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I Wednesday, October 12, 2011 // The Statement
the
statement
Magazine Editor:
Carolyn Klarecki
Editor in Chief:
Stephanie Steinberg
Managing Editor:
Nick Spar
Deputy Editors:
Stephen Ostrowski
Devon Thorsby
Elyana Twiggs
Designers:
Maya Friedman
Hermes Risien
Photos:
Jed Moch
Copy Editors:
Hannah Poindexter
The Statement is The Michigan
Daily's news magazine, distributed
every Wednesday during the
academic year.
To contact The Statement e-mail
klarecki@michigandaily.com.
Cover by Marissa McClain
T HEJUNKDRAWER
random student interview by kaitlin williams
article discussion
edit this page history
Welcome to the random Like with me?
student interview, Maybe. I don't know.
where rejection hurts You don't know? Why not?
worse than a kickball to the face. It's really not-that high on my pri-
So, do you have agirlfriend? ority list right now. I mean, I've
No. got a lot of studying to do and like,
Are you looking for one? you know. If something happened
Yeah, well kind of. to literally fall into my lap where I
I suppose the more important had nothing else to do and some-
question is: What's your Face- one wanted to hang out then I'd be
book relationship status? down for that.
Single. OK that's good. It's good to have
Would you expect to meet any- an open mind. Good thing I was
one in a social media setting? only asking you out as a journal-
Like through Facebook? ist. Totally not off the record. It
Sure. was just for fun. No hard feel-
No. I mean I don't expect to meet ings. You know that right'?
people through Facebook. Like I Oh, OK.
expect to meet people in real life. So, you're hanging with your
So, it's Friday. What are you dad's company tonight, are you
doing tonight? like the youngest one there?
I'm actually playing kickball. No, there's one person younger
Oh. Late-night kickball? than I am.
Yeah, my dad's company has a OK.
team, and we have a tournament It's a lot of middle-aged engineer-
tonight so ... ing stiffs, but we're actually still
So do you usually do that on Fri- pretty good.
daynights? I didn't know there was an orga-
Yeah. Well in the summer the nized, old-man kickball league.
games are on Wednesdays, but in Yeah, there's like eight teams in
the fall they're on Fridays so yeah. the league, and most people take it
OK cool.Are youlike MVP of the pretty seriously.
team? So, do you have anysiblings?
I mean, not to toot my own horn, I do. I have a younger sister who's
but yes. But our whole team is pret- goingto be 13 in November.
ty good. Do you think you could beat her
So if you weren't already doing in kickball?
something tonight, would you Yeah.
want to go out? Would you make her cry?
Um. Maybe. I don't know. No. She's not very competitive.
Struggling with Legitimacy:
More than 10 years after Wikipedia's inception,
the crowdsourced encylopedia is starting to find a place in academia.
By Robin Veeck
OK. So are you a competitive
person?
A little bit. Yeah.
What would you challenge me to
right now?
(Stares silently.)
What do you think you could
beat me at? Size me up. Come on.
Oh man. I bet, actually I bet you
could bunt better than I could if
we're going to stick with kickball.
But I beat I could beat you at Ping-
Pong. I'm almost certain I could
beat you at Ping-Pong.
What do you think about people
that call Ping-Pong "table ten-
nis"?
(Laughs) They're more serious
about it than I am. I play recre-
ationally. They play professionally.
That's it.
What about beer pong? Do you
think that's a sport?
You know, it really depends. I agree
that there is some finesse in it, but
it's lost so quickly that I don't think
it's a sport.
How are you at beer pong? Are
you only saying that because you
suck, and you're a sore loser?
Um, I actually don't drink, but
when I play quote "water pong"
I'm not very good.
OK. Do you mind me asking why
you don't drink?
No, not at all. It's not really like
- it's more of a personal choice I
guess. My parents didn't drink so
I didn't really grow up in a culture
that had drinks at all. It's really just
one more thing that I'd have to self-
manage and worry about so...
So would you say you have more
fun on Friday nights playing
kickball than everyone else get-
ting wasted?
I would have more fun playing
kickball than getting wasted. I
can certainly imagine some people
would not have more fun play-
ing kickball than getting wasted.
You know, but that's what's sort
of great, we can all make our own
choices.
Have you played against anyone
who was wasted playing kick-
ball?
Yeah, actually we've played against
wasted teams, and they're not fun.
They're not good, and they're bad
sports.
Do you at least beat their asses?
Yeah
<strong>So would you say,
"Don't drink and kick"?
Don't drink and kick. Yeah.
Do you have a kickball slogan?
Well, we're called "The Safety
Monkeys."
That's interesting.
We don't have a slogan though.
OK. Do you have any classes
today?
I have one more class today.
Oh, that sucks. I don't have any
classes, but I don't have any
plans either. No one wants to
hang out with me.
- Jared is an Engineering sophomore
WIKIPEDJA
The Free Encylopedia
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Cite this article
"Wikipedia is not a source" has become
a familiar refrain in academic settings -
but that doesn't stop many students, and
professors, from referencing the crowd-
sourced encyclopedia on a daily basis.
Founded more than 10 years ago in
January of 2001, Wikipedia has revolu-
tionized the way people access informa-
tion across the world. The website, hosted
by the non-profit organization Wikimedia
Foundation Inc., receives on average more
than 530,000 page requests per hour and
is one of the top 10 most visited Internet
sites. Wikipedia's English language ency-
clopedia covers more than 3.75 million
topics, and the site is available in 270 lan-
guages.
