Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-09-25/In the news

Acceptance of Wikipedia in academia
Wikipedia continued to get both positive and negative press coverage on its reputation as a reputable source. University of Connecticut's The Daily Student carried a story titled Wikipedia More Reliable Than Perceived saying, "The popular assumption with Wikipedia is that information in its articles has many flaws since they are not necessarily written by experts on the subject. Though many professors and educators frown upon Wikipedia in a research setting, the information presented in many articles is quite accurate and the validity of the web site should be reconsidered by the public at large."

The Des Moines Register carried an article documenting various Iowa towns and their strange claims to fame in an article titled Wikipedia chronicles lore, legend, lies. And a reporter with The Williams Lake Tribune claimed he is Addicted to Wikipedia.

However, ECT News (aka Linux Insider), in Wikipedia's Place in Academia Questionable, claimed "Research, the cornerstone of academia, has little room for the haphazard information-gathering Wikipedia offers. Wikipedia, as far as education goes, is best left to assist with the seventh-grade history assignment on John F. Kennedy, not the 300-level research paper on the French Revolution."

Media coverage of Citizendium
Citizendium, Larry Sanger's fork of Wikipedia (see last week's article) received broader coverage with The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, and Information Week providing coverage. The Guardian article stated, "One of Wikipedia's founders, Larry Sanger, says he plans to rewrite it - as Citizendium, a "citizens' compendium". To succeed, he will probably need to attract many of the people who contribute, or used to contribute, to Wikipedia. But whether the "new Wikipedia" will avoid the problems of the old one, or just create new ones of its own, remains to be seen."

The San Diego Union-Tribune discussed the relationship between Wikipedia and Citizendium. The article stated that "Sanger said he was pleased that Wikipedia was accepting of his new project. 'We will take the best of their articles and edit them and hopefully make them better,' he said. 'And they are free to take from our articles. We're in a partnership to a certain extent, two parallel-thinking projects.'"

Other coverage available on WebProNews, Ars Technica, Red Herring, Slashdot, Corante, and The Register.

Wikipedia as source

 * Wikipedia was used as a background source on Central Criminal Court of Iraq by Jurist, a legal news and research site maintained by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law faculty.
 * The New York Times reported on a professor at Harvard Medical School who claimed he "used Google and Wikipedia, [in] about two minutes" to find the results of a clinical trial on sting victims.

Continued coverage of China's block of wikipedia.org

 * OhmyNews International of Seoul, South Korea notes that "Wikipedia could be the most prominent victim of Chinese Internet censorship."
 * National Review Online praised Wikipedia's stand, stating "Wikipedia has its faults, but apparently lack of guts or honor is not among them." (quoted from the Sept 11th 2006 post at HiWired blog Three Cheers for Wikipedia. )
 * The Shenandoah Daily News-Record also gives "Wikipedia Applause"

Other articles

 * Wikipedia Ads on AdSense? "Not Ours," they say - "It's being speculated that the ads were bought by someone who had links in the crowdsourcing entry, but since Gerard said he has removed all the links in that entry..."
 * Wikipedia Selects C.U. Page As 'Featured Article' Today - "Wikipedia ... elevated the Cornell University page to “Featured Article” status today after impressing Wikipedia editors with its style, completeness and commitment to accuracy."
 * Online encyclopaedia is in need of redrafting - Item in this months Health Informatics Now