In light of the recent "Essjay"gate at Wikipedia, thought this article might be of interest to some folks.It touches on some of the issues/problems (and possibilities) of information sources in this day and age.
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Source: - http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8820422

Online encyclopedias
Fact or fiction?
Mar 10th 2007
From Economist.com

Wikipedia's variety of contributors is not only a strength



The idea of an encyclopedia—a compendium of all the best available knowledge—is as tempting as it is flawed. Truth does not always come in bite-sized chunks. And the notion of an infinitely elastic internet encyclopedia, always up to date and distilling the collective wisdom of the wired is even more tempting. When open to all comers, anonymously, the problems are even more glaring.

This week a senior Wikipedia editor, who used the pseudonym Essjay, turned out not to be a professor of religious studies as he claimed, but in fact a 24-year-old college drop-out. That has highlighted both the strengths and the failings of the world’s biggest online encyclopedia, which now boasts well over 1.5m articles. The “Encyclopedia Britannica”, by contrast, has a mere 120,000.

Essjay (or Ryan Jordan in real life), got away with his pretence because Wikipedians jealously preserve their anonymity. With most entries, anyone can edit without even logging in; or they can create an entirely fictitious online identity before doing so. The effect is rather like an online role-playing game. Indeed, it is easy to imagine some sad fellow spending the morning pretending to be a polyglot professor on Wikipedia, and then becoming a buxom red-head on “Second Life”, a virtual online world, in the afternoon.

That anonymity creates a phoney equality, which puts cranks and experts on the same footing. The same egalitarian approach starts off by regarding all sources as equal, regardless of merit. If a peer-reviewed journal says one thing and a non-specialist newspaper report another, the Wikipedia entry is likely solemnly to cite them both, saying that the truth is disputed. If the cranky believe the latter and the experts the former, the result will be wearisome online editing wars before something approaching the academic mainstream consensus gains the weight it should.

Wikipedia has strengths too, chiefly the resilient power of collective common sense. It benefits from the volunteer efforts of many thousands of outside contributors and editors. If one drops out, another fills his place. People are vigilant on issues that interest them. When mistakes happen, they are usually resolved quickly. This correspondent’s modest Wikipedia entry was edited this week by an anonymous contributor who posted a series of entertaining but defamatory remarks; a mere four minutes later, another user had removed them.

Constant scrutiny and editing means even the worst articles are gradually getting better, while the best ones are kept nicely polished and up to date. Someone, eventually, will spot even the tiniest error, or tighten a patch of sloppy prose. Mr Jordan, for all his bragging, seems to have been a scrupulous and effective editor.

The most tiresome contributors do get banned eventually, though they can always log in under a new identity. Other shortcomings are the subject of earnest internal debate too, such as Wikipedia’s inherent bias towards trivial recent events rather than important historical ones. That is already changing, slowly, though subjects of interest to northern white computer-literate males are over-covered, while others are laughably neglected.

Wikipedia is the biggest collaborative online encyclopedia, but not the only one. Citizendium, supposedly launching soon, aims to be like Wikipedia but without anonymity, and with more weight given to recognised experts. Conservapedia aims to offer a version of the truth untainted by Wikipedia’s liberal secular bias on issues such as evolution.

So how useful is Wikipedia? Entries on uncontentious issues—logarithms, for example—are often admirable. The quality of writing is often a good guide to an entry’s usefulness: inelegant or ranting prose usually reflects muddled thoughts and incomplete information. A regular user soon gets a feel for what to trust.

Those on contentious issues are useful in a different way. The information may be only roughly balanced. But the furiously contested entries on, say, “Armenian genocide” or “Scientology”, and their attached discussion pages, do give the reader an useful idea about the contours of the arguments, and the conflicting sources and approaches. In short: it would be unwise to rely on Wikipedia as the final word, but it can be an excellent jumping off point.

Some enlightening stuff there,Captain . Have always been wary of the online verison of encyclopedias. And where would all the beautiful leather bound books go eh? So..do buy books.Second hand or otherwise.Here is an excerpt from a letter by one of America's best loved classics writer,Lee Harper.

In a letter published in Oprah Winfrey's magazine O (June 2006), Lee wrote about her early love of books as a child and her steadfast dedication to the written word: "Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books."[5]

:)

He he, very true Audrey. It's been ages since I saw one anywhere. Same thing for newspapers come to think of it. Oh well, I guess the digital age has dawned - what can we do?

