Phonetics and Wikipedia

I am starting this blog for a specific purpose: I am very interested in Wikipedia (which in general I regard as a Good Thing), but concerned about the quality of some of the material that appears in Wikipedia in the area of Phonetics. (From now on, I abbreviate Wikipedia to WP). It seems to me that, since most students with an interest in Phonetics are likely to look up topics in WIkipedia and are likely to quote what they read when they write their dissertations and theses, we should be concerned when we find material that is incorrect, misleading or incomplete. I have made quite a lot of corrections myself over the last two years, but I have found it very difficult to get any other phonetician interested in this activity. I hope that this blog will enable me to get ideas from fellow phoneticians on topics that I think need attention, and comments on the existing material.


I have put on my personal website a recent paper where I have written briefly about WP and other web sources - you can read it here. This should give a fuller picture of my views on WP and its treatment of phonetics.