Professors caution students: Don't trust Wikipedia
Gazette Online, IA -39 minutes ago
By Carly Weber Last spring, after the shootings at Virginia Tech, University of Iowa journalism professor Meenakshi Gigi Durham went straight to the online ...


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Iowa is quite the anti-Wikipedia hotbed.

Can you believe this. It's frightening.

This is why Wikipedia is so scary:

I find stuff like



seriously worrying. It shows that Wikipedia propaganda has been at least in part succesful.

The realisation that Wikipedia is dangerous comes only with maturity or by being burnt by it. Sometimes if you're a minor academic, then believing in a stupid pop-psychological meme can partially shield you from reality, but only until your carefully written articles start conforming to the "wisdom of crowds".

Now that's immature, ill-informed judgment.

"And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness." (Alcuin)

Alcuin, eh? That's a new one to me.

Here's a tip Guy. If you ever care to visit York Minster; on the large beautifully carved chronicle of York's former Deans and Deacons at the back of the church, you'll find the name of a 12th century incumbent written in bold. The really improbably named:

Hugh SottoVagina

One can only guess that the name was coined by mischievous or hard-of-hearing Norman conquerors, having heard the locals whispering various Anglo-Saxon profanities at the Dean when his back was turned. "Pssst. You ****"!

It always gets a snort out of me anyway.

***Update***
Hey! Hugh's got his own biography! Its called "Hugh the Chanter". Again, this moniker may have been lost in translation.

Still no WP article, though.

Wikipedia has cancer inside it.

Whoever creates the article will now be damned as a WR editor.

How awkward! I was being a Google jerk and searching for my name to see how long it would take for it to pop up under this article... and I came across this message board as well.

I am "UI junior Matt Hepworth." And I'm annoyed.

In the good 15 minutes I spent talking to Carly (the reporter from the CR Gazette), I managed to get wildly misquoted. As a journalism student, this is not at all depressing. </sarcasm>

Here's what I'm quoted as saying:

"You have to almost look at it as an organism, a living, breathing organism,'' said UI junior Matt Hepworth, 20. "It's self-healing.''

He's referenced Wikipedia in speeches and research papers and uses it to cram the night before a big test.

"If you're going to look something up, that's my go-to,'' he said.

Out of all that, here's what I specifically remember saying:

"You have to almost look at it as an organism, a living, breathing organism,'' said UI junior Matt Hepworth, 20. "It (can be) 's self-healing.''

He's referenced Wikipedia in speeches and research papers and uses it to cram the night before a big test.

"If you're going to look something up (quickly), that's my go-to,'' he said.

I never said that I use it to cram before a test. First of all, I don't study. I rock at tests. If I EVER use WP to cram, it's so I can get a VERY general idea of a certain topic at hand (usually if I'm writing a paper, before I go to a real library and get legitimate published works.) It's not by any means my definitive source. I've referenced WP in class a few times in a discussion format, maybe two or three times in a gen-ed speech class (out of sheer laziness.) I can equivocally state that I've NEVER referenced WP in research paper.

My true, major usage of WP is when I'm bored, I'll surf around and read about different things, usually those of a pop culture nature. That's one huge advantage of the user-driven model, is that someone actually cares enough about SimCopter to write an article about it. (This came from me remembering playing the game when I was younger and trying to remember what game it was.) You won't find that in a regular encyclopedia. And true, I do like the idea that malevolent edits on WP are quickly reverted, but I also realize that this isn't always true in practice.

So I'd like to apologize to the readers of these forums. I'm not as stupid as I evidently was made to sound, I promise.

Sincerely,

Matthew Hepworth - "UI Junior"

(Oddly enough, a print version of this article showed up in my college newspaper today... it made me laugh.)

Well, like Bobby says a few posts above this one, since you're in Iowa, I guess you get a free pass?

The ironic thing is that I wasn't actually born in Iowa myself - I only moved here because I heard the whole state was anti-Wikipedia. I've only been living here for about 5 years... Also, last time I was in Iowa City, I saw that someone had actually opened an Ethiopian restaurant - I think it's on the corner of Gilbert and Washington..? Have you been in there, and if so, were you impressed? Hopefully it won't go out of business before I get a chance to check it out!

The sushi place they opened around there a couple of years ago was fantastic, but I can't remember the name now.

So this was amusing.

Someone apparently DID make the article, as it was there when I took a look upon reading this thread.

Oh, and it was someone who's first edit was to make that article and the subsequent redirects.

Oh, and someone had already put a speedy tag on it.

Oh, and the speedy tag was for vandalism.

I gotta give "the Shyest Fish in the Sea" some credit, that was a pretty impressive few minutes I was able to burn watching the bizarre scrambling ensue.

I wish I came up with it, in retrospect. Too funny.

Damn, they beat me to it as well.

Here's the tag added by some Wikignome:

Now here's the challenge, how to get my "Psst! You ****" mistranslation theory onto the wikipedia article. Using reliable sources.

Someone with a bit of sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=159218779

Takanami's is supposed to be pretty good... just haven't made it there yet, nor the the Ethiopian restaraunt... the name of which, I think, is David's. Close on the intersection, it's actually Linn and Washington, but I'm sure you wanted to know.

I guess having your name carved into the back of a church wall was the 12th century equivalent of having a wikipedia bio. Only in the case of Daniel Brandt, he was able to eventually get his article removed after 2 years. Poor old Hugh SottoVagina, well people are still snickering at him 900 years later.

Quite frankly, Matthew, I don't think your explanation sounds a whole lot more discerning than the newspaper's version. You need to be more thorough in your research and more rigorous in your analysis.