Never Completely Trust Wikipedia

Your book actually sounds like the sort of book I'd love to read Any chance of Mexico distribution? If not, I'll have to wait until I've enough books to justify Amazon international shipping.


The info for the image now reads like this:
Descripción - Español: retrato ficticio de Vicente de Rocamora
Fuente - Arte original creada para el libro Rocamora de Donald Michael Platt.
Fecha - 8 de enero de 2009
Autor - Pamela Marin-Kingsley
Permiso - contactar al artista


Or:
Description - Spanish: fictional portrait of Vicente de Rocamora
Source: original art created for the book Rocamora by Donald Michael Platt
Date: January 9, 2009
Author: Pamela Marin-Kingsley
Permission - contact the artist

Mac H. said:

The great thing about Wiki is that people KNOW it is inaccurate. People know to check the information.

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Not true. I've had many people try to convince me of things based purely on one Wikipedia entry. Many teachers and professors complain because their students trust Wikipedia implicitly and use it as their sole source of research. Just the number of entries that are in this thread where people state shock that anyone can edit a Wikipedia entry goes to show that indeed not everyone does understand how Wikipedia works, and thus that they need to double check the validity of its information.

donroc said:

DamaNegra, I know you would enjoy Rocamora.

Is B&N on line available in Mexico? Can your booksellers order through Ingram/Books in Print?

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Booksellers, as a rule, are a joke around here. But nobody in this country reads, so it doesn't matter (Mexicans read, in average, 1.4 books a year. I think that's an exageration). I'll try and get it online, but shipping is kind of expensive, so I'm waiting until my list grows enough to justify it.


Also, regarding Wikipedia, I adore it. You can find articles of just about everything on it. Sure, it's not completely accurate but just now I read the article about the May 15 incident in Japan, and it gave me a nice overview of the subject, and I wasn't planning on becoming an expert, anyway. I was just curious about the subject after reading about it in Mishima's Runaway horses. (btw, I used Wikipedia to find the name of the novel in English, because I have it in Spanish)

When doing research for a school proyect, the first source I go to is Wikipedia. There, I get a list of names and key words that will help me in my research. I also visit all the sources listed and look for the reference books in my school library. If people learned to use it as the great starting point it is, instead of using it as the only source, Wikipedia wouldn't be as reviled as it is right now.

donroc said:

Vicente de Rocamora, 1601-1684, was real. He was the confessor and spirtual director for Infanta María, disappeared from Court at age 42, arrived in Amsterdam, declared himself to be Jew, went to medical school, became a physician at age 46, married a 25 year old, and sired 9 children.

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I was going to do all that, but I couldn't have made the grades for medical school.

ah, I figured it was just that ninth kid.

Using Wikipedia as a source has been a problem for a while. There are several stories like this one: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/education/21wikipedia.html.

I homeschool my kids (one's now away at college, the other's a college-bound senior). Wikipedia was strictly forbidden to appear as a source on the papers they write for me.

I see a lot of odd comments about Wikipedia in this thread that might not have been made if people knew what the word wiki meant.