Using Wikipedia in the classroom: a cautionary tale

http://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/using-wikipedia-in-the-classroom-a-cautionary-tale/

by jcurbo • 12 years ago

105 80 12 years ago

dynamicecology.wordpress.com

brudgers2• 12 years ago

It didn't take much imagination to realize that this problem with Wikipedia is a vast improvement over traditional encyclopedias. Britannica would not have had an article, a public record of edits, or a way for a student to even participate in its improvement except perhaps via a few internships with limited responsibility well below authorship or editorial privilege.

It shows up on my computer, but it is still a human institution.

ForHackernews2• 12 years ago

Somebody wasted their time and effort, had their feelings hurt, and was discouraged in their interests.

That's not an improvement over traditional encyclopedias.

fixermark4• 12 years ago

Having your feelings hurt and appreciating (and overcoming) the sense of wasted time and effort is actually valuable experience for someone who is focused on academia (which one could infer, as the student in question was involved in an Honors Conversion).

A Wikipedia edit reversal is frustrating, but not as frustrating as a thesis pursuit or academic journal publication rejection. The takeaway I get from this story is actually that Wikipedia could serve as a lower-cost learning experience for budding young academics; the student got a real taste of having their input considered and rejected by a semi-anonymous stranger in a position of editorial power, which is a valuable (and hard) lesson to acquire at a young age.

brudgers2• 12 years ago

In certain of the characteristics mentioned above the negro would appear to stand on a lower evolutionary plane than the white man, and to be more closely related to the highest anthro-poids. The characteristics are length of arm, prognathism, a heavy massive cranium with large zygomatic arches, flat nose depressed at base, &c. But in one important respect, the character of the hair, the white man stands in closer relation to the higher apes than does the Negro.

Mentally the negro is inferior to the white. The remark of F. Manetta, made after a long study of the negro in America, may be taken as generally true of the whole race: " the negro children were sharp, intelligent and full of vivacity, but on approaching the adult period a gradual change set in. The intellect seemed to become clouded, animation giving place to a sort of lethargy, briskness yielding to indolence. We must necessarily suppose that the development of the negro and white proceeds on different lines. While with the latter the volume of the brain grows with the expansion of the brainpan, in the former the growth of the brain is on the contrary arrested by the premature closing of the cranial sutures and lateral pressure of the frontal bone. 3 This explanation is reasonable and even probable as a contributing cause; but evidence is lacking on the subject and the arrest or even deterioration in mental develop- ment is no doubt very largely due to the fact that after puberty sexual matters take the first place in the negro's life and thoughts. At the same time his environment has not been su:h as would tend to produce in him the restless energy which has led to the progress of the white race; and the easy conditions of tropical life and the fertility of the soil have reduced the struggle for existence to a minimum. But though the mental inferiority of the negro to [the white or yellow races is a fact, it has often been exaggerated; the negro is largely the creature of his environment, and it is not fair to judge of his mental capacity by tests taken directly from the environment of the white man, as for instance tests in mental arithmetic; skill in reckoning is necessary to the white race, and it has cultivated this faculty; but it is not necessary to the negro.

On the other hand negroes far surpass white men in acuteness of vision, hearing, sense of direction and topography. A native who has once visited a particular locality will rarely fail to recognize it again. For the rest, the mental constitution of the negro is very similar to that of a child, normally good-natured and cheerful, but subject to sudden fits of emotion and passion during which he is capable of performing acts of singular atrocity, impressionable, vain, but often exhibiting in the capacity of servant a dog-like fidelity which has stood the supreme test. Given suitable training, the negro is capable of becoming a craftsman of considerable skill, particularly in metal work, carpentry and carving. The bronze castings by the cire perdue process, and the cups and horns of ivory elaborately carved, which were produced by the natives of Guinea after their intercourse with the Portuguese of the i6th century, bear ample witness to this. But the rapid decline and practical evanescence of both industries, when that intercourse was interrupted, shows that the native craftsman was raised for the moment >above his normal level by direct foreign inspiration, and was unable to sustain the high quality of his work when that inspiration failed.

