The other day while having dinner at a friend’s place, we had an interesting conversation about one of the core values of Web 2.0 i.e. harnessing collective intelligence. One friend argued that websites like Wikipedia and Amazon were so full of vandals (defacing pages on Wikipedia and writing bogus reviews on Amazon for example) that we should never use them to learn / decide what to buy…
Interestingly, my other friends said that they were not too sure about Amazon being unreliable (maybe because they had no choice than believing that the comments on Amazon were sincerely written as their entire buying strategy was based on that being true…) but, surely, he was right about Wikipedia which couldn’t possibly be authoritative.
I was the only one saying that Wikipedia is good enough. In fact, it’s more than good enough in the sense that if one feels a specific page is not good enough he can make it become good enough by editing it. Of course, there are vandals on Wikipedia but the website features an excellent version tracking system and, more important, more honest people than vandals.
In fact, I immediately realised that some people had a bad perception of Wikipedia because, brace yourself, it is free. Yep. Same as open source software. For some bizarre reason, some of us believe that something which is free is obligatorily not good. And, of course, what is expensive is obligatorily good.
And this is a very bad thing. Because it’s false. Remember this when doing your Christmas shopping.
Merry Christmas to you!
hmm can we reference Wikipedia in our project? is it a reliable source of information to quote in our reports?
I like wikipedia :)
that’s so true..
in fact with some friends i was talking about the power behind using Joomla! and all I got was negative feedback..and yeh because it is open source!!
btw, anybody knows how to build our own template and use it with Joomla!…
that would be highly appreciated if somebody could help!..
In our era of software-generated research paper being accepted at an IEEE conference, I would say that Wikipedia is very respectable and accurate. So I can’t see why someone cannot quote part of it in a project or paper.
Philosophically speaking, quoting Wikipedia is the same as using Firefox. Both are free. Both have been created over a period of time by volunteers. And both have been thoroughly scrutinised by enough eyeballs.
I personally use WordPress and Drupal but not Joomla. What I have learned over the years is that, in order to design a new template, one has to proceed in phases. Start by building a normal HTML page. Then style it with CSS. Use the positioning capabilities of CSS2 (and not tables) to get everything right. When you are satisfied with the design (use Lorem ipsum text to be able to judge whether the design looks nice or not), replace the placeholder text by the tags provided by Joomla.
Thanks for the help. I’m going to try that out. The same question would have applied for WordPress though. How to build your own template for WordPress or Drupal.. Would the same explanation suitable for them?
Talking about templates, i don’t understand a damn shit on how to create css style and html coding. Is there a program that can help me design my blogger theme in WYSIWYG then it converts it into a code for me to paste in blogger?
most people will say expensive means better… very true.
cheap stuff also means bad :p
free is good
anywayz, wikipedia is ok, but reading stuffs from wikipedia i suppose you should always cross reference whatever you are taking in from different sources first to be sure.
happy festivities to all
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To Jim:
You can try your luck with any decent Wysiwyg HTML editor (like Bluefish or Quanta if you use Linux.)
To Selven:
Cross reference with what?
i dont use linux. Somebody proposed me adobeGoLive to design blogger themes, and also said that i have to learn language c so as to be able to design the themes. But i dont understand c(its a high level langauge i know, which is close to human language) Anyway, just wanted to know if adobegolive has a Wysiwyg option to design the themes then export it in xml format for blogger? and if the c language is difficult?
Unfortunately, I have never used Adobe GoLive so I can’t tell you if it can be used as a HTML Wysiwyg editor…
Concerning C, it is a programming language to write system software (like the Linux kernel) and it is not normally used when designing themes… Many blogging software (like WordPress) allow you to embed small PHP scripts in themes so I guess PHP would be an interesting programming language to learn… at the expense of C.
i found many themes like yours on templates sites, but only in 2 column type.
I just wanted to know if your current template is a premium one (not a free one) ?
