OPINION
Coming Wednesday, September 5...
Muselmann: party etiquette 101
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN WWW.UKUNIVERSITY.COM
McNaughton: Racial profiling gone too far.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WWW.KANSAN.COM
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2007
PAGE 5A
EDITORIAL BOARD
Wikipedia's format troublesome
Who has the right to judge the accuracy of 'the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit?'
Citing Wikipedia in a research paper is basically handing a shovel to your professor; as they read closer toward the taboo citation, you watch your grave deepen.
FRUIT FOR THOUGHT
Students rely on Wikipedia daily for both trivial knowledge and clarification, a sort of reference guide that instantaneously can tell us whether a cicada killer is more of a hornet or a wasp.
But reports on the editing of certain Wikipedia pages are revealing some companies' efforts to "clean up" their entry, and according to the magazine Wired, "an anonymous Wikipedia user deleted 15 paragraphs from an article on e-voting machine-vendor Diebold, excising an entire section critical of the company's machines."
publishing the edits on a discussion page.
As members of a generation that contribute to and draw constantly from the Internet, we need Wikipedia to restore these adulterated pages to their original context, while still
Despite a thousand recitations by our professors that Wikipedia is not a genuine source, students trust the site to give them accurate information. A presidential
And there are more reports: Wal-Mart editing a section about the amount it pays its employees, members of Congress editing their pro-
A presidential hopeful's policy the Diesel Jetta's fuel economy the classification of insects
all are plausible searches that students assume Wikipedia will deliver factual information about.
hopeful's policy, the Diesel Jetta's fuel economy, the classification of insects all are plausible searches that students assume Wikipedia will deliver factual information about.
files and other members' profiles. Programs such as Wikiscanner make finding these changes easy enough by tracking the editor's IP address, and restoration of the page's original information usually ensues. After Wikine-
dia found IP numbers registered to Congress editing material, they essentially banned those numbers from further "contributions."
And after the pages are restored, there is still a much larger issue of who should have the final say on a user-contributed site. We expect the editors to excuse any misleading or false information while holding to Wikipedia standards, but then who are these editors who judge the factualness of each article?
For whom does this editor work?
Before this becomes too Orwellian, it is premature to say that these edits are going to lead to a future of ignorant Internet usage. And moreover, it is premature to think people will mislabel cicada killers as hornets, when clearly they're wasps.
But we could be mistaken; all we know about the giant insect is what we read on Wikipedia.
FREE FOR ALL: 864-0500 OR KANSAN.COM/FACEBOOK
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
Those of you talking shit on freshmen. Seriously, grow up. You're being more childish than the freshmen are.
Last night my roommate got a little f'd up and his eyes were bleedy! Savage!
It is not bloodshot eyes. it's bleedy eyes!
on top of the seat you're sitting on.
Got it?
No more PDA at football games. I mean it!
"Bleedy" is the new black! Use it with pride! It's so savage!
Also, stupid freshman, you stand
Free For All, you're crazier than a fish with titties!
Sometimes you have to post unanonymously to show you are not a crazy ex, however I still am drunk at 8 a.m. and love the art of flip cup.
I have been hung over all day. Is that bad?
Balls look weird
If he could just keep his shirt on during practice then maybe I wouldn't be so attracted to him
I actually have a head of cabbage! Meaning I have no hair!
Oh trust me, I'm not an ex.
I hope I get hit by a campus bus. My parents would be so happy.
We had three fish for a week. They all died, and we flushed them in McCollum. Now we have cardboard sea creatures and no responsibility at all.
the crosswalk, sorry. You were right,
I was wrong, but I have a car, and in
the end I win.
What do I do facebook, give out my number? What's your name? Oh but how this will suck if you happen to be an ex or something.
I'm not drama, cute lesbian girl. What's your number?
To the cop who commended me for carrying around a Big K instead of beer ... the jokes on you. I had vodka in my purse!
I have worked in retail — a lot. I have also worked with children, so I'm very familiar with spit being wiped on me.
To the girl who I almost hit on
Poverty as an excuse for free printer paper Your college years may be taxing on your wallet, they don't have to be on your morals
Let's face it, we are college students, and thus, we are cheap. We eat five day old pizza and entertain ourselves (like we did in fifth grade) by daring our friends to drink some made up concoction containing several people's pops and consequential backwash. It's not pretty; it's just the way of the college student.
I am no stranger to "going on the cheap." Every Sunday I cut coupons, free refills make me ridiculously happy, I eat more often than not at my job with KU catering so I don't have to buy groceries, and I have been known to take more than my fair share of restaurant napkins. However, there is a certain line in which "being cheap" crosses over into the not so humorous act of stealing.
