An interesting debate about the following anecdote, cited from Jimmy Wales’, founder of Wikipedia, keynote earlier this week, has started over on edu.blogs.com: does this anecdote merely serve to bolster one argument over another, or does it present a common sense solution? Answers on a postcard:

Think of the last restaurant you went to. Did you have a knife on the table? Did you know that knives can do real harm if they are used to stab people? Have you seen our new restaurant? We keep each customer in his or her own cage, so that no harm under any circumstances can be done to others.

You wouldn’t expect that, would you? We have common rules and consequences for stabbing each other in restaurants, and they work.

Why would you expect individual cages in your institution when it comes to using Wikipedia?

Categories: Behind-the-scenes, Literacy, Social Media