Today I Learned

Post Reply New Topic

There's something funny about whinging about Wikipedia while providing no source whatsoever.

It's like saying trust me bro is a better source.

I love Wikipedia me

Me too.

I only scan through though so it makes no odds to me if it's 100% on point or not

We used to get marked down at uni for using it though

But I didn't care about that sort of thing me

Well college actually

I don't see how they would know unless you quoted it exactly.

When you cite Wikipedia directly, instead of the source that is cited in the Wikipedia article.

Some students just haven't learned to cover their tracks then.

Oh there's all kinds of ways they can check your work these days though

As soon as you digitally submit it it knows if your works plagiarised like within seconds if I remember rightly and they probably have all other kinds of stuff as well

I remember when it first started. This academic where I worked was marking students' work and he said he was a bit suspicious that something they'd written was too clever to be really them, so he put it into a search engine and up popped a reference to the real source. The student had just copied and pasted the whole thing. Idiot.

I've seen an AI robot that offers to rephrase things so nobody knows where you nicked it from. I can see this getting like the arms race at this rate.

I found that out when I watched Finding Dory when it came out in theaters. In one part, Dory says to Hank the Septapus, "For a guy with three hearts you're not very nice." And even Hank didn't know he had three hearts, and Dory tells him all about it. But Dory, being who she is, quickly forgets that octopi have three hearts.

I provided a source in my original post. I linked to an archeological report that detailed the finding of rabbit bone fossils at a prehistoric site.

If you think Wikipedia trumps that then I can't help you.

Wikipedia can be a useful resource but it shouldn't replace real research because the authors are unaccountable.

Many commonly held historical beliefs fall apart in the face of genuine knowledge and research. This is one of those cases.

I know what I'm talking about. I get paid to teach people about history, and I can't be bothered to teach you for free. Believe what you want.

Last edited by DuckHairback on 15 May 2025, 1:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

A 485 page book, but didn't even state what page you were referring to.

I'll concede that's a different problem, but not much better.

My friends are more important to me than my enemies

39.17 miles was the longest journey by pumpkin boat

Very cute

According to a researcher, about 30% of people on the autism spectrum have a strong fear or aversion to dogs, especially unpredictable, off-leash dogs. In spite of this, there is a growing market for "autism dogs" or "therapy dogs".
Which is kind of ableist.

I also read that dogs are more popular than cats in the "red states". I guess they think not loving or owning dogs is "Un-American". That's a shocker.