-- Encyclopedia Britannica 11th Edition

Hurt feelings are hardly the worst byproduct of Encyclopedia policies in regard to editorials and authorship.

https://archive.org/stream/encyclopaediabri19chisrich/encycl...

x1798DE5• 12 years ago

This seems to be a story that happens a lot these days - someone tries to make changes to a Wikipedia article, the changes are reverted and they make a blog post or run to the media about how unfair Wikipedia is. There are about 3 paragraphs on the talk page on this. The student and the experienced editor went back and forth maybe 3 times. The fact that a high school student didn't make high quality edits to Wikipedia should not be super shocking, and the reversions were all justified by the reverter. Maybe there's a culture shock, but it's part of the Bold-Revert-Discuss cycle that is integral to Wikipedia quality control. You make changes without asking permission, if someone comes along and disagrees with the changes, they revert to the consensus version, then you discuss it and try to reach a consensus.

Frankly, this seems like a perfect teaching tool - you've got someone right there willing to do the teaching for you, because they're engaging your student in a debate about the content of the material. Maybe the student doesn't get published along the way, but she can still get a grade, and she can learn the essential skill that is justifying her positions (or the equally important skill of accepting when you are wrong).

Hermel2• 12 years ago

This seems to be a story that happens a lot these days

Which could be an indication that there is also a problem with wikipedia. In particular, I think when someone takes a genuine effort to improve an article and that effort is reverted, there should be a clear indication of the reasons. In this case, whenever malte pointed to specific issues with the article, the student corrected them immediately.

if someone comes along and disagrees with the changes, they revert to the consensus version, then you discuss it and try to reach a consensus.

I don't see much effort to reach consensus on the editor's side. Most comments are in the style of "please read the rules before editing" - which is not very helpful.

x1798DE5• 12 years ago

If anything the problem with Wikipedia causing this is a PR problem, not a problem with the culture of Wikipedia. The articles I see are usually of the form, "I don't edit Wikipedia, I thought it would be this way, but it's another way and that was unpleasant!" You're always going to get that sort of situation - I could just as easily run to the media and say, "I tried posting a comment on HackerNews and it just dropped to the bottom of the comment stack and turned super light grey so that you could barely see it!" If these were well-formed arguments about the actual culture of Wikipedia and not just newbie-shock, it'd be a lot more understandable.

I don't see much effort to reach consensus on the editor's side. Most comments are in the style of "please read the rules before editing" - which is not very helpful.

I've said elsewhere here I think the whole situation would have been much more fruitful if the teacher had been or had engaged with an experienced Wikipedia editor to put these sorts of comments in the right context. Personally, I think the WP:SYNTH document is concise and clear enough that it isn't unreasonable to point to it after the reversion, but that's beside the point. The student has the option of continuing to make changes to their text to try and fix the problems the experienced editor pointed out, or if they think the changes are appropriate, go through another dispute resolution mechanism if the experienced editor is unwilling to budge. There are many such mechanisms, none of which were tried in this situation, because inexperienced editors don't know how to take advantage of them.

skierscott• 12 years ago

a high school student
About Meghan Duffy (author of post): I am an ecologist at the University of Michigan. My research focuses on the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, particularly in lake Daphnia populations.

I believe this student is a college student. Since it was reviewed by an expert in the field, I'm inclined to believe it was a quality edit.

Regardless, you had to two doctorates (one in Molecular Virology, other in evolutionary biology and behavior) duking it out. Looking at the difference between the two pages[1], [2] there doesn't seem to be a large difference. My guess is that this was a small point they were arguing over; on a large part, her edits were accepted.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_spreader

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Super-spreader&ol...

x1798DE5• 12 years ago

Oh, my bad. I was confused by the "Honors credits" thing. I didn't go to high school and in my college they didn't have that sort of thing, so I assumed that it was a high school thing like turning a regular class into an AP class.

Also, as for the changes that were "accepted" - the main article has now been reverted to the student's version since this article was posted. If I had to guess, I'd say it'll be re-reverted back to its original state shortly, then temporarily semi-protected if it starts an edit war. It's quite likely that this will spur a bunch of additional attention which will cause the student's changes to be refactored into something that the previous editors would find acceptable, and much of the student's research will be incorporated into the page.

niels_olson5• 12 years ago

the changes are reverted and they make a blog post or run to the media about how unfair Wikipedia is

I think this was a cautionary tale for educators considering similar projects. If you tried to learn how to surf and almost drowned three times before you got your feet back to solid ground, I think you'd be cautioning other people as well.

Frankly, this seems like a perfect teaching tool - you've got someone right there willing to do the teaching for you, because they're engaging your student in a debate about the content of the material.

