It should read, say:

“Masson, Jack, Alberta’s Local Governments, 1994, p. 459.”

Next time I’m having trouble getting to sleep, could you phone me up and tell me more about what is wrong with Wikipedia?

And I thought Wikipedians had sperg-like tendencies to focus on minutiae.

Thanks for drawing my attention to the problems with the article (and thank you also for drawing my attention to your comments here). I’m off to fix them, although I certainly have no intention of submitting this to an academic journal any time soon.

Cheers,

Steve the Un-degreed

(1) This line is grammatically incorrect:

“Several of the aldermanic candidates Strang, Goodridge, Daly, and Fraser – made campaign speeches at the nomination meeting, but these were brief and promised only that the candidate would serve the town to the best of his ability if elected.”

(2) The sixth reference reads, “Masson, Jack: Alberta’s Local Governments, 1994, pp 459”

It should read, say:

“Masson, Jack, Alberta’s Local Governments, 1994, p. 459.”

or

“Masson, Jack. Alberta’s Local Governments, 1994, p. 459”

But (a) in what world does such a reference employ a colon? And (b) “pp” is only used when more than one page is referenced, as a first year university student would know.

(3) Seven of the ten references have no page numbers at all!

All in all, perhaps the general research is admirable, but the outcome is relatively shoddy, and in places embarrassing. This article would be rejected for publication in an academic journal in its present form.

Fun snark. But did you evaluate the quality of what these people have done on the site? Here’s one of Smith’s pages:

http://en.wikip...lection%2C_1892

It appears to be well sourced, thorough, and on an issue few resources have the scope to cover. I would suggest this is more a success story than an indication of Wikipedia’s silliness.

Shame most people here won’t comprehend the analogy, because it’s really quite apposite. There are some people who think that the wisdom of crowds is wonderful, some who think that it can’t possibly produce anything worthwhile. The 99% of us in the middle will continue reading Wikipedia while taking it with a grain of salt. And would rather stick our heads in a bucket of s— than spend 45 minutes watching the first two groups argue, because their positions are totally intractable.

No, Wikipedia is not a perfect substitute for proper research. Facebook is not a perfect substitute for a social life. A packet of crisps (potato chips) is not a perfect substitute for a cooked, balanced meal. That doesn’t make them worthless, even if some people misguidedly use them as perfect substitutes.

It should be no surprise that given such a fantastic opportunity that individuals would revolt against the bonds of false truth and manipulative control of information.

Wikipedia suffers from the same mallady as traditional media, but it can be undone, redone, or improved. Unlike all the other uni-directional psuedo-information around us.

This is a revolution, and it will not be televised. Close your “Encyclopedia Titanica” and grow up.

@abhilash – many, probably most A-list bloggers and Wikipedia admins are not experts at anything. (Not even, necessarily, about Wikipedia or about blogging — but maybe there.) You are abusing the perfectly good word “expert.”

Speaking as an epistemologist — basically, almost everything anyone (including both Andrew and his critics above) says about relativism, social constructionism, and the nature or criteria of truth or knowledge are, basically, uninformed garbage. Philosophy is one of those subjects that everyone thinks he can speak intelligently about, but almost no one can in fact.

The vector at which this video was aiming is the Citizendium: http://www.citizendium.org/ If you liked the video or thought it was intriguing, you’ll find CZ intriguing. If you had a knee-jerk negative reaction to it, you’ll have a knee-jerk negative reaction to CZ.