Wikipedia:External peer review/Denver Post

The Denver Post (May 2007)

Discussion page

• Source: Denver Post
• Date: 2007-05-01
• Title: "Grading Wikipedia", By Michael Booth
• URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20080109025645/https://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_5786064

"The Denver Post asked five Colorado scholars to review the Wikipedia entries on Islam, Bill Clinton, global warming, China and evolution."

Findings

Global warming

Colorado State University's Scott Denning, the Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science.

• "a great primer on the subject"
• "Following the links takes the interested reader into greater and greater depth, probably further than any traditional encyclopedia I've seen"
• pleasantly surprised how the main articles "stick to the science and avoid confusing the reader with political controversy."
• wishes Wikipedia offered better links to basic weather science.

China

University of Colorado history professor William Wei

• "simplistic, and in some places, even incoherent."
• "mishandled the issue of Korean independence from China"
• "and the context of the Silk Road in China's international relations."

Bill Clinton

Bob Loevy, political science professor at Colorado College and frequent writer on Bill Clinton

• thorough and unbiased, giving fair weight to both Clinton accomplishments and scandals.
• The bulk of it appeared to have been written by the Clinton Museum and Library in Little Rock, Ark.
• "a great place for a student to begin building his or her knowledge" on Clinton

Islam

Retired CU religious studies professor Frederick Denny, 40-year specialist in Islam

• "quite impressed"
• "It looks like something that might have been done by a young graduate student, or assistant professor, or two or three"
• clinical and straightforward, but not boring.
• where important translations of Arabic language or fine religious distinctions are required, Wikipedia acquits itself well.

Evolution

CU biology professor Jeffrey Mitton

• "good," even if "stylistic infelicities abound."
• If a student read through the main entry and the primary links to supporting concepts, he would get a fine introduction
• first reference cited for the authoritative textbook on evolution by Douglas Futuyma, "so that is excellent, as it should be,"
• rest of the source list appropriate, and well-rounded

Response

Looks like we got lucky, since 3/5 of the articles picked are Wikipedia:Featured articles, we could hope they'd be good. China needs work, not sure what "stylistic infelicities" in Evolution are specifically, otherwise it looks like we just need to bask. :-) --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 01:41, 28 July 2007 (UTC)