If the goal is to learn about Wikipedia administrivia, then yes, it's a perfect teaching tool (the virologist Mahlke doesn't seem terribly interested in teaching epidemiology with statements like "see, the thing is..."). I will even grant you, there's a fair chance that being able to incorporate most Wikipedia administrivia into your online behavior is probably a good test whether or not a person is really able to act like an adult. That said, without realizing the primacy of the bureaucracy at the outset, I think most people agree first contact with the Wikipedia bureaucracy is generally a horrible experience. It's rather similar to learning to surf: most people give up before they try, and most who do try give up after the first attempt.

The be bold policy should now be "be bold, and time your edits. In the 1 in 20 chance they are contested, expect at least 10 times as much time will be spent in the bureaucracy. Once administrative action is taken, skim the key policies and guidelines (1) before saying anything. Expressing indignation will only make things worse."

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikipedia_policies_an...

VLM• 12 years ago

Well, look on the bright side, she only got bullied and reverted, whereas her hard work could have gotten the attention of the deletionists, and the entire page could have been wiped out. Why insult just one student by reverting, when you can insult an entire discipline by deleting?

GabrielF00• 12 years ago

I was a Wikipedia campus ambassador for two courses - one at Boston College the other at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. The students were assigned to contribute to articles and my role was to help them navigate Wikipedia. I thought both courses went well - the BC class in particular had a professor who was very involved in selecting articles, having the students write drafts and reflect on their work. The students wrote a lot of good content and I had four or five of their articles featured on the Wikipedia home page's Did You Know section for new articles (More would have been featured but Wikipedia's rules for what qualifies are pretty arbitrary). There were three cases out of fifteen that were problematic - in two cases someone expanded the article while the students were working on their drafts, pre-empting their work, in the third case after the class had concluded some editors felt that the student's work misrepresented the topic and rewrote it. Overall the students wrote well-sourced, well-written content and I think they had a good experience.

x1798DE5• 12 years ago

Looking at this particular case, I'd say the experience would have been much better if the teacher had been an experienced Wikipedia editor or had contacted one of the projects that deals with this sort of thing ahead of time to put them in touch with a mentor editor. The article mentions that seniority is important (I've never found that to be the case), but what's actually important is understanding the kind of content that Wikipedia is looking for. In this case, the reversions were mostly because of "original research" violations, where the student synthesized new opinions out of the sources. This is something you'd do if you were writing a high school report on a topic, but on Wikipedia you're really only allowed to summarize what the sources say. Having someone who understands that around would have helped both student and teacher understand why the material is being removed, and how it could be improved if they still wanted to contribute to the article.

niels_olson5• 12 years ago

You have a lot of thoughts about how this could have been done better. Have you passed any of these along to Professor Duffy?

fixermark4• 12 years ago

If I understand correctly, the "Talk" page on Wikipedia also has an archived edit history.

I'm looking at the most recent version [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Super-spreader] and the revisions [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Super-spreade...], and I'm having a hard time seeing the bullying---it looks like an individual defending an edit, another individual defending the revert with explanation of what is missing, and the first individual adding additional data to clarify that the original edit isn't "original research."

Can someone help highlight the bullying for me? Is there a subsection of the Talk history that I'm missing / can Talk history be deleted?

Hermel2• 12 years ago

I think the problem are the reverts without specific explanations. As far as I see, the student corrected all the specific errors that were pointed out. Reverting an article of someone who put a lot of effort into creating it without giving a clear and specific explanation is frustrating.

fixermark4• 12 years ago

Ah, good point. I didn't correlate the times on the edit/reverts on the main page with the Talk page updates.

ForHackernews2• 12 years ago

Thing is, on Wikipedia it isn't really up to you to decide something like that. That is considered original research. You need to have an academic, peer-reviewed, medical journal article that makes the claim that they are one and the same. Also, I'm not aware of any "dispute as to whether or not asymptomatic carriers should be considered super-spreaders," so perhaps you could also provide a source for that.

It's kind of subtle, so if your English isn't too good, or maybe you aren't so hot at reading tone over the internet, I can see why you'd miss it, but that response reads as dismissive, snarky and a bit patronizing to me.

fixermark4• 12 years ago

It's patronizing, but I wouldn't consider it crossing the line to bullying or abusive. I read it as someone who considers themself to be in a position of experience and authority counseling a newcomer on the rules of the road. Perhaps the "inner voice" that reads that text to me on the page differs from the student's inner voice?

