Concordia hires Wikipedia expert
Concordia has hired a Wikipedian-in-residence to help the university understand how to use and participate in the encyclopedia, and how to diversify it from the dominance of white male editorship.
Concordia has hired a Wikipedian-in-residence to help the university understand how to use and participate in the encyclopedia, and how to diversify it from the dominance of white male editorship.
Michael Black 22:21 on 2019-07-07 Permalink
Maybe I misread it, but I was left with the idea that while she’s paid by ConU, only one day per week for this, it’s about improving wikipedia, rather than ConU.
That said, while I have my biases, wikipedia is often limited by the people making entries. They will read something, and rush to create an entry, but not have enough overview. I’ve niticed this in technical articles, but others too.
The Montreal Fringe entry is like that, when the definitiin is well defined elsewhere, and all it takes is to look at entries for other Fringes.
Even the various entries for family members lack info, and bits of information are just tacked on here and there. And no real attempt to connect them, so they can be lost. Cousin Louis has always been represented wrong, but few want to pursue his entry.
I should leave more notes at the talk pages, but I’m too close to edit those pages, though ironically I know the history because it’s what I’ve been reading about.
Michael
Kate 23:16 on 2019-07-07 Permalink
Michael, some years ago your criticism was more valid, but now, if you make statements on Wikipedia, you’re meant to add some sort of checkable reference, whether to another web page or to a more conventional source like a media article or a book.
Also don’t forget, if you know an article has mistakes, you can correct it, especially if you have a source that previous editors haven’t been aware of.
Tim S. 08:33 on 2019-07-08 Permalink
I largely agree with Michael. The problem with Wikipedia is not that individual facts are often wrong, it’s that the articles aren’t arranged to provide a comprehensive overview of a topic, so important bits can be left out, and facts that are not incorrect can nonetheless be presented in a way that distorts their importance. From what I understand of Wikipedia’s editorial structure, no one is responsible for addressing this, which is not surprising because it would be a lot of work. Frankly, I don’t know if it would be even possible in Wikipedia’s structure, because to provide a well-rounded, balanced overview of a topic requires some kind of individual authorial/editorial judgment of a nature that Wikipedia deliberately tries to avoid. That’s why I sigh when I see academic institutions, at all levels, try to figure out ways to make Wikipedia work. Just like in other fields (say, graphic design!) you sometimes have to pay to get a job done right. And universities should be encouraging people to pay for their students’ knowledge, not encouraging the students to give it away.
Kate 22:15 on 2019-07-08 Permalink
That’s the nature of crowdsourcing information. Somehow it doesn’t bother me if any two articles don’t have exactly the same structure, so long as important statements are referenced.