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Iversen’s Multiconfused Log (see p.1!)

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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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JonB
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 Message 321 of 3959
19 February 2009 at 10:54am | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
I understand why university professors warn against the use of anonymous sources, but a famous name or a peer review is not necessarily a guarantee against errors or misleading statements or bias.


Iversen, there are crucial differences between a peer reviewed article and a Wikipedia article! Firstly, in order to be published in any kind of peer reviewed context, one must by definition have a proven expertise in the subject at hand. But Wikipedia places no value at all on expertise!

Anyone - quite literally anyone - can write or edit Wikipedia articles! Therefore Wikipedians can be (and all too often are) pranksters, cranks, teenage kids, etc.

Yes, an expert opinion could also include errors or bias. But the likelihood of error is surely very much smaller! (As regards bias: one will at least know who the author is. Therefore it is possible to check up on his/her background, and find out which side of any dispute or debate he/she is likely to be coming from.)

Wikipedia, on the other hand, is highly anonymous - so it is generally impossible to know whether the author/s of any given article have any likely bias.

These are the reasons why, in my opinion, Wikipedia is a dangerous and highly unreliable source! :-0
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DaraghM
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 Message 322 of 3959
19 February 2009 at 11:02am | IP Logged 
SP: Sin embargo, Wikipedia es muy util para aprender los idiomas. Disfruto leyendo este artículo en Wikipedia Español.

Edited by DaraghM on 19 February 2009 at 11:03am

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JonB
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 Message 323 of 3959
19 February 2009 at 11:06am | IP Logged 
DaraghM, even when it comes to learning idiomas, you still have no idea whether the anonymous authors are using correct grammar and fine style, do you?

(Learn from newspapers!)
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Iversen
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 Message 324 of 3959
19 February 2009 at 11:08am | IP Logged 
I would also generally put more trust in a work written by scientists for scientists and maybe even peer-reviewed than in anything written by amateurs for amateurs, maybe even by anonymous amateurs (and peer-reviewed by amateurs, which is in a sense how Wikipedia works). But I'm not born yesterday, and I have seen too much junk science made by employees of respectable institutions. Besides I may be an amateur in many respects (I may even have become one in linguistics after many years away from the academic circles), but when I want to know something I also use respectable and academic sources, and I do know what I'm talking about. So mistrust anything, also Wikipedia, but it is not always Wikipedia that is wrong. Personally I would be more sceptical about anything written by a commission on behalf of UN or a government or a NGO or a private company. Or a book, which any crackpot can have written.

EDIT1: I would also be fairly sceptical about the level of the language in newspapers. If you want to see really pompous bad style in any language then read sports journalism. Magazines are marginally better.

EDIT2: I would even be sceptical about university teachers who in quite general terms warn against Wikipedia. It is never nice to get competition, but Wikipedia would not be there if the 'professionals' had established an equally accessible source of information for the general public. And now they have to live with it, Grrrr.
At least teachers who trap student using Wikipedia can't flay the offending students alive and hang their skins on the university gates as a warning to their comrades.


Edited by Iversen on 23 July 2009 at 3:22pm

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Fasulye
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 Message 325 of 3959
19 February 2009 at 11:57am | IP Logged 
For me - being on a beginner level of paleontlogy - Wikipedia can be useful as a source of information, why not?

Writing a lecture is a different sort of thing. Like I have learned at university it's important always to work with several sources of information and to compare them, because otherwise you cannot verify the quality of information at all.

Fasulye-Babylonia

Edited by Fasulye on 19 February 2009 at 12:37pm

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Fasulye
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 Message 326 of 3959
19 February 2009 at 12:14pm | IP Logged 
Iversen, your Private Messenger is full. If you are interested, I would like to send you as a PM the URL of my astronomy club, which is not suitable to be posted here in this forum.

Fasulye-Babylonia


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Iversen
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 Message 327 of 3959
19 February 2009 at 1:08pm | IP Logged 
Jetzt ist der Messenger wieder leer

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Iversen
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 Message 328 of 3959
19 February 2009 at 1:53pm | IP Logged 
RUS: Хватит о Википедии.. Я живу в городе с университетом, а также существует студенческий дом с академическим книжным магазином, и магазин имеет отдельный департамент, специализирующийся в славянских языках. Вчера я посетил книжный магазин и купил словари и грамматики нескольких славянских языков, стоимость около 1300 датских крон (170 €). Я купил среди прочего книгу Barrona 500 российских глаголов, сербский, чешский и польский грамматики и двусторонный (?) хорватский-aнглийский словарь. У меня уже есть в дополнение к русские словари и грамматики славянских небольшой коллекции, которая включает в себя большой польский словарь Лангеншейта и болгарский грамматик и словарь, - заполняет весь метр на моей полке! Теперь мне просто нужно узнать все эти языки, а это займет много лет. Может быть, мне также нужно покупать продления память на мой мозг, - не достаточно купить книгу.

--------

Enough about Wikipedia for now. In my hometown there is a university, and there is also a Student House with an 'Academic bookstore', which has a whole section dedicated just to books about and in the Slavic languages. I visited it yesterday, and that short visit cost me 1300 Danish crowns (170 €). For that price I got among other things Barron's big book with 500 Russian verbs, a big bidirectional Croatian-English dictionary and grammars for Polish, Czech and Serbian. Even before this I owned a number of Slavic books, not only for Russian, but also for for instance Bulgarian (bought last year where I visited the area). It will take years before I have learned all these languages, but now at least I have the books standing ready for the task on my shelf. I just wish that it was possible also to buy a memory extension for my somewhat outdated brain.    


Edited by Iversen on 19 February 2009 at 10:45pm



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