[okfn-discuss] effort to improve "open science" article on Wikipedia... also see citizendium

Fri Sep 13 23:57:15 UTC 2013

On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 4:43 PM, Gene Shackman <eval_gene at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Wikipedia is, after all, quite unreliable, and poor. It's only virtue is
> that it's popular.

I disagree with this very strongly and ask (not demand, just request) that
you drop this assertion from the list discussion as it is not likely to
lead to productive discussion.

Whatever your personal vendetta against Wikipedia or your philosophical
objections, the claims you are making are not views shared by others here
obviously nor is it worth getting into discussing objective evidence (of
which there is much to refute your simplistic assertions).

The fact is, Wikipedia is what it is. You don't like it. Others love it.
Many people use it and appreciate it without strong feelings otherwise.

I personally have spent more time on other things outside of Wikipedia.
There are indeed reasons to have more formal publications. In fact,
Wikipedia itself is explicitly *not* for primary work and relies
essentially on citing work published elsewhere. Working elsewhere is very
important and justified.

I ask that you please stop attempting to discourage anyone interested in
working on Wikipedia. Go ahead and make positive assertions about why we
should do work elsewhere. But "because it isn't Wikipedia and, darn it, I
wish Wikipedia weren't so popular" is not a valid justification.

--
Aaron Wolf
wolftune.com
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