Wikipedia has been talking about doing something like this (stable, vetted article versions) for a long time. Eventually I think it will happen, but I don't expect to see it soon. People think it's a good idea, but AFAIK no one has started working out any details.
I can't take credit for this, but I once read an interesting analysis of accuracy on Wikipedia. Basically, accuracy on articles will correlate strongly with their importance. Those that are read by a lot of people will be tend to be accurate, because it takes only one person out of the large readership to correct an error. I feel safe assuming that Russia is accurate (even though I haven't looked at it) because I know plenty of others are watching it.
Obscure articles are more likely to be inaccurate or biased, but almost no one is reading them, so there's not much harm done. If and when they gain a larger readership, the increased scrutiny will redue the number and seriousness of errors.
Actually, we're planning to apply for a National Endowment for the Humanities grant. If you're interested, take a look at our proposal in progress.
If you've written grant proposals before (or if you haven't and feel like learning) then feel free to pitch in.
Young stundents in their mid-teens could do complex mathetmatics in their heads, and knew classical Greek and Latin fluently in some upper-scale schools in the 1800s. Now it's not uncommon for students to graduate without a complete grasp of the English language -- much less math, foreign language, or anything else.
Sure, but as someone else mentioned, it's easier to teach only the brighter students. Most people in earlier eras didn't stay in school very long. For a long time in the US, study after 8th grade had to be done at a college or university. Kids who today graduate without learning how to read would probably never have made it past 6th grade in the 1800s. Some didn't attend school at all; it wasn't until 1918 that all US states had some form of compulsory attendence laws.
Not only that, but "classical education" was never, and could never be, available to everyone - mostly to rich kids in private schools. Classical education involved a lot of individual attention from well-educated professional tutors. The manpower needed to offer this to all students in public schools would be enormous. Even if you could find that many competent tutors, schools couldn't afford to pay them all.
So your young scholar is a member of a pretty select lot. Comparing him (and yes, I mean him) to an average student today is unfair and misleading.
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Wikipedia has been talking about doing something like this (stable, vetted article versions) for a long time. Eventually I think it will happen, but I don't expect to see it soon. People think it's a good idea, but AFAIK no one has started working out any details.
I can't take credit for this, but I once read an interesting analysis of accuracy on Wikipedia. Basically, accuracy on articles will correlate strongly with their importance. Those that are read by a lot of people will be tend to be accurate, because it takes only one person out of the large readership to correct an error. I feel safe assuming that Russia is accurate (even though I haven't looked at it) because I know plenty of others are watching it.
Obscure articles are more likely to be inaccurate or biased, but almost no one is reading them, so there's not much harm done. If and when they gain a larger readership, the increased scrutiny will redue the number and seriousness of errors.
Actually, we're planning to apply for a National Endowment for the Humanities grant. If you're interested, take a look at our proposal in progress. If you've written grant proposals before (or if you haven't and feel like learning) then feel free to pitch in.
Young stundents in their mid-teens could do complex mathetmatics in their heads, and knew classical Greek and Latin fluently in some upper-scale schools in the 1800s. Now it's not uncommon for students to graduate without a complete grasp of the English language -- much less math, foreign language, or anything else.
Sure, but as someone else mentioned, it's easier to teach only the brighter students. Most people in earlier eras didn't stay in school very long. For a long time in the US, study after 8th grade had to be done at a college or university. Kids who today graduate without learning how to read would probably never have made it past 6th grade in the 1800s. Some didn't attend school at all; it wasn't until 1918 that all US states had some form of compulsory attendence laws.
Not only that, but "classical education" was never, and could never be, available to everyone - mostly to rich kids in private schools. Classical education involved a lot of individual attention from well-educated professional tutors. The manpower needed to offer this to all students in public schools would be enormous. Even if you could find that many competent tutors, schools couldn't afford to pay them all.
So your young scholar is a member of a pretty select lot. Comparing him (and yes, I mean him) to an average student today is unfair and misleading.