Thursday, July 30, 2015

#Wikidata - What is a Radcliffe fellow?

Mrs Mehrangiz Kar is a Radcliffe fellow. It is just one of the things that is to know about her. I think this fellow thing is a fancy way of saying that she was employed at Radcliffe college..  When you read the article about her, there are several quite relevant awards mentioned.

Registering awards, any and all awards, is a way of establishing relevance. Several of them so far did not merit their own article and therefore they are just registered as text. When you look close at all the Radcliffe fellows, you get an idea what they have in common. The same is true for people who received an award.

Every so often for their own political reasons, people will deny what is in their face when they look at it. The merit of the organisations that are of foreign origin is easy to dismiss.. "Gross interference", "not patriotic" is easy to utter and when the nation is said to be equal to the current incumbent.

The point of Wikipedia and Wikidata however, is not to take a point of view. Articles are there to be read, to inform. They may be the basis for an informed opinion. That is fine, that is what they are there for.

PS The point of Mrs Kar is that there are so many awards, relevant awards in the Wikipedia article that lack weight because they are not backed up with more information.
Thanks,
     GerardM


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