off by saying that I understand where you're coming from as far as credibility goes on Wikipedia.
It's true, any schmuck(good word!) can edit it, but you must remember, for nearly every schmuck and putz screwing around with Wikipedia, there's a more dedicated, honest person trying to keep him(or her) in line. Rarely do blatantly wrong articles stay that way for more than a few hours--I should know. I've seen people vandalize Wikipedia in the past, and even in the most obscure articles (such as for the volcanic glass obsidian), the changes were corrected within fifteen minutes.
There are numerous college professors and other learned individuals who have made it a sort of hobby to correct faulty Wikipedia information. I had an English professor who admitted to spending an evening here and there correcting spelling and grammar flaws she noticed on the site. Articles do, of course, fall through the cracks, but Wikipedia isn't intended to be the end of a person's research: It's just the encyclopaedia. The key to scholarly use of the site is to check anything you doubt with another source--something as simple as a single Google search can give you a general consensus on a given fact's truthfulness.
Please don't discourage your students from accessing Wikipedia entirely. The information stored there can provide an invaluable start point for hours, days, or even years of learning.
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