I don’t use the WordPress.com service. I have my own server with my own installation of the open source WordPress software. And I use a free theme (which I’ve slightly customised). Go to the end of the page and you’ll find a link to where I got the theme from.
I do agree. I myself use OO.org, for my assignments, and it works pretty well for me, and I specially love the Drawing module which makes it a breeze to make dfd’s. As far as Office Package is concerned, I am not a power user, so I may not be able to say more (although MS Access can hardly be rivaled). In real life as well I bought myself some Christmas bargains, it’s amazing what you can buy from street fairs!
However as much as an enthusiast as I may be, it should be mentioned that while they are some pretty good stuffs out there, for some bizarre reason, some geeks believe that something which is OpenSource is obligatorily good. May I remind them that OpenSource does not exclude non-crapiness. And if there is one attitude that I hate in the FOSS world, it’s “It’s free, don’t like it? Don’t use it.” and “Want a feature? Do it yourself! I don’t care, it’s free.” (infamous gaim/pidgin attitude) , not to mention “The software ate your cat? Don’t blame me, it’s free.”
Those are some reasons why some times I prefer paying for the real thing, so that I may be able to rant if something doesn’t please me. And besides, most end-users don’t care about the source, because they can’t make anything out of it.
As far as wikipedia is concerned, it’s a great read for general knowledge and even contains many facts and resources. However when it comes to *cough* serious *cough* research, I’d rather use it as a starting point because you can be sure 75% of those doing the same thing as you will be copy-pasting from there, and secondly, as much as the information may seem genuine, you can never be sure of that – because it’s free…
Btw Avinash is right. Drupal is far better than joomla. It’s faster, more flexible (you could come across several sites all looking and working differently, but running on drupal under the hood!) and has a rock solid admin interface. The only thing is that it might take a little time to get used to it, but when you do, it’s cruise control. Its themes are rather easy to make – you can modify blank templates available to download.
WYSIWYG is a pain in the a**. See http://www.w3schools.com. Got nice tutorials and references. A real life saver.
btw
Wish you a very happy new year
thanks for the tips for drupal regarding its easiness.
Cheers.
Happy new year 2009 to everyone
What you say is true. You can find crap software both in the commercial and open source world. You can (fortunately) also find quality software in both worlds. So we shouldn’t be too dogmatic in our choices. For instance, since getting my MacBook, I’ve bought a lot of quality commercial software from independent developers for it and I couldn’t be happier.
Concerning Wikipedia, I fail to understand why you doubt the information there is genuine because it’s free… Does this mean that if you had to pay to access Wikipedia, you would have been convinced on its authoritativeness? Then pay. And be happy.
[By the way, I never wrote that Drupal is better than Joomla. I only said that I know and use Drupal but not Joomla…]
Is the iphone worth buying in Mauritiius. is it cheap or expensive here.
Re the use of Wikipedia in scientific publications.
Wikipedia is a very good source of information, but is NOT acceptable in a scientific publications. The information on wikipedia has been contributed by experts and non experts and there is no way to differentiate what is acceptable and what is not.
One can read an article in wikipedia for general knowledge and may even be s starting point for a term paper. Students should however be encouraged to look for the proper source when they quote something and the only one accepted in the scientific community is peer reviewed journal.
Having said that I would like to point our the it is unfortunate that UoM is not giving access to online journals to their students. This is a crucial element is university education – access to scientific jounal, and online is the way to go and can be way cheaper. We should not keep buying hard copies which makes search tedious, and I wonder how many student, if not when compelled by their lecturer, spend time skimming through those journals.
I went back to the various comments posted above and wanna stress it again. Do not quote from wikipedia in your term papers or your final year dissertation. Major universities kind of ban the use of wikipedia, they are not recommended.
You do not want to see your external examiner (though I doubt it would happen) rejecting your thesis simply because you quoted wikipedia. But he can surely penalize you.
There is no harm is reading from it, but always quote peer reviewed scientific journals. I stress on peer reviewed, because these are articles that have been vetted and deemed acceptable for publication. Btw that does not mean that peer review is a foolproof mechanism, remember the article published in nature on cloning in 2005.
