Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Wikipedia Alert – Donald Shoup "may not meet the notability guideline for academics"?

Like it or not Wikipedia is now on the first line of references for not only journalists but also scholars, policy makers and many others. We treat it with a certain reserve, at times suspicion, and rightly so. But we treat it and treat it often, so that's why it's a resource we do well to keep an eye on. And tend to when useful. Now is one of those times.

Here is a case in point for lovers of cities and sustainable lives that I invite those of you who care about these things to jump in and do what you have to do.

The current entry on Donald Shoup - a major international figure who has with his work and insights over the last generation guided and helped us to understand the role, potential and keys to parking in cities – is extremely slight. That's not problem since it is accurate, and if you dig into the history section there you will see that someone has just taken a minute in June to open up an entry on him. That is standard WP procedure. No problem there.

But the problem is that one of the Wikipedia roaming rangers has, in all good faith, added a large qualifying tag on top of his entry which reads: "This article may not meet the notability guideline for academics. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic. If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged or deleted." Oh dear.

The address of the reference is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Shoup. So now you know what you have to do.

Solidarność

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1 comment:

  1. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins Sitka, AKTuesday, 11 August, 2009

    Curiously enough, I'm the Wikipedia contributor who started Prof. Shoup's article. I never expected I'd receive an e-mail about it, even if
    accidentally!

    You're right -- it's bare bones (it was late at night and I was too tuckered out to launch into a synopsis of congestion pricing and
    performance-based parking). But if others feel like grabbing the baton, a quick overview of Shoup's contribution to those subjects will easily
    vanquish the notability tag.

    - Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins Sitka, AK
    AK Transportation Priorities Project
    Sitka, AK

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