User:Anjouli

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'''Anjouli is back after a posting in a "bad place" with no private Internet conection. Hope to be more active in 2007.

Anjouli is the nick of an American lady who was born a Jew, became an Atheist at age 18 and a Brianist at age 55.

Anjouli speaks and writes Arabic, French and Hebrew, although she has forgotten much of the Hebrew over the years.

Anjouli was a Professor of Religious Studies at an American university in the Middle East for five years - now retired, but teaches physics (in which she has a second degree) part-time.

Before returning to university at age 28, Anjouli was a model, an actress and a trauma nurse working extensively with refugees in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Anjouli currently lives in Saudi Arabia with her European diplomat husband.

Although now 60-something, Anjouli still scuba-dives regularly and rides her 1951 Vincent Black Shadow motorcycle during visits to her home in Hexham, England. Anjouli writes software as a hobby and is currently wrestling with the move from VB6 to C#. (Now 70-something and had to give up the bike. Brittle bones. :(But doing well with C#.)

Anjouli is taken from Anjuli O'Connell, a character from Justina Robson's excellent AI/nanotechnology novel, Silver Screen (Macmillan, 1999). (My real forename is something stupid and Victorian.)

Why Wikipedia is Fatally Flawed
Although I dabble in WP from time-to-time and would like to think it might one day amount to something, I suspect, in my heart-of-hearts, that it is fatally flawed and will never be more than a social curiosity.

The information gleaned from WP can never be relied upon. Any idiot may have inserted anything she liked, moments before a page was consulted. Professionals would NEVER cite WP as a reference, indeed even schools at the most basic levels of education are advising students not to use WP - or at least to verify the information elsewhere.

Does information in WP tend towards accuracy, as has been suggested? I think not. It tends towards the views of the vocal majority - which is not the same thing at all.

How does the process of inserting data work? Someone inserts a chunk of information, which may be accurate, a popular misconception, something they read or saw somewhere (fictional information represented as fact in books or films often end up in WP), were told, or is complete fiction, malicious or otherwise. Others (who may be no smarter or ethical than the original inserter) then decide whether to leave it alone, delete it or change it. If there is consensus, then no one worries about references. If there is dissent, then references are requested - but often the most vocal and persistent prevail, or the argument ends in a flame-war with the offending article locked in a random state.

Do references help? In theory, yes, in practice, not much. What is a reference? I have a doctorate and degrees in several subjects. I can enter hard data that I can back-up by reference to well-respected books and papers by authorities on the subject. A 13-year old can then come along and change it to something ridiculous, but can cite a reference in an on-line science "comic", pseudo-science site, or some random webpage put up by just about anyone with just about any motive. Generally the majority will side with the kid, because they can see that reference on line, but do not have easy or rapid access to the reference books I have cited - and if I have cited something out of print or not written in English, then forget it! Similarly, how do we know I'm qualified as I say, or that the kid is 13? Again, WP is probably full of people boasting false credentials, and at least one has been exposed in the media.

Does any of this really matter? The ancient Greek historians wrote down fact and fiction alike, without much in the way of references. A proportion of it (Atlantis?) is almost certainly folk-history, legend or plain fiction. They would have been at home on WP.

I'll stick with WP and do what I can, but I'll probably take a few months away from time-to-time when I get tired of the stupidity of uninformed people who have been given disproportionate powers to control "fact". As for the rest of you, good luck.

The real benefit in WP is to the editors who are introduced to a wide range of subjects which they then research from non-WP sources! As for WP itself, it's an interesting social experiment, but it's certainly less than 100% factual. What's your guess? 95%? 80%? 75%? As such it's ultimately useless as a work of reference. Very sad. Anjouli 06:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)