User:Blarcrean

This user has tried in a small way to broaden or improve information available online through Wikipedia.

No source of information should be accepted uncritically.

A professional obligation
In a relevant critique of Wikipedian history-making Professor Roy Rosenzweig took this enterprise to task not because it disregards the facts (in its coverage of US history it is found to be “surprisingly accurate in reporting names, dates, and events”), but because it elevates facts “above everything else and spends too much time and energy (in the manner of many collectors) on organizing those facts into categories and lists.”

This is of course partly the nature of encyclopedias – they ‘give you the topline’ and are ‘the Reader's Digest of deep knowledge,’ writes Rosenzweig, who headed History and New Media at George Mason University. “Fifty years ago the family encyclopedia provided this ‘rough and ready primer on some name or idea’; now that role is being played by the Internet and increasingly by Wikipedia.”

It is in relation to this that Rosenzweig wonders whether professional historians ought to join popular history makers on this project. “My own tentative answer,” he writes, “is yes.” “If Wikipedia is becoming the family encyclopedia for the twenty-first century, historians probably have a professional obligation to make it as good as possible. … [if every historian] devoted just one day to improving the entries in her or his areas of expertise, it would not only significantly raise the quality of Wikipedia, it would also enhance popular historical literacy.”

He argues further that “If historians believe that what is available free on the Web is low quality, then we have a responsibility to make better information sources available online. … Shouldn't professional historians join in the massive democratization of access to knowledge reflected by Wikipedia and the Web in general?”

At the same time, he adds – and because students do and will use Wikipedia articles as sources – one has constantly to promote awareness of “the limitations of all information sources, including Wikipedia,” and emphasize “the skills of critical analysis of primary and secondary sources.”

Being interested in a geographic region that is relatively under- and/or poorly represented in Wikipedia and indeed in any generally available secondary sources, this user - who is not an historian, but works in a related discipline - is motivated to make contributions from time to time in order to help improve this situation. There is a laudable emphasis being given to local history in the new school curricula which makes this project even more urgent, since this good intention is not being backed-up quickly enough with reliable textbooks or other resources. For those students with Internet access, Wikipedia may be one of the few sources of information available at all. Rosenzweig has issued a challenge that surely ought to be taken up.

Rosenzweig refers to places where censorship of textbooks and other historical resources is common: in such situations “the fact that Wikipedia's freedom means both ‘free beer’ and ‘free speech’ has profound implications because it allows the circulation of alternative historical voices and narratives.” Where this user resides this is not as much of an issue as it is in other places – or is it? The principle is surely important. On the matter of alternative perspectives, Milan Kundera’s oft-quoted remark is relevant, that we live amid a “din of easy, quick answers that come faster than the question and block it off.” He was writing about the spirit of the novel – which, as he says, is the spirit of complexity, where “Things are not as simple as you think.” He might as well have been writing about historical research or scientific endeavour, which is propelled onwards, not by ready-made ideas and stereotypes, but by doubt and questioning. Research is constantly yielding new insights, new twists to the tale, still further refracted by current contexts and points of view. To over-simplify diminishes the necessary texture. Indeed, as Merleau-Ponty said, “ambiguity is the essence of human existence and everything we live and think always has several meanings.” The trick for Wikipedians is to find ways to convey something of the complexity and depth, providing pointers for deeper quests.

Our concerns should go beyond mere collecting and organizing of facts into categories and lists!

Many of this user’s own contributions are fragments and work in progress, personal and professional, and hopefully other Wikipedians will be joining both in improving the quality and in adding to the textures.

Blarcrean lives in the Northern Cape, South Africa

Places
Rivers
 * Riet River

Towns, settlements, regions
 * Aggeneys
 * Beaconsfield
 * Botshabelo, Mpumalanga
 * Bushmanland, Northern Cape
 * Dithakong
 * Du Toit's Pan
 * Dwyka
 * Jamestown, Eastern Cape
 * Malay Camp, Kimberley
 * Modderpoort
 * Pniel, Northern Cape
 * Richmond, Northern Cape

Heritage Sites

 * History of the Northern Cape

Archaeological sites
 * Canteen Kopje
 * Driekops Eiland
 * Kathu Archaeological Sites
 * Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre
 * Wonderwerk Cave

Buildings
 * Barkly West Museum
 * Sol Plaatje Museum
 * Old School of Mines, Kimberley
 * St Cyprian's Cathedral, Kimberley
 * St Mary's, Barkly West
 * The Lodge, Kimberley (Duggan-Cronin Gallery)