How this point was really brought home to me was last semester when I was studying at Anshutz library. As I sat at a computer contemplating if perhaps it
would be a bit eccentric to check my Facebook for the third time in an hour, I watched a person nonchalantly walk over to the copy machine beside my computer. Expecting said person to simply make a copy of something, I was shocked when instead he reached
d o w n , opened the drawer holding the copy paper and hastily put the entire ream of paper in his backpack.
This is called stealing.
When most of us do something wrong we try to justify our actions to ourselves to make them seem not so immoral. I know that I should tell the dumb chick at the checkout counter that she gave me back five dollars too much, but it's her fault she can't
count change, isn't it? Unless this person was completely aware of the fact that their actions were stealing, the way I see it there could have been only two justifications that person gave their self for stealing the copy paper (and neither are an excuse).
The first of which is, "I'm out of free library printing because Smith made us print out fifty pages of readings...I don't get paid until Friday... I really don't want to pay
for more paper." Being cheap is not an excuse for stealing. Just because you are a college student and money can be tight at times doesn't make you morally exempt.
they're "sticking it to the man." KU is a big university; it has a lot of money, look at what Mangino gets paid...if I take this paper it's alright because I'm sticking it to them and their crapy tuition prices. Again, no. "Sticking it to the man" is not a justification for stealing.
The second reason that a person would give themselves to justify their stealing would be that
Hudson is a Wichita sophomore in journalism and business
Whether it's downloading music you haven't paid for, getting pop from the fountain when you say you are getting water, or like I said, taking copy paper that belongs to the school these acts fall into the stealing category not the "it's ok because I can't afford it (a.k.a I'd rather buy a Big Mac) category. These acts may seem trivial, but no matter which way you look at it, it's stealing. And being a "poor college student" is not an excuse.
Language barrier only skin deep
Some customers assume skin color decides spoken languages
I have worked in a bank as a teller for about a year. As with any job, I have worked with a plethora of customers, ranging from the local bum who keeps socks on his hands and wears a floral cape to million-aires. I've been yelled at, cursed at
a ten minute conversation in Spanish to accomplish the tasks mentioned previously.
and threatened (not because of my service but more because of money problems). I've never been personally offended by any of these interactions. I have been personally offended, though, by one
I asked my male co-workers why it takes so much longer to do a transaction with a Spanish speaking customer as compared
sect of customers, and all they had to say was one word: "Him."
I work with three Spanish speaking employees. One is male, from Bolivia and a native speaker, one knows the language because of his Mexican parents, and the other got her degree in Spanish at KU.
The offense beings when I am done helping a routine customer and ask for the next person in line. I look up, and there are a few Spanish speaking customers, pointing at the Bolivian or the Mexican/ American, saying "Him" over and over again. To my surprise, they will wait, sometimes up to 20 minutes, to be helped by someone who speaks their native language.
They will not be helped by my co-worker who earned a degree in Spanish. They must assume because her skin is white that she only speaks English. Only some of the Spanish speaking customers are willing to "take the risk" and be helped by someone other than my two male co-workers. These brave souls, thankfully, have realized that I know how to do my job.
I am fully competent, if not more competent, of making their deposits, cashing their checks, and transferring their money. I may not know a lick of Spanish beyond "How are you?" "Thank you", and "For Spanish, please press two", but I do not know when was the last time it required
with English speaking. They said they make more of an effort to have a conversation with Spanish speaking customer because "it makes them feel special."
I really do wonder how it would be handled if I were to go to, for example, an average fast-food restaurant and be serviced by someone who speaks only some English, just enough to take my order and take my money. What if I were to demand that I be helped by someone who speaks fluent English? If I just politely smiled like the Spanish speaking customers and wait to be "properly serviced." I am sure that the person is capable to take my order and understand what I want, or, in other words, do his or her job. I am also almost positive I would be refused service and asked to leave.
Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the cultural aspect of the melting pot of what I've come to know as America. I enjoy hearing about different cultures' customs and what they do here to accommodate to keep tradition alive. For example, my co-worker informed me that Cinco de Mayo is a holiday, and I quote, "that only you white people like to celebrate as an excuse to party. It's not that big of a deal in Mexico."
I really do try to treat everyone I interact with equally, but when I am treated at my job as incompetent, ignorant and worthless, that melting pot I've come to love begins to harden. And it's going to take awhile for it to start boiling again.
Hirschfeld is a Augusta junior in journalism
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