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Chinese Ban on Wikipedia Prevents Research
An anonymous reader writes "China has banned access to Wikipedia for the third time, outraging students and intellectuals." From the article: "The latest blocking of the website, the third shutdown of the site in China in the past two years, has now continued for more than 10 weeks without any explanation and without any indication whether the ban is temporary or permanent ... Others said the blocking of Wikipedia has been a major blow to their research projects and even to their prospects of passing civil-service exams. 'How can I do my thesis now?' a university student asked on another Chinese website."
I do enjoy using Wikipedia for day-to-day use but I would not have used it for either of my Masters Thesis' as I don't think either oral defense committee would have accepted Wiki as an authoritative source. Perhaps that is different from school to school. Still, I wonder about the student puzzling how he/she will finish a thesis. I would suggest using mostly journal articles.
http://www.busyweather.com/
How did all grad students complete their theses before the Wikipedia era? As a matter of fact, grads don't refer to encyclopedias when doing research. They refer more often to the literature (books, scientific journals, conference proceedings, etc.)
There's even sites dedicated to research literature. Try CiteSeer http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/, or even Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/.
Of coures Wikipedia can help a lot when you want to have a quick reference on subject matter, but there are also much more comprehensive avenues of research that can be used.
Every government official in China editing a Wikipedia entry - talk about re-writing history! Perhaps Wikipedia should be blocking China.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I don't know if China as we know it is more doomed by their absurd governmental policies, or by the fact that their uyounger generation's research seems to depend on the archived wisdom of random people on the street. I'll grant Wikipedia is getting better, but (a) to depend on it as a primary source of scholarship at this point is absurd and (b) even in China, especially at universities, there are other options.
Unless one's thesis is on the Wikipedia, anyone depending oslely on Wikipedia for research needs a reality slap.
Excuse me, think back to that guy, standing in the path of the line of tanks, and stopping them. Even if it accomplished nothing locally, that has to be one of THE most touching images of the last century, that has inspired thousands to get up stand up for their rights.
It kind of makes one wonder what exactly was accomplished in 1989 when 100,000 protesters marched in Beijing. Appearantly not much.
Oh no, there was *lots* accomplished by this protest, and the massacre that ensued.
The Chinese government proved to its citizenry that There Are Certain Things You Will Not Talk About.
The Chinese government proved to the rest of the world that it doesn't give a rat's ass what anyone else thinks about how They Run Their Country.
The American (and Canadian, and probably others too) government proved that they will walk on eggshells around the issue of free speech and human rights with China in order to get lucrative trade deals.
The Chinese government basically proved that not only can they crush dissent in *their* country, but in others too.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
I don't think it's really fair for you to say something like this unless you live in China and get along fine with the suppression of websites.
Afterall, I've found very helpful things on Wikipedia. I just wrote a Hidden Markov Model using the Viterbi Algorithm and did it from scratch in Java using WordNet and this page. Am I saying I could write a paper off of Wikipedia? No, but when that's all you have to work with, it may be more important than you think.
My work here is dung.
In cases like this there are always individuals that forget what's going on around them long enough to prove themselves idiots.
It always struck me as funny how often the same people bitching about American imperialism conveniently forget their previous arguments when it comes to the internet in China.
Sorry hypocrites, you can't have it both ways. China is a sovereign state, so while you may disagree, YOU have no right sticking your nose in their business, or spreading so-called "American values".
And you can thank the left for that particular argument, because I stole it straight from an anti-war in Iraq website.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
That isn't the approach Eisenhower took with the Soviets. His idea was that to compete globally, they must educate themselves, and that would "sow the seeds of their own destruction." (meaning the destruction of communism). It did.
It is interesting to know this and see all the Chinese students enrolled in our American universities. I think it is just a matter of time--"holding the line" as Eisenhower called it.
-- yawn. --
There can be no happiness without freedom. You have no idea what it is like to know that if the police come knocking, you need to hand over a thousand yuan or a loved one disappears. You don't know what it means to have classmates beaten so badly they leave police stations brain damaged and half dead, with no recourse. You don't know what it's like when the state owned company you worked for for 30 years decide that it is not going to pay the heat in the winter and the heating company turns it off and will not turn the heat back on for any amount of money. You have no idea what it is like to be required by law to work 80 hour weeks because the company you are at has decided that it's employees can produce more. You don't know what it's like to listen to your daughter call, worried about the riots in your city, only to be told by state run media that there are not any.
You seem to forget just how oppressive a Communist regime and a dictator can be. There is economic growth in China, and it is not trickling down. A few have become rich; most Chinese were better off sixty years ago under the KMT. All property and all rights in China are illusory.
There is no freedom in China. There is no happiness in China.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
I've seen happiness in China. I've seen happiness in Tibet. I've seen happiness in Xinjiang. I've seen happiness in Yunnan.
I've talked to people on the street, I've talked to people in hutongs, I've talked to people in high-rise apartments.
Maybe you should talk to them too.
Things aren't perfect, they aren't even great in many places, but it certainly isn't a cultural revolution type situation over there anymore.
The 20th century was brutal for China, but change doesn't happen overnight. In fact, a great deal of the problems came from change happening overnight.
Would you really want China to go back to the chaos that she saw in the 1910s after the collapse of the Qing dynasty?
This parallel kills your whole argument.
Falun Gong has not killed anyone and, as far as I know, does not promote killing people who do follow Falun Gong. On the other hand, Radical Islam has killed people and continuously promotes killing the "infidels" who do not believe in Radical Islam.
Apples... oranges...
You need to install an RTFM interface.