It's hard to discern tone from text on a screen, and easy to attribute meaning to actions that did not carry that intent.

Disclosure: I'm a privileged white male.

pflats• 12 years ago

You kinda have to put it together, but the other author comes across to me as disingenuous and dismissive. Look at the edit log and the talk page together.

Wikipedian, 4/19: Deletes one new section of the article that he disagrees with. Entire comment is: " (-1,214)‎ . . (→‎Typhoid Mary: not a super-spreader. she was an asymptomatic carrier; super-spreaders are symptomatic)"

Student: 4/19: "There was dispute about whether or not asymptomatic carriers could be considered super-spreaders." Defends her position with un-Wikipedia-esque speech, reverts deletion.

Wikepedian: 4/20 Deletes every single thing the student contributed. (This is where things go off the rails.)

Wikipedian: "Also, I'm not aware of any "dispute as to whether or not asymptomatic carriers should be considered super-spreaders", so perhaps you could also provide a source for that."

The source of the dispute is that he reverted her edit; of course it exists.

The student then comes back with a source to defend that Typhoid Mary is considered a super carrier by serious sources, and gets no response.

Further, if you look at what the editor excised, it was a sincere edit, well-sourced, and deserved at least a modicum of respect for trying to help his pet project.

grkvlt• 12 years ago

Deletes every single thing the student contributed

Yes, this is what I don't understand. I think other commenters here haven't actually realised this is what happened, as well, and aren't seeing the problem.

One thing I find annoying about Wikipedia is that there is basically no owner or point of contact for the content. So, if I have an idea for a change, I can add a comment to the Talk page for the article, but it'll often languish there for months (years) on some pages. I've never gotten a sense of 'community' there, and although I've made 500+ edits and contributed new articles and been a member of a 'WikiProject' I still wouldn't class myself as a 'Wikipedian' nor would I know how to assign that role to someone else.

jmccree• 12 years ago

If you check the talk page of the student, you will see it's filled with 5+ "warnings" from the Wikipedian. I could see how that could be considered bullying.

ronaldx4• 12 years ago

On the original page, the page "owner" takes 7 edits to revert every single word that was not his/her own - leaving the page the same as their own original.

Note here that this represents the net change from 25 intermediate edits over 7 months: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Super-spreader&di...

Through this action alone, the owner is claiming that literally nothing of the student's work has merit, while their own work remains unquestioned.

Udo6• 12 years ago

I may be an unpopular opinion, but Wikipedia doesn't work. It's ruled by people who don't have quality on their minds as much as power, politics, and maintaining their fiefdoms. It's not their "fault" either, because the system disproportionally rewards and empowers people who have these traits.

Encounters with Wikipedians are almost always toxic and unpleasant, be it to discuss changes to specific articles, discussions about policies, and even when it comes to throwing new ideas around on how the status quo could be improved. That's because they are generally very pleased with the status quo. People that weren't have been driven out long ago.

One of these days, I hope there will be a meaningful fork, and I hopefully article versions will simply be voted on.

Actually if anyone is interested in doing an experiment in this space, shoot me an email, I'd like to work on something like that.

3rd3• 12 years ago

I’m curious, why do you think voting on article versions will make it better?

pan69• 12 years ago

I think it's voting edits, not articles that's meant here.

Udo6• 12 years ago

Moving towards a meritocratic model would be one of many steps that are worth experimenting with, but it can't be the only one. Culture needs to be addressed specifically, though if the current Wikipedia population stays just where they are that could be a great start. There would of course have to be some technical changes as well.

toomuchtodo• 12 years ago

One of these days, I hope there will be a meaningful fork, and I hopefully article versions will simply be voted on.

So Wikipedia driven by Stackoverflow's interface. Love it!

ronaldx4• 12 years ago

Absolutely agree that Wikipedia has these problems - I would never recommend that anyone edit Wikipedia and it loses a lot of expert knowledge by having significant barriers to contributing.

But most users don't see this. As a source of information, Wikipedia is unparalleled. There is nothing in existence that comes close.

So, it's difficult to say that Wikipedia doesn't work.

Udo6• 12 years ago

So, it's difficult to say that Wikipedia doesn't work.

