I should have said, “Wikipedia – for whatever *that’s* worth!”

(By the way, Husband has already written a wikipedia article. He wrote it a couple years ago so I don’t know what shape it’s in these days, but anyway the original article was his. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_short-term_dynamic_psychotherapy )

Are errors and defacements corrected quickly? I imagine the more egregious ones are. Many subtle inaccuracies or misinterpretations probably go entirely overlooked for who knows how long.

People maybe should correct Wikipedia if they know better, but do they? Some may, some may not. There is surely some selection bias at work here. I highly doubt wikipedia is worked on by all people in the know in their respective fields – some perspectives will get more air time and better research, and that may skew the type of information that is available.

Editing by everyone is not a strength when there is no accountability.

And please note, I did not just “hand wave” Wikipedia away. I wrote a good length explanation, with examples and even a couple of technical terms, explaining my position! That’s hardly dismissing without any grounds! Kindly don’t make sweeping generalizations about what I (and “everyone else” who “dismisses” wikipedia) do – particularly when you’re wrong and the evidence is right there on my blog!

I hope also you read the part where I wrote what I felt appropriate uses for Wikipedia are – did that part that sound like a hand waving dismissal? I also acknowledged in the post that it *may* be correct. The point I was making is we can’t *count on* it being correct, and therefore it is not useful for purposes requiring rigor of research. That means anything academic or professional.

It sounds like your real problem here is you’re sick of people dismissing your points simply because they were gleaned on wikipedia. While I agree in general that that sort of dismissing isn’t called for, maybe you should try upgrading your research sources so people can’t challenge them in that way.

You, and others, then simply handwave that argument as utterly worthless because it came from Wikipedia.

I’ll then point out that what I quoted has a citation to a published scientific paper, and a link to that paper.

But it doesn’t matter, because it’s on Wikipedia and it’s untrustworthy, and “not science”.

Wikipedia articles are maintained by those who are experts in that subject. I’m sure Husband will soon be contributing to articles in his new field.

Any errors or defacement they do gain are quickly reversed — Wikipedia keeps copies of every single version of its pages so this is done with only a few clicks. I’ve done it myself for a few obvious defacements.

But even if 90% of wikipedia’s articles are accurate (the number is *far* higher, by the way) then the onus is on you to disprove what I’ve quoted, not to simply handwave it away as “yeah but that’s wikipedia”.

Also, if Wikipedia is wrong and you have a peer-reviewed paper that proves it’s wrong, you should get on Wikipedia and correct that article and cite the paper! Editing by everyone is not just a weakness of Wikipedia, it’s also a STRENGTH!

My entry here was clearly from a positivist, empiricist perspective. But there are other ways of knowing, other valid research methods.

And yes, I have recently come to realize how much distortion happens in the entry level texts in the service of simplification. Some things just don’t distill down very well!

It seems to me that much of the important work of the academy is done in relation to new ideas, or at the very least newer perspectives on ideas.

Much ink is spilled in debating theories, for years, often decades before they become commonly accepted, and perhaps marginally “reliable”. Some of the commonly accepted science of the past, published in the peer reviewd articles of the time, is regarded as pure hokum today.

In my experience, a great many peer reviewed articles are little more than novel outgrowths of an authors sitz im leben, and sense of self-importance.

If entry level textbooks are the distillation of these articles, perhaps we can best akin Wikipedia to the bathtub gin equivalent — Slightly suspect, sometimes toxic, but most of the time, it gets you where you need to go.

~I.

P.S. Please blog about how you think the city should deal with the “homeless problem”.