Okay, the applause was modest, not wild... But on December 14, 2011, I did in fact deliver a 45-minute presentation about Wikipedia to 17 students and 3 teachers at Cheltenham High School, near Wyncote, PA.

The students were a mix of "gifted program" kids invited to attend (if they could get out of their scheduled core classes at that time) as well as some journalism elective students.

I have uploaded the presentation here -- and it is best viewed in "slide show" mode (otherwise, many of the slides have too many layers of content to see in standard mode). Of course, I was making some funny and insightful verbal comments here and there, which doesn't come through electronically, of course. (Maybe I ought to record an audio track to the presentation, then post it on YouTube. Think that's worth it?)

Anyway, some of the highlights of the presentation:

• Rage face!
• Kinky sex adventures with donkeys
• Hilarious hoax vandalism
• None of the students edit Wikipedia regularly
• Larry Sanger is virtually unknown to students, while Jimbo is known by 45%
• Cheltenham High School blocks Wikipedia from students' web browsers

My Powerpoint (2003) could not open the file. You might consider writing it to a PDF.

The many layers would never translate properly to a PDF.

I've uploaded another version that should be compatible with older editions of Microsoft PowerPoint. Will you try again, Gomi, and let us know how it works?

I was able to read the revised version. Funny, I thought I had a converter. It is possible that if I had renamed the original file to "file.pptx" it might have worked. Screw Microsoft.

I did a quick review of the presentation -- I'll read it more thoroughly when I have more time. In terms of coverage of the subject matter, I thought the presentation was generally excellent.

As one might imagine, I have a few differences with Greg about emphasis, but by and large I think the presentation was extremely well put-together, and represented substantial research and good organization.

A minor quibble is that, in my opinion, it used far too many Powerpoint builds, fly-ins, and other dynamics.

I hate those, too, but I thought that they might keep high school brains awake.

At my high school, a sex talk speaker used a cinder block on a chain and a high school male student lying on his back on a table to provide an effective analogy on how unprotected sex can be dangerous to your health.

The guy came close to crushing the student's "Mr. Happy," but the guy got his point across.

Maybe you should try that method to explain the dangers of reading and editing Wikipedia to high school students?

Presentation looks good to me. You take a different approach than Judd Bagley. His focuses on the institutionalized administrative corruption he faced when he interacted with Wikipedia. Yours focuses on Wikipedia's content problems. Thus, I think both of your presentations would complement each other.

I try to avoid installing buggy microsoft crap on my machine. Could somebody provide a synopsis?

There's PowerPoint Viewer, which might not be quite the load on your computer. Or, I might actually narrate this and turn it into a video for YouTube.

But, until then, the synopsis is fairly simple:

(1) Point out Wikipedia's flaws. Flaws as enumerated by the co-founders of Wikipedia!
(2) Wikipedia has an (increasing) stranglehold on Google. Verbally, I mentioned monoculture in farming (thanks, Gomi)!
(3) The University of Minnesota found that Wikipedia's accuracy is not improving over time.
(4) Wikipedia is inferior to the Medscape Drug Reference, when it comes to pharma info. (Thank you, Mbz1, was it?)
(5) The vandalism of U.S. Senators study.
(6) About a dozen quick examples of journalists misusing Wikipedia, and journalists noting Wikipedia's mistakes.
(7) Where was Mike Ilitch born? (Includes a rage face -- thanks, Zoloft!)
(8) Comparing article ledes from various sources. Audience participation -- they each select the lede they prefer -- almost guaranteed that the majority will not choose Wikipedia. Some verbal comments that aren't conveyed in the PowerPoint.
(9) Cheltenham High School isn't "in" Wyncote, PA, despite what Wikipedia teaches.
(10) Cheltenham doesn't have a radio station, despite what a crafty vandal sneaked into the Wikipedia article about the school. The hoax stuck for over 6 weeks and 2,200 page views.
(11) Three (anonymized) examples of Wikipedia Review paid editing clients whose Wikipedia situations were improved with my help.
(12) Other sources of Wikipedia criticism, sign off, and thank you.