True, it would be more measured to say that some aspects of it don't work. Specifically, it doesn't really work all that well as a method of curating and incrementally improving content. That's because content is only a byproduct of what's truly happening there. Granted, it's a pretty awesome byproduct given the circumstances, without being facetious I would even say that Wikipedia should be considered one of the world wonders by right.

However, we're increasingly coming up against the limitations imposed by its horrendous culture. The reactionary nature of that culture will mean increasing calcification, and a high rate of actions that are net-detrimental to content quality [citation needed]. At some point, we'll need to move on and find better paradigms for content curation.

jrochkind1• 12 years ago

Wikipedia has all these problems... and yet it somehow DOES work.

I mean, I choose not to spend much time trying to edit it myself, because of these issues. But I use it ALL THE TIME to look stuff up. Don't you? And my impression is I'm getting at least as high quality information as from traditional print resources. I suppose it's possible I'm wrong, but we get into all sorts of epistemological questions there.

Udo6• 12 years ago

I said it in this thread before: if it's working for you, that's perfectly OK. I don't mean to imply you're wrong. Whether you believe Wikipedia is the pinnacle of what's possibly achievable with human knowledge, or whether you merely think it's a pretty good compromise that delivers satisfactory results - if you're within that spectrum I'm not talking to you.

If that's the case, my statements are not intended for you. I'm not trying to convince happy people that they're actually sad. I don't want to convince anyone that something needs to be done. I tried to reach out to people who already believe that it's time to start experimenting with alternatives. For everone else, absolutely nothing needs to change.

Yes, I use Wikipedia every day. But that doesn't mean I believe we can't do much better (at least for a deeply subjective value of "better").

dragonwriter2• 12 years ago

It's ruled by people who don't have quality on their minds as much as power, politics, and maintaining their fiefdoms.

I think its ruled by people who just have different views of quality than their critics. Since quality is highly subjective, but people are frequently very heavily invested with the idea that their vision of quality is universal and objective, its very common for people who disagree with a speaker on what quality is to be described as not caring about quality.

Kim_Bruning• 12 years ago

Actually, there are many forks of wikipedia. (http://www.conservapedia.com/ and http://en.citizendium.org/ being 2 of the more well known forks).

If you want to fork, most information you need can be found here (wrt database downloads) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download . You might also want to look up http://mediawiki.org/ for the engine.

Voting on article versions could be a bit tricky. Can you come up with a voting system that wouldn't be gamed somehow? And how do you propose a voting system would counteract bias?

mawmawmaw• 12 years ago

This editor is having a couple of bad days. Here is my good faith effort. I think this editor had something bad happen in their personal life that made them very mean and vindictive. This editor has been using terse, aggressive, rude language towards other users, in addition to the edit discussed here. I would like to see this arbitrated at a higher level. This user should be given a week off and recommended to take a spa vacation and read Covey's note on “It's All Over” Syndrome. Then, all should be forgiven, forgotten, and we can all go forward. This is my hope.

Workaphobia• 12 years ago

Article makes it sound like the student was being shut out unfairly and that the entrenched editor was hostile or even sexist. This isn't borne out at all by the talk page. It looks like there was just an edit war and a call for citation, with further discussion pending.

watwut• 12 years ago

Article interprets wikipedian behavior as hostile, but where did you seen sexism? There is brief part where it discuss typical male vs female style of argumentation, but I found no sexism accusation there.

acqq2• 12 years ago

If you check the history yourself, you'll see that everything the student contributed was deleted twice by the wikipedian. The contributions were not modified, simply everything completely removed.

fyrabanks3• 12 years ago

I don't agree with it, but I could see how the author would justify those edits. The author rolled back edits that he/she felt were unfounded (whether or not they are is a topic for another debate). The student then reverted all those rollbacks without any discussion on the Talk page or edifying comments in their changes. The attempted discussion appears to have happened after this. The only difference between good- and bad-faith edits here is that the student does not understand Wikipedia policy.

Now, the way the original author responded is completely inappropriate given WP:DNB (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BITE). A couple people have already tried having that conversation with the author, and he/she still incorrectly feels the onus is on the (naive) editor.

shele2• 12 years ago

Before you frame this as a gender communication problem, I would consider actually talking to the Wikipedian you refer to in your article...

cpncrunch3• 12 years ago

As far as I can tell both editors were female (at least, Malke is a female name).

shele2• 12 years ago

Exactly those are the misconceptions you might clear up while talking to somebody ;-)

emsy• 12 years ago

I made similar experiences and heard stories worse than this all over the web. It may sound funny, but Wikipedia could learn a lot from games like LoL and Dota 2 and how they deal with bad behaviour. Right now I don't see anything happen, and that's the reason why I willfully deny Wikipedia any donation.

err4nt• 12 years ago

When I start a Wikipedia article, it gets expanded.

