Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-03-08/In the news

RE: Transcendental turmoil perplexes psychologist

Although I don't question the merits of Grohol's comments, I wonder how many other comments by academics about some page on the world's fifth most popular website go unreported in the Signpost each week. Below is a current example for illustration - which I personally hadn't thought newsworthy enough, even though it was published in a very notable scholarly journal instead of a personal blog, judged a whole set of articles instead of just one passage in one article, and is interesting in that it recommends a Wikipedia article talk page (!) as introduction to a subject:

In an article about undecidability in this month's issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, Chaim Goodman-Strauss listed Wikipedia among other sources as recommended reading about the topic:


 * The Wikipedia entries in this area are comprehensive and generally well written and accurate.

About the controversy about the proof for the universality of Wolfram's 2-state 3-symbol Turing machine (for which Alex Smith, a student at the University of Birmingham, won a $25,000 prize in 2007), Goodman-Strauss actually recommends the talk page of the Wikipedia article (which contains many comments by Vaughan Pratt, one of the participants in that controversy):


 * The interested reader can ask for no better starting point than the talk page of the relevant Wikipedia article [46], following the many outward links from there.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:32, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As the author of that article, it was interesting to come across this thread; it definitely felt like a turning point to be citing Wikipedia in a prominent academic forum-- but I note that not one of the three referees, nor the editor, felt that worthy of comment. The articles on the theory of computation really are quite good! It's also worth noting a distinct difference in my two citations: the first is to Wikipedia as a reliable, but secondary, interpretive source. The second, in effect, is to a talk page as a primary source in itself, an original document of independent interest. C Goodman-Strauss 69.152.203.105 (talk) 13:28, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * My reaction is about the same; I would have left it out if I was writing this, mainly because we can't hope to be comprehensive in cataloging every opinionated blog post from an expert. I seem to recall Grohol and his site coming up with regards to Wikipedia in the past, although I can't remember offhand what the context was.--ragesoss (talk) 01:08, 10 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I see no harm in mentioning the Grohol post and no good in excluding it. That I didn't include the undecidability article is simply because I didn't notice it, not because I thought the Grohol one would be better. Feel free to pitch in next time you see something like that! --Cryptic C62 · Talk 04:04, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The Transcendental Meditation movement ArbCom case has also been covered in another blog, TM-Free Blog, written by John M. Knapp, LMSW. Transcendental Meditation Wikipedia Scandal Heats Up    Will Beback    talk    06:09, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, the research on medical benefits of TM constitutes about 23% of the article, not 1%. Transcendental Meditation is about 1550 words out of a 6800-word article.   Will Beback    talk    06:14, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Whoops, sorry! I calculated it for the Research subsection, but upon rereading the blog post, he clearly states that he was referring to the entire Health effects section. Good catch. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:04, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Lord, what a terrible title, so common in academia. If 97% of English speakers don't know what the hell a word is, why use it? Trout slap for wikipedia creator. Okip  13:50, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

RE: Pentagon shooter used Wikipedia

The possibility of James Sabow, the article the Pentagon shooter created, ever surviving deletion in the future is nil. Never mind its potential notability or non-notability. Okip  13:58, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

If we truly block users like this "per standard procedure", why do people keep removing the  template??? Every indefinite block should use appropriate blocked user template, no? Standard procedure demands standardised templates! --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 16:37, 18 March 2010 (UTC)