[Aztlan] Mayanism mis-used on Wikipedia?

[David Hixson]

I would have to agree with my friend Dave Pentecost on
this one.  Wikipedia is not pretending to be an
institution that codifies our language.  As a
user-created environment, Wikipedia *reflects* our use
of language.  Whatever "Mayanism" might conjure up for
you personally (based upon its morphemes), the common
use of this term today is for a mix of Maya religious
beliefs with various New Age beliefs.  Thus, the
Wikipedia article is an accurate reflection of the
topic.

That being said, as a user yourself, you are perfectly
allowed to go in, learn the editing language of
Wikipedia (not very hard, but important) and add a
footnote or other item to the Mayanism page, stating
that "in some circles the term can be used for..."
(etc. etc.)  Just remember that others have the right
to delete your comments if they do not in fact
*reflect* common usage.  In order to back up a
contradictory note on a Wikipedia page, you must
provide supporting material (which means learning how
to add items to the bibliography in Wikipedia - again,
not hard but important).

BTW, Despite the fact that Wikipedia is a user-created
environment, there are editors who work in various
areas of Wikipedia and try to keep the formatting
clean, enforce the use of citations and other
referencing, examine copyright issues, rank entries
based upon expert knowledge and usefulness, etc.  (We
are fortunate to have one of the editors for the
Mesoamerica section on Aztlan).  So if your entry is
flagged as insufficiently supported, deletion or
modification is a possibility.

Finally, I would like to point out that there are a
few venues that are trying to merge the two online
venues brought up by John Hoopes this week: Wikipedia
and Google Earth.  The most prominant is
"www.placeopedia.com"  There, users of Google Earth
can link physical locations with a Wikipedia entry
(e.g., you find Uxmal on a Google Earth interface and
clicking on it brings you to the entry for Uxmal in
Wikipedia).

Hope this helps,

-Dave

__________________________________________________
David Hixson
Ph.D. Candidate
Tulane Anthropology
chunchucmil at yahoo.com
www.mesoamerican-archives.com

"Nothing more useless than a bored archaeologist."
-Douglas Adams


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