RE: HIST: SPEC: Clovis is Louis?

Go to www.wiki.org for starters, to start your own wiki. You will need the
software, which, apparently comes with the book.

\\Steve// 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-iris@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On Behalf Of Robt R
Pries
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 12:47 AM
To: iris@hort.net
Subject: RE: [iris] HIST: SPEC: Clovis is Louis?

Steve; Apparently John thought I replied too strongly
to your comment. I did not mean it in an offensive
way. You had characterized my criticism of the wiki as
if I had something to gain from the criticism. I was
simply adamantly defending my motives and did not feel
I was attacking you, but your criticism that was
implied as to my motives. I actually have been trying
to learn how to start a wiki for the purpose of
gathering information on Iris. Sadly I have not
learned how to do it yet. So I am not opposed to
wikis. I would like to create one. But I was warning
about the wikipedia because it has been in the news
lately about individuals that have been using the
wikipedi to further hoaxes and agendas. I have used
the wikipedia and found some interesting Iris. There
is a species listed for Montenegro called Iris
orjenii. I have not been able to find this species in
any reference. It makes me wonder is it a hoax or
simply a plant that is only in some obscure
Yugoslavian flora? The wikipedia is supposed to be
self correcting. But who is bold enough to say that
something doesnt exist? I would like to create an
Iris wiki that could assemble information about iris
cultivars but it would have to be monitered to keep
out porn and crank entries and of course I believe the
contributors should be attributed. When I wrote that
you were wrong, I did not feel I was acting as an
attack on you, but simply in a refutation of the idea
that anyone who criticized the wikipedia must be
promoting their printed book. I apologize if you felt
I was being unfair.

--- Steve Szabo <steve@familyszabo.com> wrote:

> Robert,
> 
> Perhaps my suspiciousness comes from being involved
> with the online world
> for many years starting with a speedy 300 baud modem
> and FIDONET via local
> BBS's. Perhaps the jaundiced eye came even prior to
> that seeing dis- and
> mis-information published in books that was fairly
> easy to ferret out based
> on personal observations, or just keeping current
> with the news. Attribution
> of sources is everything, from the simple (pers.
> comm.) to a full blown foot
> note and bibliography at the end of the work. It
> gives one a trail to
> follow.
> 
> It has been a while since I've done any serious
> writing, but the information
> I used from sources was always checked and double
> checked prior to placing
> it in my work. If the observations were based on
> personal experience, it was
> so stated.
> 
> Now, if you take a look at this list, you do find a
> number of people here
> who are posting. Some of them are asking novice type
> questions (which is
> good), and there are those who are really getting
> into the science of it
> (look at some of the hybridization threads, for
> example). While I read
> threads here as an interested bystander, for the
> most part, the science,
> does seem to be good, or headed in the right
> direction (I've messed with
> animal genetics in the past, and probably will do so
> in the future, but
> plants have a different set of genes, so some
> comparisons are probably not
> valid). Here, all posts are signed with a name (or
> pseudonym) and the e-mail
> address of the writer is readily available.
> 
> If we went to wikipedia, there could be articles on
> same--irises, iris
> genetics, iris hybridization, etc. (I don't know, I
> haven't looked). If you
> were to read the articles, you may find errors in
> them. If that is the case,
> you can correct said errors, but, someone can come
> right in behind you and
> correct your correction. Very little is given in the
> way of attribution of
> the various "facts" that might be stated within the
> articles. I went up
> there the other day and searched a couple of topics
> I am familiar with, and
> they were fairly accurate, but if they were not, I
> would have been able to
> register, log in, and make an edit.
> 
> Now, there are differences between the list and
> wikipedia. Wikipedia will
> suffer from the "attack of the lowest common
> denominator" if three is no
> watch guard at the gate, so to speak, and the medium
> will suffer as a
> result. Here, there are people who will raise that
> "lowest common
> denominator" and statements can be argued out, in
> public, until, at least, a
> consensus is reached that all involved can agree
> upon. Wikipedia, does not
> seem to have that kind of "fact checking" going on,
> at least not in the
> open--one may need to be registered to have access
> to such discussion, if it
> does exist.
> 
> There are many sources of information on the Net
> that are credible, but like
> anything else, you need to look for them, and, maybe
> even pay for them (like
> the $10 a year (that's what it is, isn't it) to have
> access to the database
> that some dedicated people have been working on).
> 
> Sorry for wandering here, just in that sort of mood
> lately.
> 
> \\Steve// 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-iris@hort.net
> [o*@hort.net] On Behalf Of Robt R
> Pries
> Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 8:07 AM
> To: iris@hort.net
> Subject: RE: [iris] HIST: SPEC: Clovis is Louis?
> 
> Steve you could not be more wrong, when you say the
> big stink over the wikipedia is made by those that
> have the most to loose. I have spent the last ten
> years of my life working on checklists for the Iris
> society. I hesitate to think how much it has cost me
> personally. I have always given this information out
> freely and have never made a cent off of it. What
> drives me is creating resources that have
> information
> available that is accurate and accessible. I admire
> the concept of the wikipedia and regret that like so
> many other things hoaxters and prankster and people
> with adgendas have begun using this to play with
> peoples minds. Of course you are correct that an
> attributed fact is more likely to be correct than
> one
> in which there is no stated source. But in this
> computor age it is so easy for misinformation to be
> spread in an instant it is hard to give credence to
> much that is on the internet. Considering all the
> urban mythes, and political dysinformation. It does
> not mean that someone has a vested interest to be
> suspicious of anything on the internet. But perhaps
> you are appropriately suspicious considering the
> comment was amde in an e-mail.
> 
> --- Steve Szabo <steve@familyszabo.com> wrote:
> 
> > It is not a problem with wikipedia, any more than
> it
> > is a problem with any
> > book you would buy or borrow. The same things
> happen
> > in both places. As it
> > goes, whether using a book as a resource, or the
> > web, check and double check
> > the information you find. If sources are not
> cited,
> > than any information is
> > suspect, unless you trust the author of said
> > information. 
> > 
> > In my mind, the big stink over a source such as
> > wikipedia is made by those
> > who have the most to lose by dissemination of
> > information for no cost vs.
> > the cost that had previously been applied to it.
> > 
> > 
> > \\Steve// 
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-iris@hort.net
> > [o*@hort.net] On Behalf Of Robt R
> > Pries
> > Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2006 12:55 PM
> > To: iris@hort.net
> > Subject: Re: [iris] HIST: SPEC: Clovis is Louis?
> > 
> > There is a rather unfortunate side to 'Wikipedia'
> > information. It is not attributed to an author. In
> > fact it is made from many authors and the
> > credentials
> > of any of them are unknown. Unfortunately it was
> > recently shown that people have used the wikipedia
> > to
> > promote their own ideas whether well-founded or
> not.
> > I
> > wish it were a better source but it is now highly
> > quetionable whether information gathered there has
> > any
> > credibility at all. 
> > 
> > --- ChatOWhitehall@aol.com wrote:
> > 
> > > Greetings.
> > >  
> > > I ran into something thought provoking the other
> > day
> > > when I followed a  link 
> > > in a Wikipedia article I was reading.
> > >  
> > > Many may well be sick unto death of the hoary
> > > question of the  origin of the 
> > > Fleur-de-Lis and whether it is or is not an
> Iris. 
> > > Clarence reminded us 
> > > several years ago in Roots of Mrs. Peckham's 
> > > discovery of the use of a similar 
> > > motif in Roman iconography--a 
> > "Sprout"--associated
> > > with the demi-goddess 
> > > Spes--Hope-- and he has expanded that  research
> > > along other useful and interesting 
> > > lines as well. I myself think  it is an even
> older
> > > motif, albeit one associated 
> 
=== message truncated ===

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