Cory's Big Idea
Cory Doctorow has given some details about a course he is running:an undergrad class about DRM, EULAs, copyright, technology and control in the 21st century, called "Pwned: Is everyone on this campus a copyright criminal?"
No, wait, even if you can't stand the Cory.
The course itself is pretty conventional. But this, frankly, seems brilliant:The main class assignment is to work through Wikipedia entries on subjects we cover in the class, in groups, identifying weak areas in the Wikipedia sections and improving them, then defending those improvements in the message-boards for the Wikipedia entries.
What if every university course did the same, tidying up Wikipedia entries that were sub-par? Think about it.
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2 comments:
Actually, what that means is that Cory Doctorow's students are going to remove any trace of pro-content protection information that he doesn't have a "clarifying" counter arguement to attach to it. What wikipedia will end up with is 100% one-sided pages. This is indoctrination and miseducation of the highest order. It is a major threat to the usefulness of wikipedia, and civil debate on the issue in general.
I don't think so, for the simple reason that Wikipedians won't allow it - you know, that Neutal Point of View stuff.
Certainly, there's always a danger that people will impose their own agenda, but it's pretty easy to spot this kind of thing, and remedy it.
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