Wikipedia IS peer-reviewed… whether you like it or not. Same as open source software in fact.
In a certain sense, its peer-reviewing mechanism is better than the one used for research publications because it is public and anyone can see what has been accepted or not.
Loads and loads of crap is published in research journals every year. I know. I’ve read lots of them… unfortunately. You should read this to get a glimpse of what research has become in a lot of universities.
In fact, the future of research publications is arXiv. In a few years, it has become very very reputable… even if its contents is not peer-reviewed.
Did you all see the article in Le mauricien about the ovni at pointe aux sables? Can someone get the videos or photos? (Ovnis are far more interesting than discussing about wikis, prices etc)
Or avinash can publish an article about it.
expensive is good >>> e.g an aston martin is really worth its price.
cheap stuffs>> there’s a reason it is cheap, buy an aston martin for 1/4 the price of an aston martin, probably it has hit somewhere, or its stolen goods.
Free Stuff >>> Someone giving you a free aston martin would be idiotic …. unless s/he wants to gift it to you as a sign or gratitude/love/friendship <—- that’s way better and more truthworthy.
Well the guy is right, he wrote it for his own purpose, you don’t like it, f*ck off, you are using it everyday, and the guy didn’t get any money for that, he gave you the freedom to implement your change, go an do it and stop comparing it to microshit’s product! its a gift, you don’t continuously say the gift was not good or the gift lack this or that when you receive one, you just accept it.
But then those are high quality gifts :p e.g apache!
Well as far as i know people who pays for microsoft license still can rant to them so much??? they still will be kicked in the ass if they take a plane, go directly to bill gate and shout “your fucken product sucks, i just bought that and it is not working!”
IEEE has started making authors “copyright” their works under IEEE and make the articles non free [even if the author wanted it to be free], so, if you read and ieee article and wasn’t satisfied, does that mean you’ll be refunded or your can shout out at ieee that “you guys sucks and have stolen my money??? they’ll sue you.
as far as wikipedia is concerned, it is a great info base where you can start to get an idea about things, as a logical being, you should stop TRUSTING any source of information, even from a paid source… pffft, the information is there, read it, make your own opinion from it, take the information you judge good and reject what you consider erroneous.. don’t take anything for god words! coz god’s words comes only from me.
do you think that if you buy XXXX book on YYYY topic for a truly exhorbitant price, written by a truly remarkable author ZZZZ makes the book trustworthy???? nooooooooooo, you should consider everyone to be a liar and challenge what they say [inside your brain] and try to visualize it if what he says is right, or try to tihnk in what kind of trance the author was when he wrote that!
pffft according to me [and that’s just my opinion, a lot of people in that so called scientific community just trusted what the other scientists before them wrote and quote from their work and wrote other bullshit, which other who comes in should now quote… pffft its a crazy system, we can’t “rate” or quantify [or qualify] things such as truth and knowledge, you just have to appreciate it and find some use for it.
Wikipedia is a great way to break that trend, because it is a stockpile of information, and both ‘professional’ and non professionals have written stuffs there, infact i would encourage even people from the amazonian forest who knows about medicinal plants etc.. to post stuffs there, this way, even if thigns are “not proven” when you are looking for sometihng you have a vast library of information, and at some point .. the least most insignificant information might be crucial and be a good lead to finding more interesting things.
I would say, do not quote from any other source other than your own self… but unfortunately, ‘society’ will never believe in you, even if you view things differently, bof, f*ck em, you might not get great marks, you might not end up rich, but atleast you’ll feel superior and true to yourself and at some point in time.. you will win.
final words…
don’t trust anything that you read, use your brain to make sense.. probably what you read should be just a lead to further knowledge, nothing more.. a lead that you should visualize and attack from all angle!
ps. why is the scientology section in wikipedia “locked” <—- trying to hide information???
nothing is truthworthy
+$3|v3n
Ovni?
