User:The Devil's Advocate/Edward Buckner

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Edward Buckner is a medievalist from the United Kingdom and critic of Wikipedia. He is the co-author of Wikipedia through the Looking Glass with Eric Barbour of Metasonix.

Career

Buckner was a philosophy don at University of Bristol.[1] Together with Jack Zupko he has written Time and Existence: Duns Scotus' Questions on Aristotle's Peri Hermenias.[2]

Criticism of Wikipedia

During the English Wikipedia's 2007 Arbitration Committee election, Buckner questioned one of the candidates about his early contributions to the article on zoophilia. After raising this criticism the edits were suppressed and after questioning the suppression Buckner was blocked from the site. Buckner subsequently stated that administrators refused to unblock him unless he could prove the suppressed edits existed. A year later it was noted that the edits had been suppressed by David Gerard, press officer of Wikimedia UK.[1]

Several years later Buckner was banned from attending Wikimedia UK events with members citing concerns about him revealing their identities on Wikipedia.[3] He has highlighted concerns about the reliability and quality of Wikipedia articles, noting in one case that a study comparing the article on Anselm of Canterbury to the 2005 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica failed to recognize that the Wikipedia article was plagiarized from the 1911 edition of the Britannica.[4]

Buckner is co-authoring a book with Eric Barbour of Metasonix to provide a critical analysis of Wikipedia's history. The book, entitled Wikipedia through the Looking Glass, details the origins of the online encyclopedia and discusses controversies that have embroiled the site since its creation.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b Metz, Cade (18 December 2008). "Wikipedia self-flagellates over vanishing 'farmsex'". The Register. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
  2. ^ a b "Wikipedia through the Looking Glass". Logic Museum. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
  3. ^ "Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Edward Buckner/Peter Damian & Wikimedia UK". The Mail Archive. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
  4. ^ McIntyre, John E. (24 September 2012). "Don't trust Wikipedia on Anselm". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 9 December 2012.