I discourage my students from using the Internet, and specifically Wikipedia, which is simply wrong, more often than not.
I know this because their entry about me, yes, ME, the bigheaded artistmusicianacademic, is wrong.
Being a Blogger, I understand the need to fill space with nonsense in order to validate life and communicate with unseen people.
Sometimes it all reminds me of Dr Seuss' story of Horton the Elephant, who finds a tiny world floating in the air one day.
The people in the tiny world have all got together and are shouting 'We're HERE, We're HERE!' through a giant megaphone attached to the top of their tallest building.
Our writings gain an authority (an unauthorised authority) by being posted electronically to be searched and seen.
The students still use it for serious research in spite of exhortations to use the library books where established theorists and philosophers argue against history, so I've decided to re-christen it various names that should pop into their heads at those lax moments when they can't be bothered to open a book.
I'd thought about 'Loner's Lies', but ended up deciding on 'Cranks Rants'.
2 comments:
You know you could always go and edit your Wikipage. Lots of people do. I just looked at it and it was so pathetically sparse that I wouldn't have known where to start. Maybe a project for a slow Thursday sometime.
Hi Ian! Well, it's one of those things that seems like a vanity-publish. I am sure one day my vanity will get the better of me and I'll do it!
helen
:)
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