Le Mauricien of which edition?
http://lemauricien.com/mauricien/in090106.htm
j’aurais bien voulu voir effectivement les 3mins qu’il a pu filmer! dommage qu’il y a pas la signautre du journaliste car je pense qu’il l’a visione!
I am surprised by the reaction to my comment on Wikipedia.
No Sir. Wikipedia, I state it again, Wikipedia is a good source of information, a really valuable one. But it cannot and should not be used as scientific reference. A better way would be to read and look for the proper scientific paper to verify the content.
Please refer to this paper http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.2106
Also to this http://www.virtuallyadvising.com/content/news/uwirenews20060402wikipedia.html
This one is funny “Don’t tell Clint Eastwood he’s a vegan” but his wiki page mention that he is: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/01/05/don039t-tell-clint-eastwood-he039s-a-vegan.html
I agree that access to the scientific journal cost a lot and unfortunately, our university does not seem to value this, for lack of funds of course. But we as academics should push the idea for greater access to scientific publications, online publication.
Re Selven’s comments.
In a letter Newton wrote to Hooke in February 1676, he noted “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
And this is what science is all about. We are all dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants. Through “rigorous” scientific analysis we bring our little contribution to this vast ocean of knowledge. And it is the same ocean of knowledge we turn to in search of the truth.
What are we expected to do when we embark on our final year research at the university, or on any kind of research? We have a topic in mind, a brief idea and our supervisor asks us to do a literature review. This is where you go to the scientific publications, and you read what is related to your field, you churn and you assess and do your critique. You are allowed to agree and disagree, you verify and counter-verify. You may find somebody who suggest X and somebody else suggesting Y. Which is which? You point it out in your literature review chapter.
At the end this tedious process, you are expected to identify this little gap in the knowledge. And trust me it is a very difficult task, because there is so much out there and we have all heard ourself saying “But damn this has already been done!!!” And it is not like, you read it, don’t like it and ask for your money back! It is not about like or dislike, it is about critique.
Once you’ve identified the gap in knowledge, you design your experiment, run it analyze your results and publish your work. It is the responsibility of a scientist to publish his work, to share it with the scientific community.
And by doing so, the dwarf that we are, will have gone through the findings of the giants and move the breadth of knowledge a little further.
It is not easy to find what is right from what is not. It demands a lot of experience and nobody can become an expert in everything. This is where the peer review process becomes important. When a paper is submitted to a journal, the editor sends it to three reviewers and they report back to the editor and the latter report to the author(s) whether the paper is accepted, require corrections, or is rejected. It is not a fool proof process, but it is the best available.
I repeat: Wikipedia IS peer-reviewed.
I am not an academic anymore but, were I still one, I would not have penalised students quoting from Wikipedia. In fact, maybe the real reason why some universities don’t like their student quoting from Wikipedia is that many students tend to copy paste whole pages from it to complete their assignments and this is very bad. But, once more, I don’t see why a student should not be allowed to quote responsibly from Wikipedia. It is as authoritative, for me, as any other encyclopaedia.
Since we have been talking of the peer review process, on a more humorous note, I would like to share this:
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=581
At user Anonymous: you didn’t understood most of what i said. I’ll reply to what i believe you got well.
Sure enough, it is his reponsibility [and it shouldn’t be, it should be by passion], but this in no way make what he says “HOLY”, even if it was peer reviewed by a bunch of people just like him! That’s why i am more for an open pool of information [lightly peer reviewed] without really being too much an icon for “THIS IS THE TRUTH AND NOTHING ELSE MATTERS”.
The way academics sees scientific papers that have been reviewed is just like that, they believe or assume it is right [or assume other are wrong]. but if someone really want to study a particular field/part of field, he should read everything that there is to it, even what other claim not to be correct, because there’s no smoke without a fire, it might be a useful lead. In a perfect world where knowledge means something, the knowledge seeker should be neutral about things and not discard readings just coz it comes from a source that is “not official”.
else there’s no difference between a “by the book kid” and a “scientist/artist”
=)
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