Landscapes
 * Nooitgedacht Glacial Pavements

Passes
 * Messelpad Pass

People
People of Kimberley
 * Benjamin Bennett (writer)
 * Harold Arthur Morris
 * A.H.M. Scholtz


 * People of the Karoo

Activists and Political figures
 * Frances Baard
 * John Block
 * Grizelda Cjiekella
 * Manne Dipico
 * Khoisan X
 * Sylvia Lucas
 * Phakamile Mabija
 * Johannes Nicholas Malan
 * Ridwan Laher Nytagodien
 * Z.F. Mgcawu
 * Dipuo Peters

Anthropologists
 * Rane Willerslev

Artists
 * Jill Adams (artist)
 * Philip Bawcombe
 * Charles Lees (painter)
 * Jack Penn
 * Leo Theron
 * Walter Westbrook (artist)

Art Collectors
 * William Benbow Humphreys
 * George Mervyn Lawson

Clergy
 * Simon Mark Aiken
 * Arthur Attwell
 * Brian Victor Beck
 * David Beetge
 * Neville Borton
 * George Hugh Bourne
 * Alan Butler (priest)
 * Edward Cannan
 * Hugh Scott Chignell
 * William Crisp
 * Richard Cutts (bishop)
 * John T. Darragh
 * H.A. Douglas-Hamilton
 * William Gaul
 * W.P. Hanbury
 * James Nathaniel Johnson
 * George Mervyn Lawson
 * Mphashane Reginald Leeuw
 * Brian Marajh
 * Justus Marcus
 * Charles Shannon Mallory
 * Charles Bulmer Maude
 * Charles Oswald Miles
 * Richard Miles (Tswana catechist)
 * George Mitchell
 * Theophilus Naledi
 * James Tait Plowden-Wardlaw
 * George A. Pullen
 * John Witherston Rickards
 * Thomas Claude Robson
 * John Ruston
 * John Salt (bishop)
 * Francis William Smith
 * Robin Roy Snyman
 * Edward Twells
 * Arthur Sutton Valpy
 * Ranulph Vincent
 * Charles Walker (liturgist)
 * Allan Webb

Composers & Musicians
 * Veniamin Basner
 * Edwin Edwards (organist)
 * Edwin George Monk
 * Gideon Nxumalo
 * Luís Tinoco
 * John Troutbeck
 * Richard Woodward (organist)

Educationists
 * Robert Corbet Singleton

Explorers
 * George Thompson

"First" People
 * Aenki Kassie
 * Kousop
 * Una Rooi

Historians
 * Brian Roberts (historian)

Medical profession
 * Donald Ross
 * Henrietta Stockdale

Museologists
 * Rudolph Bigalke
 * Rudolph Carl Bigalke
 * Alfred Martin Duggan-Cronin
 * Richard Liversidge
 * John Hyacinth Power
 * Elizabeth Anne Voigt
 * Maria Wilman

Writers
 * Benjamin Bennett (writer)
 * Phil du Plessis
 * Peter Krummeck
 * A.H.M. Scholtz

Institutions
Academic
 * Elsenburg Agricultural Training Institute
 * Sol Plaatje University

Archaeological Churches & Religious
 * South African Archaeological Society
 * Anglican Diocese of Botswana
 * Brotherhood of St Augustine of Hippo
 * Kuruman Moffat Mission
 * St Cyprian's Cathedral, Kimberley
 * St Mary's, Barkly West

Colonial
 * Children's Friend Society
 * Compound (migrant labour)

Museums
 * Barkly West Museum
 * Duggan-Cronin Gallery
 * Sol Plaatje Museum
 * South African Museums Association
 * William Humphreys Art Gallery

Musical
 * St Petersburg Union of Composers

Newspapers
 * Diamond Fields Advertiser
 * Volksblad

Schools
 * Kimberley Junior School
 * Perseverance School
 * St Cyprian's Grammar School, Kimberley

Contributions/edits
Inter alia to the following entries:

Places People
 * Kimberley
 * Northern Cape Province
 * Jarnovic
 * Kameshwar C. Wali

Institutions
 * McGregor Museum
 * Kimberley Boys' High School

Blarcrean's edit count

Rivers and related

 * Seekoei River
 * Brak River
 * Ongers River
 * Hartebeest River
 * Sak River
 * Kuruman River
 * Moshaweng River
 * Kgokgole River
 * Matlhwaring River
 * Buffels River
 * Groen River

Towns and settlements

 * Andriesvale
 * Kanoneiland
 * Carolusberg
 * Hondeklip

People

 * Luka Jantjie
 * Louis Anthing
 * Abraham Esau
 * Klaas Pofadder