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[personal profile] veronica_rich
This falls in the category of 'Oh dear Dog, how stupid ARE you?'

There are two things in here that stand out as annoying and offensive to me:

1. When I was a kid and hadn't heard of something, I had to go look it up in a book or ask a teacher or my parents (or grandparents, whatever). We didn't have the Internet; hell, I was lucky I had an Atari 2600 and Pitfall for it. The point is, there was no ten-second point-and-click research. BUT REGARDLESS, THERE ARE THINGS YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO LOOK UP OR ASK ABOUT IF YOU'RE OLDER THAN, OH, NINE. "Was the Titanic real?" Are YOU for real? I knew about the Titanic literally decades before James Cameron told us about it.

I don't think I'm being culturally privileged; you people literally have the easiest research tool in the history of ever. The only way you could find things easier is if Servo the Robot could read your mind and download information directly into your brain as soon as you wonder something. If you have the privilege of access to Twitter, you probably have the privilege of Internet access, too. So don't give me that.

2. No, don't go "wikipedia" something. Use a real source. Take a few minutes to verify it by crosschecking. Wikipedia is good for killing time or bullshit, or finding external links to real sources. Period.

Date: 2012-06-20 02:50 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
There are some very good individual wikis however. The one for Pet Diabetes has more info than you will find in any vet's office and it is accurate. I have looked up cities on wikipedia and thought the info was reliable, obviously if the city's government cares about how it's represented online it will have accurate info.

Date: 2012-06-20 03:27 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] veronica-rich.livejournal.com
The problem is, anyone can go into these pages and edit the information - you don't have to prove you're an expert, either through education or experience. I could go put something on those pages.

Wikipedia is good for external links at the bottom and the citation links; that's where you're supposed to be able to find the information compiled in the wiki entry itself. I refuse to let my writers cite Wikipedia for their articles; I've yelled at them for trying. Of course, if you're just an average person, you might get an idea from the W to go look it up elsewhere to verify it - but there are a lot of young people who don't know to do that. Scary!
Edited Date: 2012-06-20 03:35 am (UTC)

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