Bloggers unite – Libel Reform!

The Mass Libel Reform Blog – Fight for Free Speech! As I’m just starting to blog, I’m shying away from certain subjects and biting my tongue. Blogging should be about critiquing what’s out there, but this could cause trouble for bloggers.

This week is the first anniversary of the report Free Speech is Not for Sale, which highlighted the oppressive nature of English libel law. In short, the law is extremely hostile to writers, while being unreasonably friendly towards powerful corporations and individuals who want to silence critics.

The English libel law is particularly dangerous for bloggers, who are generally not backed by publishers, and who can end up being sued in London regardless of where the blog was posted. The internet allows bloggers to reach a global audience, but it also allows the High Court in London to have a global reach.

You can read more about the peculiar and grossly unfair nature of English libel law at the website of the Libel Reform Campaign. You will see that the campaign is not calling for the removal of libel law, but for a libel law that is fair and which would allow writers a reasonable opportunity to express their opinion and then defend it.

The good news is that the British Government has made a commitment to draft a bill that will reform libel, but it is essential that bloggers and their readers send a strong signal to politicians so that they follow through on this promise. You can do this by joining me and over 50,000others who have signed the libel reform petition at http://www.libelreform.org/sign

Remember, you can sign the petition whatever your nationality and wherever you live. Indeed, signatories from overseas remind British politicians that the English libel law is out of step with the rest of the free world.

If you have already signed the petition, then please encourage friends, family and colleagues to sign up. Moreover, if you have your own blog, you can join hundreds of other bloggers by posting this blog on your own site. There is a real chance that bloggers could help change the most censorious libel law in the democratic world.

We must speak out to defend free speech. Please sign the petition for libel reform at http://www.libelreform.org/sign

Musings on Wikipedia

You may have noticed, I have referred to Wikipedia a lot in my posts so far. It’s a useful tool, but one must always be wary of believing everything you read on the internet.

Wikipedia makes an excellent starting point if you are new to any subject. Its broad scope can provide the global overview necessary to start getting engrossed in a subject. A good article can provide a solid foundation and quality references can provide comprehensive background information.

Anyone can edit Wikipedia. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. In theory, it’s a brilliant idea, invite people to edit pages and constantly add knowledge; when new discoveries are made anywhere, Wikipedia can be updated. Potentially, this means Wikipedia will never be out of date; unlike static pages updated by a few people with what may only be a limited scope of expertise, the global pool of knowledge can add and correct it.

On the other hand, it means that  erroneous information can be added to articles. Having said that, the constant revision means that most mistakes will be picked out and corrected. Wikipedia will warn you if it doesn’t believe there is evidence provided to support points made on page, so have a look to see what sort of references it uses. So obviously you need to be wary of pages that say:

This article does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

Other problems occur with controversial subjects. Constant editing by two or more parties with opposing view points can lead to circular arguments that Wikipedia refers to “edit warring“, to prevent this, Wikipedia asks that disputes are discussed in the article’s discussion page. I can’t see this working in particularly emotive topics. Some pages are semi-protected to prevent vandalism; those editing anonymously cannot edit these pages. Other pages are permanently locked; these are protected by MediaWiki software so that only administrators and accounts associated with those pages may edit them. Wikipedia are currently running a trial on “pending changes protection”, where edits can be made by anyone but must be approved by established editors. Repeat offenders can be blocked or not allowed to edit pages on particular subjects.

My favourite term that I’ve found is “weasel words” – sentences in which something is stated to be believed by many people, possibly hiding (badly) behind opinions purportedly held by “some people”.

Myself, I have only felt competent to edit one Wikipedia page, the subject of my PhD thesis, the carotid body. Before I tinkered with it, the page had a woeful amount of information. Only one theory of the way it functions was noted and only one publication had been referenced – a comprehensive review from 1994. A lot can happen in 12 years of scientific research. It’s been edited since then, my academic writing style is not the easiest thing to read. A reference from 2010 has also been added, illustrating how it has been kept up to date. But the continued inclusion of 5 of the references I originally added (including a paper I co-authored) gives me a little pang of pride.

Anyone who has ever written a thesis knows that, whilst writing it, you are reading and absorbing so much information and you are so up to date with recent advances, that there is probably no one else at that point in time who knows, or cares, as much as you do about your topic. So while writing my thesis, I started procrastinating by taking the fledgling Wiki entry, and expanding it based on what I was reading. I added a number of theories and added 5 references that are still there. I should point out that there are only a handful of people researching the carotid body, so in more competitive areas of research – like learning and memory – there is likely to be a lot more interest in a page, the entry will be longer, there are more references and a lot more edits.

Pages are constantly being edited and updated, details will be corrected, grammar and flow improved. The Wikipedia platform allows recent advances in science to be added – presuming of course that those that are most informed are editing. It’s perfect for science – the method by which small details are added to the canon of knowledge reflects the way that research makes tiny incremental steps. Big leaps are rare.

I was encouraged to edit Wikipedia by my PhD supervisor; it is important that experts can edit the pages that overlap with their own research interests. better many experts in their fields edit than those with a broad but shallow range.

They have a helpful guide and some useful advice aimed at people wanting to edit pages including a “talk” section where changes can be proposed, if you are feeling a little tentative about your edit. The changes can then be reviewed by other editors.

I shall leave you with some curiously appropriate words from one of my favourite writers on the subject of encyclopaedias

“In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker’s Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.

First, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words “DON’T PANIC” inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.”

Wanna do some science?

Anyone with a pair of eyes (sorry blind people) can participate. They’re called the Citizen Science Projects, they’re run by Zooniverse and they are looking for volunteers. They’ve got a new project called Old Weather where they are trying to collect weather records from WWI naval logs in order to improve their computer models so they can make better predictions about changes in our climate. Pick a Royal Naval vessel, go through the logs, record the weather. You also record personal and political events and learn about the boats. Great for naval and weather nerds, but it really helps if you can read peoples’ handwriting.

There is also the Moon Zoo, where you are shown photographs of the moon’s surface and mark what you see. You can do a crater survey where you identify craters or boulder wars where you note areas with boulders. Galaxy Zoo in which volunteers are asked to look at pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and identify different types of galaxies by their shape. If you like your nerding a bit racier, there’s Solar Stormwatch. All the excitement of stormchasing in the sun without the dangers of being burnt to a crisp.

Zooniverse have tutorials on how to participate in each of their projects, and they get quite addictive.

80 million people play FarmVille – this at least isn’t a total waste of time!