evaluatingdesign.com

A great read about the validity of tertiary sources, from a Professor of History who found himself at the center of a Wikipedia controversy when he banned using Wiki’s as a primary source. This story broke in March of this year, but a new article this month in ACM Communications sheds some more light on a really interesting debate.

See the Article HERE.

Part of the issue is the relative polarity of both sides - those who don’t want Wikipedia cited frame the site as a fountain of populist, erroneous information, while many users who support the use of Wikipedia stress the democratization of the information process. Waters opinion makes a good point:

“It seems to me that there is a major downside to the self-reinforcing cycle of popularity. Popularity begets ease of use, and ease of use begets the “democratization”of access to information. But all too often, democratization of access to information is equated with the democratization of the information itself, in the sense that it is subject to a vote. “

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