Scholars to Stop Pretending They Don't Use Wikipedia

[Eldritch]

Academics to 'embrace Wikipedia'

Students and academics at a world-leading London university want to build bridges between the Wikipedia website and formal research.

The online encyclopedia is one of the biggest resources for students, says the newly-formed Wikipedians at Imperial College.

But there is a reluctance to admit to this "elephant in the room", says the group's president, Vinesh Patel.

The group is planning an event to improve editing on Wikipedia pages.

The event to be held at Imperial College in April - the London Wikipedia Academy - is an attempt to address the often unspoken place of Wikipedia in students' research.

A known unknown

"The issue of how it's used needs to be explored, it's the most widely-used resource among students," says Mr Patel, a medical student at the university.

"Wikipedia is here to stay - it's a question of whether we come up to speed with it or try to ignore it."

Mr Patel says he wants to co-ordinate the way pages are edited by students and staff and to make the most of Wikipedia, rather than pretend it's not there.

"Students know there is an inherent unreliablity, as it's open edited. We're not trying to hide that.

"But it's a place where you can orientate yourself when you start a topic.

"The quality has improved and the readability is often second to none," he says.

But Mr Patel says there is a real gap in knowledge about how this free resource is being used.

Rather than swapping anecdotes about the use of Wikipedia, he says his group wants to move to a more evidence-based discussion about the place of Wikipedia in universities.

He always want to research how Wikipedia compares in reliability with other reference sources.

The website is not going to get any formal endorsement from Imperial College, but individual students and staff attending the conference will look at ways of improving what it offers to academic research.

In some US universities there are designated students who organise the editing of Wikipedia pages in their specialist areas.

Mr Patel also wants to use the Wikipedia model to enable students to work with museums and libraries to make more of their material accessible online.

Wikipedia, with almost 3.6 million articles, has been seen as an undeclared source of help for students' essays - but Mr Patel says that there is no reason to single out Wikipedia as a source for plagiarism.

"There are relatively sophisticated software systems to check for plagiarism.

"And is Wikipedia that different from other sources? You could plagiarise from a peer-reviewed journal. It's no more easy to plagiarise from Wikipedia."

Mr Patel says that attitudes vary sharply among academics towards Wikipedia, some receptive to its potential, some very much against it, because of its vulnerability to rogue information.

Charles Matthews, a former Cambridge maths lecturer who is set to address the meeting, has edited 200,000 items on Wikipedia, making him one of the most prolific editors of the online reference pages.

Wikipedia launched in 2001 and has 365 million readers per month.

BBC.

I was originally skeptical about Wikipedia, but I guess it's time to admit I was wrong. It's not perfect, but it is by far the best way to get a quick overview on just about any subject now.

[anonymaus]

Oh, really? How nice for us that they want to contribute to the central repository of all human knowledge--the success thereof having been seen to by the human thirst for knowledge, absent the aid of colorectally injured academic bureaucrats.

[Loki]

Wikipedia is absolutely awesome. After Apricity, my favourite website and resource.

[Grumpy Cat]

Heh. I use Wikipedia at work. There was almost revolt when it was blocked. Even the Sys Admin complained.

[Loki]

There's room for improvement though.

[Eldritch]

There's room for improvement though.

I've thought about this too. It seems that only a dozen or so discussion fora have their own Wikipedia entry -- Stormfront was the only name I recognized. Skadi, for example, doesn't.

I'm not really sure what kind of criteria they use to decide whether a topic is important enough for its own entry or not. But they definitely do not want entries just for advertising purposes. lei.talk probably knows more about this.

[Loki]

I've thought about this too. It seems that only a dozen or so discussion fora have their own Wikipedia entry -- Stormfront was the only name I recognized. Skadi, for example, doesn't.

I'm not really sure what kind of criteria they use to decide whether a topic is important enough for its own entry or not. But they definitely do not want entries just for advertising purposes. lei.talk probably knows more about this.

To be fair, we are but a small forum still. There are hundreds of fora our size, probably not worth an entry just yet.

[Wyn]

To be fair, we are but a small forum still. There are hundreds of fora our size, probably not worth an entry just yet.

It would have to reach a level of notability. Stormfront, for example, gets quite a bit of attention on the SPLC website and the ADL website and has probably been featured in news segments in North America. TA has a different ethos/goal entirely, and is unlikely to be classified as a hate site any time soon, and thus is less likely to receive attention from national media.

[mvbeleg]

There's room for improvement though.

I've thought about this too. It seems that only a dozen or so discussion fora have their own Wikipedia entry -- Stormfront was the only name I recognized. Skadi, for example, doesn't.

I'm not really sure what kind of criteria they use to decide whether a topic is important enough for its own entry or not. But they definitely do not want entries just for advertising purposes. lei.talk probably knows more about this.

The Apricity does have a small article in the obscure wiki called metapedia.
See the following link.

http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/The_Apricity

[CelticTemplar]

'Bout bloody time.