Re: Duckweeds--Wikipedia



Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:17:24 -0600
From: Steve@ExoticRainforest.com
To: aroid-l@gizmoworks.com
Subject: Re: [Aroid-l] Duckweeds and Other Aquatic Aroids

Dear Walter and All,

Just a quick note to back up what Steve explained well here--Wikipedia is pretty usless from a scientific point of view, ANYONE can post anything, and even if you know better, and do some well intentioned editing of  the posting, the original poster of false information can and usually will edit it BACK to his original false information.   This is not only in their Botany section either!!
Ask Steve for other more reliable (but not as yet foolproof!) sources of information on aroids.

Julius

Walter, I'm not familiar with the species so I can't comment there.  However, many times I've found gross errors on Wikipedia that appear to sound scientifically accurate.  I did some research on that "encyclopedia" and actually found that anyone can post anything on Wikipedia and it is rarely edited unless by another contributor who also may or may not have scientific background.  I actually know of a teacher who did an experiment and edited a Wikipedia post on the brain just to see if anyone would change what she wrote and to this day her purposely false information is still on the site (as far as I know)! 

I research aroids almost every day of the year and constantly find made-up or bad names on plants on that site all  the time.  The information on there is often horribly wrong if compared to a scientific journal.  As for me, I don't trust Wikipedia for much of anything and always try to find other sources before even looking something up on Wiki. I once edited a post on Wiki with a direct quote, word for word, from one of Dr. Croat's journals and it wasn't a week until someone edited my post back to the way it was before.  I gave up! 

There are so many "plant experts" out there that don't give a rip about science, they only care about plant myths which is exactly why I stopped posting on UBC or any other plant discussion forum other than Aroid l.  There is one guy on UBC who has made over 10,000 posts and when I bothered to read them I found bad info all the time.  Whenever I'd ask for a source he'd point to A.B. Graf which any of the botanists on this forum will tell you his books Exotica and Tropica are filled with errors.  Mr. Graf's books haven't been edited for many years it is scary.  But people often believe what he wrote above the scientfic info written by our most knowledgeable and gifted aroid botanists!  If you use Wiki, triple check the info!

Steve Lucas
www.ExoticRainforest.com


Walter Turner wrote:
Ted and others,
After reading your discussions, I was looking at the Wikipedia entry on Lemnaoideae. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemnaoideae
Is this the current thinking? The article seems to have been written by someone knowledgeable, perhaps writing under the name Zeamays (I don't have enough experience with Wikipedia to be sure). Is that a member of our group?
Walter

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