On a side note, Eliza Doolitle, was prolly one of my favorite roles played by your name sake. Maybe I will look it up on You tube this evening (oh there I go - so much for all the talk about the digital media invasion )

I just bought a children's version of Encyclopedia and lo..it was written that Budha was an Indian prince...

Hmm ... Wikipedia says he was a "spiritual teacher from ancient India" - I guess you could argue both ways about that since neither Nepal nor India as we know it today existed back then. Maybe I will change it this evening after I get home, to include "born in Nepal". Unless someone wants to do it sooner - any takers? :)

Thankx for the information Captain. I went ahead and changed it!

Lemon - Bravo!

You changed it to "was a spiritual teacher from the kingdom of Nepal. " Let's see if that sticks. If it doesn't I was thinking of leaving the bit about India there, but adding "born in present day Nepal" - just to make it more palatable and less prone to re-editing from the people who feel otherwise. If you look at the edit history of the page, there is a decent amount of activity, so I expect someone might respond. I'll check it out this evening.

Also, if you edit it anonymously, your IP address gets shown publicly, so you might want to consider creating an account. An account also becomes useful if the article becomes disputed and you need to put forward arguments bolstering your claim.

Oppppps! I didnt know that .. i.d about the IP address thing :( Thanks again for the info our very own sajha encyclopedia (if i may).
I think your idea of editing it to "born in present day Nepal" will make it sound so much better. We will be looking forward to it! :D

Looks like someone has changed it to "was a spiritual teacher who was born in present day Nepal" - it wasn't me, btw :) The user name on the edit is "anepali". Good job whoever you are. I'll be keeping close tabs too.

Its a very good starting point for 'any' research, nonetheless you can not use Wikipedia as references in research papers.

Captain,

Whoever you are (based on your various threads) I admire your tastes in all things intellectual/financial/gastronomical.

Keep up the great work!

I'm sure you know this already . . . but a couple of business school professors recently developed this case on wikipedia. They have put
up the case online for free.

You might enjoy reading this.


- http://courseware.hbs.edu/public/cases/wikipedia/


A while back, there was also an article on Wikipedia in The New Yorker.

Personally, I like Wikipedia, and use it as my FIRST stop on the Net to gather info.

oohi
ashu

You guys are great hai..Keep it up..:) Sorry didn't get time to do it myself though :)

Ashu -

Reading such kind words from someone like yourself, who I tremendously admire and respect in so many ways, will go down as one the highlights of my life on Sajha:) Thanks.

Also, thanks for that link. Neat stuff - that's the other reason I think they will do well in the long run - they always have taken advantage of the opportunity that arises out of every crisis.

As for wikipedia, yeah I too use it as a landing site. I typically look at the sources quoted in the wikipedia article and go after them.

Overall, if I may, my feelings on the subject are that information has been democratized and Wikipedia is a novel and noble attempt in that direction, that will, at the very least, push the frontiers of information. And it is already happening: case in point: the entire MIT syllabus will soon be available to the whole world. I hear Harvard may follow suit in some fashion (perhaps by making the Extension school and other schools more accessible). The possibilities are endless: one of my favorite concepts, and others have talked about it as well, is voting from your computer or mobile phone. Elections would prolly cost less and be less prone to financial influence. Constitutions will probably need to be rewritten to take advantage of the possibilities such technology can bring. Obviously, its not all apple-pie, but if the idea can be made to work, it could change politics as we know it.

Sorry for the digression, couldn't resist the urge to throw that out there.

Best regards.

Not sure how much truth is there in it...But one thing is sure....a very good source for me to copy and paste it on my assignment....i m such an asshole.....k garne aaru upaya nai chaina :D

Looks like the changes have been reverted - check out the comments. From what I can tell, it seems this is what some people feel: while modern day Nepal is an independent and sovereign nation, the territories it occupies today was land that has, for historical purposes, been identified at some level with "ancient" (as opposed to "modern") India. If you click on the definition of ancient India, there are references on that map to Nepa and Kirat and other ancient kingdoms that are part of modern-day Nepal.

Sorry for the humongous image :-|

Article link: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdoms_of_ancient_India