Hawsing Crisis in Austria
 

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Mmmm. 1930s-1940s. Men in plus-fours in front row. Looks like central Europe.

I'm nonplused.

The Hawsing Crisis was ... a fake Wikipedia entry just waiting to happen! Let's do this!

Here's a start: Hawsing Irons were a kind of axe used in shipmaking.

So, maybe some early group in Australian history wanted to win a shipbuilding concession from the crown, the right to make their own vessels in Oz, and out of protest they marched the streets of Sydney with Hawsing Irons.

We need to know:
Was shipbuilding ever illegal in Australia?
Is there an overlap between the era of the British Crown granting monopolies on shipbuilding, and the founding of Australia?

The only reference to Hawsing Irons I can find is in that reference, with scanned in pics from an old shipbuilding catalog. There's related to something called a Hawsing Beetle.

We must, must do this. It will be awesome. And, I'll get to point it out to future students as a cautionary tale on why they should never trust Wikipedia.

MIght work. This thread went from Austria to Australia in 3 post?

Ah - I didn't notice.

A hawser, is that big ass rope used to tie a ship to the dock. Obviously that group on the dock is on strike and are refusing to tie up the ships. Hence the hawsing crisis.

Ok. What's the biggest seaport in Austria? Me, I give up.

let's (all the professional men on here) bring these kind of pants back to the business world. They look so comfortable. And the socks add a whole extra layer of accessorizing options.

You may be on to something there LJ. Comfy style.

I thought the hawsing crisis was the failue to secure the boat with the keg to the dock.

What page do you presently point out to them?

Virtue Ethics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics

Well Wikipedia recognizes its own shortcomings... see the two notices at the top of the page. Doesn't meet quality standards, requires citations

The kind of student who pulls references for a university level paper from Wikipedia isn't the kind who slows down for a little warning message.

I should say, I do recognize the value of wikipedia. I frequently use it as a starting point for class discussions. I'll break them up into groups, have them research something using Wikipedia as a starting point, specifically for the purpose of then discussing it as a class, with them having some informed background one the topic.

I start our discussion on Plato and the Ring of Gyges by having one group research Kenneth Lay and Enron, and the other group research Richard Jewell. It usually puts context to the idea of virtue for its own sake vs. virtue for the sake of social consequence. Wikipedia is a great starting place for that.

But when it starts to show up as an actual source on their papers, then the hammer drops.

Sounds like shortcomings of your students, rather than wikipedia.
Do you think every book in the library, on any subject, is unquestioningly accurate, with no opinions or conjecture?
Wikipedia is A source, there is no THE source.

Wikipedia is an unacceptable source for higher level academic work, as is any unsigned general encyclopedia article.