Wikipedia and Reliability

Today’s session of the Gabfest Club (Dnipro Window on America center, Ukraine) was attended by a big number of new-comers. The regular club members and the Club’s moderator told them about the rituals and rules of the Club, explained the meaning of the Club’s name, and introduced the US volunteers Mr. Jason and Mr. Stephen.
The official topic of the session was “Wikipedia & Reliability”. The session’s moderator shared the concern expressed by the American Library Association members regarding the reliability of Wikipedia as a source of information for academic papers and research. The club members shared their attitude towards the Free Encyclopedia project – both its English version and the Ukrainian- language version. As an example of Wikipedia’s weak points we read and translated an article about funny blunders traced on its pages – “The 15 Biggest Wikipedia Blunders” by J.R. Raphael (PCWorld , 2009). The group agreed that one must be very naïve to believe everything that is posted in Wikipedia, but as a source of basic information it serves its purpose quite well.
The informal conversation that took place in the second part of the session was dedicated to the marriage traditions in Ukraine. The WOA’s volunteer Mr. Stephen received our greetings on the occasion of his marriage to the WOA’s patron Ms. Natalie. The Club members explained to Mr. Stephen the symbolism of the funny Ukrainian wedding games and tricks. But the biggest challenge was to explain why we cry “Bitter!” at weddings. After a good laugh we all wished Stephen and Natalie a happy married life in Dnipro and in the USA.
Number of participants – 67 persons.

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