Saturday, July 19, 2008

Wikis in Plain English

Just trying to set up one of these for the MLCA ... called:-

mlca@wikidot.com

Friday, July 11, 2008

The Dangers of a Wiki, or, checking your sources

Kimmy told me a tale today, highlighting the dangers of Wikis.

An academic colleague of hers, Kevin, told a story of how he teased his niece, who had recently completed a test for her SATs. One of the questions she had trouble with was "What is a neophyte?" - to which she had responded, in lieu of knowing the correct answer, "it is a fish". Kevin then logged onto Wiki, and while persuading her she was correct via the phoneline, was busy altering the wiki entry to:

Neophyte

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A neophyte is a beginner. In the context of Christianity, the term often refers to a newly ordained priest, a person who recently took a monastic vow, or a new convert to the religion.

In the Catholic and Orthodox Churches an adult convert is considered a neophyte for one year after conversion. Roman Catholic neophytes are considered full members of the Church, but may not act as sponsors for others planning to join.

In ecology, a neophyte is a plant species recently introduced to an area (in contrast to an archaeophyte, a long-established introduced species).


Neophyte may also refer to:


Funny.....I wonder how long it will stay there unaltered. Makes you think about the veracity of the content on Wiki though.