Author: mklang

The dangers of editors

Time Magazine has an interesting article on the decline of Wikipedia. It puts the blame where it belongs – squarely on the editors

Wikipedia’s natural resource is an emotion. “There’s the rush of joy that you get the first time you make an edit to Wikipedia…

Over time, though, a class system emerged; now revisions made by infrequent contributors are much likelier to be undone by élite Wikipedians. Chi also notes the rise of wiki-lawyering: for your edits to stick, you’ve got to learn to cite the complex laws of Wikipedia in arguments with other editors. Together, these changes have created a community not very hospitable to newcomers.

This means that a topic expert with deep knowledge in the subject will lose to any expert at Wikipedia. This is not the most advantageous way to get information to the public.

Posted on by mklang

The Resistance of the Monks

From Human Rights Watch comes this fascinating report on the monks resistance in Burma and its aftermath.

This 99-page report written by longtime Burma watcher Bertil Lintner, describes the repression Burma’s monks experienced after they led demonstrations against the government in September 2007. The report tells the stories of individual monks who were arrested, beaten and detained. Two years after Buddhist monks marched down the street of the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, hundreds of monks are in prison and thousands remain fearful of military repression. Many have left their monasteries and returned to their villages or sought refuge abroad, while those who remained in their monasteries live under constant surveillance.

Posted on by mklang

The Death of the Newspaper

With newspapers struggling to survive (and blaming copyright) the death of the media is a fascinating topic, and when you add an infographic and a cool title… well then I am hooked!

The newspapers used to make the news, now they are the news. Reports of their death may indeed be premature but there is no question they are dying. The recession hasn’t helped but the real story is a shift in the habits of American consumers and the emergence of a new generation that gets most of its news online and for free. Newspapers are struggling for both relevancy and revenue in every major US market (although some are certainly making valid efforts to compete and innovate in the digital world). Our infographic is a sad commentary on this once thriving industry.

MINT-DEATH-OF-NEWS-R2

Via Futuramb

Posted on by mklang

Fields of Gold: Lifting the Veil on Europe's Farm Subsidies

The European Union spends €55 billion a year on farm subsidies. Until recently the question of where the money goes was a closely-guarded secret. But thanks to a campaign by journalists, researchers and computer programmers, European taxpayers now have the right to know how their tax money is spent. This short film tells the story of farmsubsidy.org.

Fields of Gold: Lifting the Veil on Europe’s Farm Subsidies from farmsubsidy.org on Vimeo.

Posted on by mklang

darken our entire Sky of Freedom

No proof should be necessary that a modicum of freedom for writing and printing is one of the strongest Pillars of support for free Government, for in the absence of such, the Estates would not dispose of sufficient knowledge to make good Laws, nor Practitioners of Law have control in their vocation, nor Subjects knowledge of the requirements laid down in Law, the limits of Authority and their own duties. Learning and good manners would be suppressed, coarseness in thought, speech and customs would flourish, and a sinister gloom would within a few years darken our entire Sky of Freedom.
Anders Chydenius (1729-1803)
Memorandum on the Freedom of the Press, 1765.

Posted on by mklang

Eight years have passed

For eight years the Swedish journalist Dawit Isaak has been detained without a trial in a prison in Eritrea. It is difficult to imagine what that must be like. He was imprisoned on the 23 September 2001.

Here is an excercise in perspective:

One month after his imprisonment the first iPod was launched (23 October 2001) and Microsoft released Windows XP (25 October 2001). Facebook was launched in 2004 and so was the first version of the Ubuntu operating system.

For more information FreeDawit.

Posted on by mklang

Ghost writing in Science, plagiarism with a twist

Read yesterday in the Guardian that a MD was being accused of plagiarism with an interesting twist. Basically he had been accepting cash to add his name to medical articles written by a drug company.

Doctors have been agreeing to be named as authors on studies written by employees of the pharmaceutical industry, giving greater credibility to medical research, according to new evidence.

The Guardian has learned that one of Britain’s leading bone specialists is facing disciplinary action over accusations that he was involved in “ghost writing”.

When talking to students about plagiarism I tend to say that plagiarism is any attempt by a student to use the ideas or words of others in an attempt to deceive the examiner into believing they are students own. But is what the MD is doing plagiarism? And how does this differ from the more accepted forms of collaboration? For example lazy co-authors or large teams working together. How much does the “author” of a paper actually need to write him/herself for it not to be plagiarism? Some papers are co-authored by hundreds of researchers who have worked together to varying degrees. ScienceWatch reports on multi author papers and give examples of papers with up to 900 collaborators!

The question is naturally important but what is the difference between 900 collaborators or a paper ghost written by the company to which the MD agrees?

Posted on by mklang