OMG! You mean Wikipedia isn't all Truth delivered by Angels on Tablets of Gold? I thought everything I read on the Interweb was true. It's all electronic and space-age and everything, and besides, computers can't lie, they're logical like Mr. Spock!
(in order to make that paragraph more credible, I should have used the wrong homonyms for "it's" and "they're." But I have too much pride.)
Of course Wikipedia is unreliable. What makes you think Encyclopedia Britannica is reliable? One of the best things about Wikipedia is that it makes its construction visible, shredding the notion of the immaculate Expert who dispenses wisdom. Every Expert is just some guy (mostly they are guys) who's willing to write an article. There's an editorial board that decides what topics need to be covered, and what can be omitted. Every step along the way is fraught with unconscious bias. Just look through the Encyclopedia Britannica, and see how many European princelings are recorded, and consider how many of them might have been better forgotten altogether. And then see how many kings of Ethiopia you can find. How many Shoguns? How many of the rulers of Thailand, with its hundreds of years of history? These things are less well covered in Britannica, not because the information is hard to get, but because the editors and the audience aren't as interested. That data won't sell.
(I confess I don't have a modern Britannica at my fingertips, perhaps I'm wrong about this. If so, I apologise! I think my rhetorical point stands, even if my particular examples fall...)
I'm not saying that Wikipedia is without bias, or even that it is less biased than Britannica, or even that its biases are more visible. I think the important point is that Wikipedia makes its process visible, so that people are aware that it's not definitive. Is it useful? Hell yes. Is it always right? Of course not. Is Britannica useful? Absolutely. Is it always right? No, but that's not nearly so obvious. The dead tree publishing model hides all the uncertainty in order to turn knowledge into a product that people can be persuaded to buy. Wikipedia isn't trying to sell anyone anything, so it doesn't need to hide its uncertainty. That's a good thing: every datum needs error bars.
I might argue that the problem with Wikipedia is that it insists on one article per topic, just like Britannica. A more honest structure would let anyone add an article on a topic, but only the original author would be allowed to change an article. That way the plethora of ideas and perspectives that constitute real knowledge would be made visible, and derspatchel's picture wouldn't have been removed.
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dancing_serpent
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-01 02:51 am (UTC)(in order to make that paragraph more credible, I should have used the wrong homonyms for "it's" and "they're." But I have too much pride.)
Of course Wikipedia is unreliable. What makes you think Encyclopedia Britannica is reliable? One of the best things about Wikipedia is that it makes its construction visible, shredding the notion of the immaculate Expert who dispenses wisdom. Every Expert is just some guy (mostly they are guys) who's willing to write an article. There's an editorial board that decides what topics need to be covered, and what can be omitted. Every step along the way is fraught with unconscious bias. Just look through the Encyclopedia Britannica, and see how many European princelings are recorded, and consider how many of them might have been better forgotten altogether. And then see how many kings of Ethiopia you can find. How many Shoguns? How many of the rulers of Thailand, with its hundreds of years of history? These things are less well covered in Britannica, not because the information is hard to get, but because the editors and the audience aren't as interested. That data won't sell.
(I confess I don't have a modern Britannica at my fingertips, perhaps I'm wrong about this. If so, I apologise! I think my rhetorical point stands, even if my particular examples fall...)
I'm not saying that Wikipedia is without bias, or even that it is less biased than Britannica, or even that its biases are more visible. I think the important point is that Wikipedia makes its process visible, so that people are aware that it's not definitive. Is it useful? Hell yes. Is it always right? Of course not. Is Britannica useful? Absolutely. Is it always right? No, but that's not nearly so obvious. The dead tree publishing model hides all the uncertainty in order to turn knowledge into a product that people can be persuaded to buy. Wikipedia isn't trying to sell anyone anything, so it doesn't need to hide its uncertainty. That's a good thing: every datum needs error bars.
I might argue that the problem with Wikipedia is that it insists on one article per topic, just like Britannica. A more honest structure would let anyone add an article on a topic, but only the original author would be allowed to change an article. That way the plethora of ideas and perspectives that constitute real knowledge would be made visible, and