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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/
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.
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.
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.
The thing about death is, the only thing you can do about it is laugh.
It's inevitable. What are you going to do? Spend your time moping about the end in store for you? Or live your life with verve and panache?
"Was he inspired by the Rage cover"? Good stuff.
Almost as good as that Fark p-shop showing the Vietnamese general holding a Starbucks coffee mug to the head of a captured Viet Cong guerrilla. That was comedy gold.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
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.