http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/03/27/wikimedia-research-newsletter-march-2012/ News from the Wikimedia Foundation and about the Wikimedia movement Thu, 23 May 2013 05:19:21 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6-beta2-24176 http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/03/27/wikimedia-research-newsletter-march-2012/comment-page-1/#comment-95784 NaBUru38 Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:50:59 +0000 http://blog.wikimedia.org/?p=11307#comment-95784 The paper on external links contains some dubious statements. The autors believe that “a large amount of external links signifies incomplete article contents” and “Wikipedia editors are instructed to point to external resources if their content is proper in the article’s context and is not yet part of the article. Thus, one would expect lengthy articles to contain fewer links than short ones in the sense that the more text the article contains the decreased the need to link it with supplemental non-wiki material.”, which is completely wrong. Better articles need many external links to provide with lots of verifiable, reliable sources. Data of course shows what I say.

]]> http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/03/27/wikimedia-research-newsletter-march-2012/comment-page-1/#comment-95781 Deborrah Howes Cognitive Scientist U of Toronto 1989 Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:46:23 +0000 http://blog.wikimedia.org/?p=11307#comment-95781 This is in regards to Frank Smith the Pyscholinguist, Wikipedia write-up. First, Keith Stanovich and Richard West’s study proved Smith’s ‘psycholinguistic theory’ of reading 180 degrees removed from reality, (see ‘Romance and Reality’ by Stanovich. Classic article. Next, a letter from MIT signed by Steve Pinker, and the rest of the Linguists, warns against Whole Language and specifically mentions Frank Smith’s error in judgement, (that the invention of the alphabet is a handing tool for spelling but has nothing to do with the sounds of words. They point out the the fact that the alphabet was invented to represent the sounds of words. I will send you the letter myself ASAP.
Next, I will also send the letter from the university faculty of Witts in South Africa where they claim Smith abused his position and left after five months to write the book you site. I will send Wiki a copy of the letter Asap, a letter sent to University faculty within North America.
The book you quote ‘reading without nonsense’ does not contain even one reference for the reader to refer to a research study. All the research is summed up in http://www.childrenofthecode. Dr. Carl Bereiter and myself were also featured speakers on the Ideas Lester Sinclair series. I will send you a transcript of the show. On behalf of myself and my fellow cognitive scientists, Linguists, etc. we request an acknowledgment of the material sent to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Sincerely
Deborrah L. Howes

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