National Archives Hires 'Wikipedian In Residence'

from the but-wikipedia-sucks,-right? dept

Fri, Jun 10th 2011 6:34pm — Mike Masnick

Didn't see this coming. Via Glyn Moody, we learn that the National Archives has hired its first "Wikipedian in Residence" -- though it appears to only be a summer internship position.

The Archives says [Dominic] McDevitt-Parks has more than seven years of Wikipedia editing experience. His job will be to foster collaboration between the Wikipedia community and the National Archives. That could include using some of Wikipedia�s tools for ongoing digitization projects at the archives.

It would be interesting to hear the Wikipedia-haters' take on this. It seems to me that this is yet another sign of Wikipedia's place in our current culture.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: wikipedia
Companies: national archives

12 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 10 Jun 2011 @ 7:39pm

Hrm.
It would be interesting to hear the Wikipedia-haters' take on this. It seems to me that this is yet another sign of Wikipedia's place in our current culture.

The problem is going to be if he's seen as an 'editor.' Not that WikiP doesn't have those, but they tend to garner reaction from the base. Still, random South African BBQ joints are seen as notable, so who knows?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 10 Jun 2011 @ 9:41pm

They also hire interns to make coffee. Obviously, Starbucks should be worried.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Chargone (profile), 10 Jun 2011 @ 10:08pm

i've never understood the hate for Wikipedia.
it's no more inacurate than any other encyclopeida, and tends to stay up to date.

and, like any other encyclopedia, should be a starting point for getting a general overview and finding more specific issues/sources to look into, not the entirity of one's research for anything serious. (in fact, i'd go so far as to say it's Better than other encyclopeidas for this... the references are right there on the article, and the articles are often a Lot larger due to lack of page limitations. and i don't care how well indexed and cross referenced your hardcopy book is, hyperlinks are better.)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 11 Jun 2011 @ 12:22am

Apropos ...
{{Template:POV}}
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jeni (profile), 11 Jun 2011 @ 5:14am

Lacks Credbilitity
I don't "hate" it by any means but don't have much respect for it or give it much credibility ever since they allowed a 14 year old kid to post a bunch of tripe that was so far from the truth it wasn't funny. This occurred several years ago.

Many of us involved in the matter contacted them for corrections, showed them where to find the accurate information, yet the BS still stands. So I just pass it by.

As for all those reference links...they'd better hope none link to any "infringing content" or they're going to get bitch slapped with a heap of lawsuits of "ProtectIP" goes through. This new hire will have his work cut out for him.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
LindaJoyAdams (profile), 11 Jun 2011 @ 10:41am

Wikipedia expert at national Archives
Expert help? just as long as historical documents aren't altered when digitized as was done in Orwell's 1984.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
darryl, 11 Jun 2011 @ 1:50pm

and THIS ONE - - it's the Glyn Moody show - brought to your by Masnick
Via Glyn Moody,

Again Mike, even has an original thought ? or do you just respond to the puppet master (Glyn) pulling on your strings ?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 11 Jun 2011 @ 5:58pm

Advice to Darryl
This empty sniping makes you look like a child.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 11 Jun 2011 @ 10:26pm

Re: and THIS ONE - - it's the Glyn Moody show - brought to your by Masnick
Could you hurry up and graduate from 1st grade, Darryl?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Marcus Carab (profile), 12 Jun 2011 @ 9:54am

Re: and THIS ONE - - it's the Glyn Moody show - brought to your by Masnick
Again Darryl, even has a sentence good ?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Bnesaladur (profile), 12 Jun 2011 @ 12:49pm

Re: Advice to Darryl
Probably is and the only way he can feel cool is by coming here and bashing Mike rather than becoming involved in an intelligent debate. I don't agree with everyone who posts here but most of them at least have intelligent posts that can be disagreed with intelligently. It is one thing to disagree, another to disagree and toss around some harassment but something different entirely to prove your lack of intellect by tossing around harassment and failing to even provide an argument. The last can only be responded too with disdain.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2011 @ 12:53pm

Wikipedia is very biased. I would hate to see them involved in anything where facts are important.
[ link to this | view in thread ]