09/03/2016
“Wikiality” - truth by consensus – if enough people support a Wikipedian statement it becomes true (The Colbert Report, July 30, 2006)
One of my first translation assignments in Thailand was a Government committee where we were looking at some vocabulary used. The word translated into English became, “Expert of Experts”.
In the article, http://www.infotoday.com/online/mar08/Badke.shtml the phrase; The elites of the academic world have a message for the rest of us: “We are the people who know things. If you want to know things, you have to come to us.”
I agree wholeheartedly with the following statement and look forward to upcoming related projects:
Academic administrators need to find ways to recognize Wikipedia writing as part of legitimate scholarship for tenure, promotion, and research points. When professors are writing the articles or guiding their students in article production and revision, we may become much less paranoid about this wildly popular resource. Rather than castigating it, we can use it as a tool to improve information literacy.
Admit it—you use Wikipedia too. Someone comes to you wanting to know how to find some good stuff on quantum physics, so you sneak a peak at the relevant Wikipedia article just so you won’t sound stupid to your patron. Or someone queries, “What year did George Washington die?” and you could look it u…