Terry, Discworld and Wikipedia

[LessHero vanU]

As I mentioned when I introduced myself, I am involved in Wikipedia - my homepage is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:LessHeard_vanU (NSFPWND). One of the subjects I am most proud of, despite or maybe because of my lack of contributions to the topic, are the articles relating to TerryP (his article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett), the Discworld books (and others), and the various characters found within them.
The "Portal" (this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Discworld_books) lists every article linked to the Discworld books.

What do the members of this site think of the coverage? Are there mistakes? Is every topic covered sufficiently according to its "importance"? Do people ever edit these pages, and are they happy with that experience? Let me know - I won't fix any problems you may have, but I can show you how you can.

 

[DaveC]

As I mentioned when I introduced myself, I am involved in Wikipedia - my homepage is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:LessHeard_vanU (NSFPWND). One of the subjects I am most proud of, despite or maybe because of my lack of contributions to the topic, are the articles relating to TerryP (his article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett), the Discworld books (and others), and the various characters found within them.
The "Portal" (this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Discworld_books) lists every article linked to the Discworld books.

What do the members of this site think of the coverage? Are there mistakes? Is every topic covered sufficiently according to its "importance"? Do people ever edit these pages, and are they happy with that experience? Let me know - I won't fix any problems you may have, but I can show you how you can.

I have used the Wiki page a lot for reference, but don't enough to know if there are any mistakes...

 

[Tonyblack]

Actually, there's one thing I've always wanted to ask about Wiki.

Sometime, when I try to post a link to a particular item such as this one for Eric: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_(novel) - the brackets around the word "novel" are not recognised as a viable code (the same goes for things like apostrophies) and therefore the link gets broken.

I know that sometimes I can substitute a "%" for a bracket and that will work, but it doesn't make for easy linking.

Is there an easy way to do this? Something like (as with some online news items) a 'link to this article' code would make things easier in cases like this.

 

[LessHero vanU]

Actually, there's one thing I've always wanted to ask about Wiki.

Sometime, when I try to post a link to a particular item such as this one for Eric: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_(novel) - the brackets around the word "novel" are not recognised as a viable code (the same goes for things like apostrophies) and therefore the link gets broken.

I know that sometimes I can substitute a "%" for a bracket and that will work, but it doesn't make for easy linking.

Is there an easy way to do this? Something like (as with some online news items) a 'link to this article' code would make things easier in cases like this.

I work as a volunteer for Wikipedia, I don't know how it works! There are some issues about coding, and it is probably best if you look for them yourselves. If you place "Wikipedia:" and then the search term such as "code" you will hopefully find a drop down menu with search results. If you do not find the specific page, choosing "Wikipedia:Code" will take you to a search page where all instances of those factors will be displayed. Hopefully you can find what you are looking for there. I know that there are people who are very knowledgeable about code and stuff - and I ain't one of them.

 

[francesy]

How does websites such as Wikipedia affect education? I remember having to read " of Mice and Men" in high school, and write a summary of the book. Now, I can just search it on wikipedia, and I have the whole book summary, the characters, and their involvement in the story.
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[Tonyblack]

I don't think anyone in this thread said that Wikipedia did affect education. I fail to see your point.

 

[dennykay]

and also, most teachers today are internet-savvy enough to check wikipedia of all places.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

I thnk wiki's a brilliant reference source for all kinds of things, but for essay purposes it'd be truly daft to try to pass it off as your own as denny says.

Reading up the synopsis of novels on there isn't foolproof either - there's never a proper substitute for reading the whole book, else you can't get the nuance and detail to back up your quotes

 

[Willem]

Loads of schools use plagiarism-software these days. Input student's work and let it run - it catches not only literally copied text but also changes you'd make to make it less obviously copied.

 

[archerinwood]

wikipedia is brilliant.I never use it for my home/schoolwork .

 

[Anilori]

I, on the other hand, have been known to use it for classes... but I'm allowed to, I'm a teacher It's really convenient when it's 11PM the day before your lesson and you urgently need a detail about the history of Switzerland, or, as happened once, got William Jones mixed up with John Williams. I just have to rely on the hope that those kinds of subjects aren't the ones who get edit wars and subjectivity problems...

 

[Tonyblack]

John Williams the composer or John Williams the guitarist? Or another John Williams?

 

[Anilori]

Any John Williams The point is that none of them discovered the Indo-European language family ^^

 

[dennykay]

John Williams the composer or John Williams the guitarist? Or another John Williams?

thank god they're not the same?