Wikipedia culture is fundamentally alien to critical thinking and reflective educational practice. If educators don’t start figuring this out pretty soon, we’re all in a lot of trouble.

Jon Awbrey, 17 Jan 2011 @ 9:58 am

Halavais, Jdxxxe, et al. —

Those of us who criticize Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation in the severest terms have arrived at our criticisms honestly, through extended participation and observation of Wikipedist Culture as it actually exists. Five years ago many of us were saying the same things you are now — “What’s the problem? I don’t see any un-fixable problems!” — but now we know better, all too sadly so.

Professional educators know that years of experience are not easy to convey in a blog box or a sound bite or two, so the best I can do in this space is refer you to The Wikipedia Review, where people of sadder but wiser experience — from the still cautiously optimistic to those of us who have abandoned all hope for Wikipedia — are permitted to do what they cannot do on Wikepedian grounds themselves, to speak freely, without fear of censorship or banning, about the reality of what they see, and where you can find all the horror stories or insights that you desire.

Not a Doctor, Just Twice a Master,

Jon Awbrey, 18 Jan 2011 @ 1:36 pm