Epilogue -- published to the deck after the live presentation was completed; itemizing the results of a survey I administered to the students (and 3 teachers), immediately prior to the talk.

Am I the only one that cringed a little when opening this because of the wide possibility of "shock" could be? I somewhat expected the topic based on a previous post, but that title is wide open to some really bad interpretations. ;/


"Cheltenham High School blocks Wikipedia from students' web browsers"

Good.

Nice job. Did you drop by Bill Cosby's mom's house?

Zabba zabba zabba.

Thank you, Greg. I had the same problem that Gomi did--the latest version of Powerpoint isn't compatible with anything else.

Showing that Wikipedia has an accuracy problem will be difficult, as you know. I would expect any
Wiki-nerd to attack you for using that Univ. of Minnesota study, because oh god, it's from 2007,
and Wikipedia is getting better all the time.

The next time you do one of those presentations, you ought to use a few of the charts I've made.

Plus, you ought to make fun of some of their freakier denizens. Gerard and Co. being a good start.

Sweet jesus, Powerpoint Viewer is free. Stop acting like Mactards that sneer on non-OpenOffice acolytes.

Nice presentation!

I have an example of an article that has gone way downhill: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donegal_fiddle_tradition

This is one of those articles that someone unfamiliar with the topic is completely unable to discern a problem with (apart from the awful writing), while someone who (like me) actually knows the topic well will find (factual) howler after howler. I wrote the original version of this article--for Nupedia. It's pretty much gone downhill since I updated it slightly for Wikipedia, lo these many years ago. Among the problems are that the only fiddler pictured is a guy from Newfoundland (not Ireland--it's the Donegal fiddle tradition, for chrissakes!), who I've never heard of. He's been up there for years. That's of course just the tip of the iceberg...

Funny how your name isn't anywhere in the Wikipedia edit history for that article. Do they just write you out of everything, Dr. Sanger?

Huh, well, I apparently stopped working on it before the earliest currently-available version was saved...I believe this is all my text.

Dr. Sanger, is there any way you can make up a list of articles you wrote for Nupedia or Wikipedia,
very early on, that have since been mangled into unrecognizable hash? I'd be willing to bet that
you wrote a lot of material that has since been edited to death.

One of my favorite messes is Kirby Company (T-H-L-K-D). What a disaster. And has been
for a very long time.

Is it not also the case that a certain amount of early article history was lost during the database conversion from one wiki to another in the early days? In addition, while perhaps not applicable in this case, article revision history is often effectively lost due to page moves. Articles which I know I started in 2001 and early 2002 now appear to have sprung into existence fully-formed at some later date.

What! That's world famous fiddler Patrick Moran (musician)! Just look at the refer....oh, there are no references. Never mind.

I think that's a little unfair, not to mention anti-Canadian. Maybe his parents were from Ireland (Patrick Moran sounds rather Irish). Maybe his ancestors for umpteen generations back were masters of that tradition. Maybe he spent years in Ireland studying it, with his grandfather or some other master. Maybe he's been acclaimed by those familiar with the tradition for his superb knowledge of it.

After all, Chopin was born in Poland and composed most of his works in France. Yet possibly the most acclaimed performer of his work in the 1930s was Alfred Cortot, who was Swiss.

Both had French fathers. Cortot trained and lived in France until his activities for the Vichy regime made him unwelcome.

His article, which looks suspiciously as if it were written by himself says he plays Sliabh Luachra style which is from Munster, not Donegal.

That's not inconsistent with my point. We don't know if this chap's father is Irish, or whether he spent much time in Ireland.


That sounds like a killer!

I am terribly concerned that this thread is creeping away from the "me, me, me" focus that it should maintain.

Well, it's easy to fix. Just claim you have a French father.

You want Kohs to smash himself in the yabilky with a cinderblock as a metaphor for reading Wikipedia?

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No, he would come close to smashing a high school student's gonads. Did you not read my description in its entirety? Real teens don't do wiki.

That was a quite fine powerpoint/presentation, packed with fun details. The key to using wikipedia successfully is knowing its flaws. Also the key to monetizing it as well, I guess.