WIKIPEDIA is now politically correct to use as a reference resource
http://whygive.wikimedia.org/2007/12...ust-wikipedia/

8th December 2007, ResearchBuzz notes:
"OCLC Hooks Up With Wikipedia"
. . . " search over a billion items in
over 10,000 libraries around the world."
http://www.academic-genealogy.com/me...y.htm#research
" Now the xISBN service has been hooked up
with Wikipedia! That means you can enter a URL
and have xISBN generate a list of related URLs,
and then check those URLs against the ISBNs
on Wikipedia."
http://www.researchbuzz.org/wp/2007/...ith-wikipedia/

November 2007, Amazon Kindle, an electronic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle
book (e-book) service is launched in the United States
by Amazon.com.
The Official Kindle product page notes:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FI73MA/
" Includes free wireless access to the planet's
most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia--
Wikipedia.org."

November 27, 2007, Inside Higher Education
News adds, under . . . New Ways to Collaborate . . .
"How does the university develop its academic enterprise?"
. . . "And now that both Microsoft and Google offer tools that
allow students to publish their work -- and edit it, in real time,
with others -- the adoption of these Web services presents
an opportunity for universities to evolve their approaches in
the classroom as well" . . . such as "posting term papers on
Wikipedia to be peer-edited by classmates" . . .
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/27/email

October 29, 2007, Inside Higher Education News
suggests: "The shift to thinking about placing the term
paper as a Wikipedia encyclopedia entry allows for
another level of peer review," . . .
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/29/wikipedia

August 27, 2007, the Taipei Times noted:
Academics debate Wikipedia's value . . .
. . .
"For S.T. Huang . . . , associate professor of the
National Pingtung University of Science and Technology,
the online encyclopedia, with its use of the open-source
software "Wiki," can be used to preserve "disappearing
local knowledge." Huang and some local activists in
southern Taiwan have been dedicated to the task of
accumulating local knowledge for more than 10 years.
He said that Wikipedia will help the team establish
a local knowledge database for Taiwan that can be
accessed by people all over the world."
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiw.../14/2003374123

Earlier reference:
A Case Study on the Veracity of the "Wiki" concept . . .
http://www.journalism.org/node/1676

MULTI-SOURCE REFERENCE using WIKIPEDIA:
Regional Genealogy and Local History Research:
Local History and Genealogy Portals to the World.
http://www.academic-genealogy.com/regionalgenealogy.htm
Regional genealogy and local history research includes:
areas, countries, directories, ethnic group populations,
organizations, local ancestry and local history studies.

Respectfully yours,

Tom Tinney, Sr.
Who's Who in America,
Millennium Edition [54th] through 2004
Who's Who In Genealogy and Heraldry, [both editions]
Family Genealogy & History Internet Education Directory
http://www.academic-genealogy.com/
Professional worldwide humanities and social sciences mega portal,
connected directly to thousands of related sub-sets, with billions of
primary or secondary database family history and genealogy records.
It encompasses all other key worldwide genealogy and surname sites.

P.S. The "political correctness" phrase was a subtle statement
by the writer that compared the rise of Wikipedia and its
compilation by the "unwashed" educated masses, with
the rise of the American democratic process; the creation
of the Constitution of the United States, wherein a society
was ordered by former "unwashed" people, who had the
audacity to believe that the common man could self-govern.
UNWASHED: ignorant, plebeian

WIKIPEDIA continues to be politically correct,
as amended daily. The historical perspective
or context is my mention of the creation of the
Constitution of the United States, which was
made for change, (through an amendment process),
as required by future generations. "The United States
Constitution is the oldest enduring written
national Constitution." So Wikipedia, which
is amended daily, should have a similar future.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids/constitution/facts.html
AMENDMENT: The act of changing for the better;
improvement. A correction or alteration, as in a manuscript.

POINT OF ISSUE: There appears a clear usage trend,
indicating Wikipedia will over time, become central to
higher education curriculum and teaching methods,
in all language formats, worldwide.

October 31, 2007 Wikipedia project is a class act
http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/wi...618940842.html
. . .
[University of New South Wales Associate Professor
Andrew Collins has just completed a 10-week project
with his advanced immunology class, requiring students
to correct errors and fill the gaps in Wikipedia articles
related to immunology. . . .

Universities around the world, from the University
of Hong Kong to MIT to Yale, have run similar
projects for certain courses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...rsity_projects

The site, now ranked among the ten most-visited
websites in the world, . . .]

The British Library, "The world's knowledge",
among other things, uses Wikipedia directly,
at: The Web Archiving Programme.
http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/stratpolprog/digi/webarch/
"The Web Archiving Programme has been set up to
put in place systems that enable the British Library
to become the point of first resort for anyone who
wants to access a comprehensive archive of material
from the UK Web domain". I note on External links:
Wikipedia: Web Crawler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_crawler

Peer Review: "The British Library is a founder member
of the UK Web Archiving Consortium and chairs the
steering committee. The archive contains over 2100
different sites, over 1000 of which have been contributed
by the team at the British Library."

Wikipedia is used in Library of Congress Authorities.
"Using Library of Congress Authorities, you can browse
and view authority headings for Subject, Name, Title
and Name/Title combinations; and download authority
records in MARC format for use in a local library system."
This service is offered free of charge.
http://authorities.loc.gov/

WIKIPEDIA vs "The Good Old Days"
and Use of encyclopedias as a source.
Please note:
The Genealogical Proof Standard
http://www.bcgcertification.org/resources/standard.html
"Acceptable conclusions, therefore,
meet the Genealogical Proof Standard
(GPS). The GPS consists of five elements:"
FIRST LISTED:
"a reasonably exhaustive search"

A reasonably exhaustive search
must now include WIKIPEDIA, because:

(1) According to Alexa, it is Global #8
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500

(2) Wikipedia Trend History is up
http://www.google.com/trends?q=wikip...ate=all&sort=0

(3) For the United States alone, 12/10/07 -
Nielsen Online Reports Topline U.S. Data
for November 2007
http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_071210.pdf
Wikipedia had a Unique Audience of 49,617,000,
with average time per person 17 minutes 17 seconds.

(4) Articles cited from the Internet must be
credible, reliable and current. Key word:
"current", makes Wikipedia indispensable.
It is the responsibility of the professional
researcher to make proper "analysis and
correlation of the collected information"
and "bring to resolution" "any conflicting
evidence".

OBSERVATIONS ON CREDIBILITY:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credibility
. . .
(a) perceptions of credibility differ across web site
"genres": news organization web sites are rated
highest in terms of message, sponsor, and overall
site credibility, and personal web sites lowest;
. . .
http://www.credibility.ucsb.edu/past_research.php
This observation weighs heavily against the
family history profession having online credibility,
and should be a first area of change.
. . .
[Second, traditional notions of credibility as
coming from a centralized authority (e.g., a
teacher, expert, or author) and individualized
appraisal processes are challenged by digital
technologies. Electronic networks make it
easier to rely on the collective to assess
information. Credibility assessments as
constructed through collective or community
efforts (e.g., wikis, text messaging via cell
phones, or social networking applications)
emerge as a major theme in recent discussions,
and phrases like "distributed" and "decentralized"
credibility, the "democratization of information,"
and "collectively versus institutionally-derived
credibility" are common. At core is the belief
that digital media allow for the uncoupling of
credibility and authority in a way never before
possible. . . .]