When I edit a Wikipedia article, it gets immediately reverted, often accompanied by ad hominem attacks on my character because the articles babysitter didn't want this or that section cluttering up his nice short little summary.

I am completely demoralized from editing Wikipedia, and though I still use it I SURELY won't be donating any of my time to helping that spectacle

araneae4• 12 years ago

I have an opposite experience. When I start an article, it gets flagged for deletion. Then I have to defend it.

If I expand an article no one seems to notice.

facepalm5• 12 years ago

Quote from the article: "However, men tended to assert their opinions as “facts,” whereas women tended to phrase their informative messages as suggestions, offers, and other non-assertive acts."

Seriously? This is just drivel.

I'm sorry her edits were undone, but that's hardly a gender issue.

Just try arguing with a feminist, then you won't see "informative messages phrased as suggestions, offers, and other non-assertive acts". In fact, that phrase disproves itself.

alukima2• 12 years ago

But it's not drivel. Men and women communicate differently, that's supported by many, many studies. She didn't accuse either sex of communicating incorrectly, which is the line you hear from SJWs.

I think she made a good point. Many people have commented that they thought his tone was fine. Others have said his tone sounded patronizing. I don't think anyone is wrong. We can't write off the people who don't share our communication style, which is what you're doing when you call it 'drivel'.

facepalm5• 12 years ago

Can you point me to some of those studies, please?

It sounds extremely sexist to me to make such a claim. My experience with men has been different as well. Also my experience with women (they are not all timid about their opinions).

In any case, I don't see the relevance of the theory to the Wikipedia incident. So why does she quote it? Because the Wikipedia editor happens to be male, and the quote is supposed to discredit all male opinions.

She wrote a whole blog article about it - is that an example of "an informative messages phrased as a suggestion, offer, or other non-assertive acts"? I don't think so - she disproves the theory, yet you defend it.

If you are a woman, you also disprove the theory, because you claim a fact: "But it's not drivel. Men and women communicate differently, that's supported by many, many studies." That's not a suggestion, offer, or non-assertive comment you made.

Thirdegree• 12 years ago

Not explicitly, but the difference in "assert their opinions as 'facts'" and "phrase their informative messages as suggestions, offers, and other non-assertive acts." is certainly, in my eyes at least, offering a judgement on which is better.

fyrabanks3• 12 years ago

This all goes on the baseless assumption that the original author is a male. If you look through the user's archived talk pages, there are many indications that the user is actually female.

elamton• 12 years ago

I deal with these kinds of people (described as 'male' in the article) on a daily basis, it's staggering how little self-consciousness they have.

You basically did exactly what was described, as you were opposing it.

facepalm5• 12 years ago

Right - basically you musn't disagree with a woman, otherwise it is sexism and bullying.

What is your job anyway - how come you deal with so many obnoxious men? Do you also deal with the same amount of women, and they are less obnoxious? Or are there perhaps many more men, and you tend to remember the obnoxious ones.

I have the impression you don't have much self-consciousness either. How does that align with your theory about the world?

aaron695• 12 years ago

I'm sorry but I'm sick of f@#$wit teachers thinking Wikipedia is a fun project for their students.

It is supposed to be the repository of human knowledge.

Not the quality such that a student 'learning' about a subject can do an assignment of editing it.

When this student has long gone, it's the Wikipedians who have to clean up the mess.

What real Wikipedians do is clean up vandalism, correct spelling and grammar, arbitrate differences of opinion.

They don't just sit around creating content then leave.

If you really want to help Wiki, work on teaching students the politics and how to do the real work that's needed to make it so great.

cpncrunch3• 12 years ago

Actually, if you look at this article you'll see that it did need expanding, and the student's edits were mostly an improvement. There were a few issues with sourcing our synthesis, but nothing major.

In my opinion we need to get more people like this involved in editing, rather than pushing them away. There are lots of articles that need help, and it's a great learning experience.

gPphX• 12 years ago

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whorunswikipedia Who Runs Wikipedia? (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)

Using Wikipedia in the classroom: a cautionary tale

Related Stories