today’s featured article on wikipedia
I’m sure most of you have visited wikipedia enough to be familiar with their “Featured Article”. Each day, they pick an article that is well-written, informative, accurate, etc, and feature it on the front page. The nature of the topics is ususally biographical, geographical, scientific, etc. Well – I literally laughed out loud when I saw today’s featured article. It covered the very compelling world of…you heard it…Shoe Polish. Yep, shoe polish, folks. Not that shoe polish isn’t incredibly interesting, but seriously. Out of all the millions of articles in wikipedia, you’d think that the editors could come up with something a tad more interesting than shoe polish.
Tomorrow’s featured article: Waxed Paper…
Interesting that you post about Wikipedia on the same day that Nature released the results of an investigation comparing the accuracy of scientific articles in Britanica and Wikipedia. It will be interesting to see how this plays into the recent debates over Wikipedia’s relevance.
I hope my professor from Reference class reads the reports of that study. She was not too keen on us using Wikipedia as a source in our answers to the reference question assignments.
“However, an expert-led investigation carried out by Nature”…and probably paid for by Wikipedia. Just kidding.
I’ve been having discussions with some coworkers at NWC about the use of Wikipedia in their courses. We’ve agreed that one must use more than one source if you are trying to make a point. The web is polluted with false information. This of course lead to a discussion about Wikiversity and wondering what that could develop into. “Hey mom, I just graduated from Wikiversity :-)”
What’s so unusual about shoe polish? I have to use it every day.. ;-) (Although not any more, thanks to the new style of boots)
It’s not so much unusual as it is…trivial perhaps? I dunno – it just struck me funny to see shoe polish as the featured article.
I know, just kidding.. And waxed paper? Hmm..