What makes Wikipedia unique, while
academically suspect, is its open edit
model. All articles are written collabora-
tively by a large group of anonymous and
unpaid volunteers. This idea that anyone
can edit an article has been the basis of the
"Wikipedia is not a source" mantra that
pervades classrooms.
However, not all scholars agree that
Wikipedia is taboo in academia. Barry
Fishman, associate professor in the School
of Education and the School of Informa-
tion expects his students to use Wikipedia
as a starting point for research.
"It used to be that academics would
kind of sneer at Wikipedia. We'd want
something that was peer reviewed. Turns
out it is peer reviewed. There's just many,
many more peers," Fishman said. "Schol-
ars don't really use encyclopedias anyway,
but a lot of students may start with an
encyclopedia."
Jason Daida, associate research sci-
entist in the University's Space Physics
Research Laboratory and a lecturer in
atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences,
says that Wikipedia can be useful as a first
step in research, but should not be a final
source for an academic paper.
"It's good to get a first reconnaissance,
figure out what's there, but when it comes
down to writing the paper, writing stuff,
you take it with a grain of salt," Daida said.
"We don't recognize it as something that's
citable."
Many University students are used to
routine speeches from instructors who
forbid the use of Wikipedia as a source in
papers. LSA sophomore George Tam said
he uses it as a base of information before
diving into more official research.
"I don't trust it as much as the other
searches that come up. I never use it for-
mally," Tam said.
LSA sophomore Ashley Godin said she
mostly uses Wikipedia to look up informa-
tion unrelated to her classes.
"I'll be looking at something on it, but
then I'll try and go find another source,"
Godin said. "If it's random stuff not related
to anything academic, then I'll look at it."
Even Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales
agrees that the online encyclopedia is not a
citable source. He said in a 2005 interview
with Business Week that "people shouldn't
be citing encyclopedias in the first place."
Wale's interview followed a controversy
about a study published in Nature Magazine
in 2005 that found Wikipedia's rate of error
was only slightly greater than Encyclopedia
Britannica's - a finding that Encyclopedia
Britannica contested but Nature refused to
retract. One of Wale's stated goals for Wiki-
pedia is for the website to become as accu-
rate as Britannica or better.
One look at the current most visited
pages on Wikipedia should reassure educa-
tors that the majority of the encyclopedia's
users aren't students looking for a quick
source. The top 10 list includes articles con-
nected to trending topics in news like the
recent death of former Apple CEO Steve
Jobs, "404-Errors," "Facebook," "Sex" and
"Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" -
all unlikely topics for an academic research
paper.
Wikipedia has several systems to address
and prevent misinformation. Editors -
Wikipedia's term for .anyone who writes
or adds to the site's articles - can report
articles for offenses related to accuracy and
writing style. Disputes over articles can
then be hashed out in Wikipedia's internal
forums, a process which may require arbi-
tration by one of about 1,500 administra-
tors or editors who have achieved a high
position through the approval of their peers
on Wikipedia. The encyclopedia has an
Arbitration Committee of volunteer editors
and administrators with the power to ban
users and regulate more serious violations
of Wikipedia's code.
"The idea that there are lots of people
working on lots of articles that are of inter-
est to them is important, and it creates - in
the end - value that is of equal worth to
more carefully, let's say more deliberately,
curated kinds of resources," Fishman said.
While Wikipedia is, by definition, a work
in progress, it remains a valuable and free
source of information for millions of people
around the world. It contains more than
50 times as many words as the next largest
English language encyclopedia, Encyclope-
dia Britannica.
This mass production of information
is a relatively new form of documenting,
and it hasn't gone unnoticed. The term
"crowdsourcing" refers to a collective and
democratic effort to accomplish a task tra-
ditionally performed by one person. The
word was first used in an article in Wired
Magazine about the phenomenon five years
after Wikipedia began, but now it is com-
monly used to refer to the collective infor-
mation gathering which makes Wikipedia
and similar projects possible.
While Daida is not enthusiastic about
his students using Wikipedia in academic
projects, he uses a Wiki database when
he teaches Engineering 100: Engineer-
ing Design in the Real World. In the class,
students work in teams on projects that
aim to improve quality of life. The search-
able database contains all project reports
from the class since 2002. It uses the same
algorithm as Wikipedia and crowdsources
project ideas so students can continue to
projects from previous semesters without
repeating other students' work or ideas.
"They have a very positive way to look at
what people have done, to build or enhance
what people have done for their own proj-
ect," he said. "It's much more what I expect
of a committee of scholars. You do a refer-
ence look-up, you cite what's been done
before. You follow what trends are most
appealing."
Fishman also said he uses crowdsourc-
ing in his classroom. For each of his classes,
he makes an openly editable Google Docu-
ment so he and his students can create a
set of master notes together. Students are
encouraged to include information from
outside sources, including Wikipedia.
"Frequently in my classes, as we are talk-
ing about topics - people mention some
theorist, or some article or some idea - and
someone will post a Wikipedia link into our
discussion logs," Fishman said.
Fishman added that crowdsourcing
technology is only as powerful as the peo-
ple who use it.
"It doesn't make sense to me to ask ques-
tions about whether. things like Wikipe-
dia are good or bad for student learning,"
Fishman said. "It's all about what you do
with them. I think there are lots of people
inventing lots of great ways to use these
tools, including students."
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