A few various comments and attacks upon Wikipedia this week have me thinking.
First we have Nature’s analysis of Wikipedia vs Britannica, noting that the traditional encyclopedia is no more or less true, on average, than then Wikipedia, despite Britannica’s rejoinder[pdf]. Given a perfect system, all articles will approach a measure of perfection, at least in their truth or representations of a somewhat Neutral Point of View (NPOV). The question is, does the system worK?
Increasingly, Wikipedia is becoming a place for infighting, childish antics and a general sticking-one’s-fingers-in-one’s-ears and saying “La La La.” For anyone seen as even a remote expert in an area, the proposition of having one’s work derided and fought against without any possibility of rational debate is daunting. I myself, even with only a reasonably successful undergraduate degree in Philosophy, have simply given up dealing with people not only making simple errors, but defending them to the death.
With this, enter Wikitruth, a wiki run, supposedly, by disenchanted Administrators of Wikipedia who are attempting to document its abuses. Particularly those of “dictator for life” Jimbo Wales who often, according to Wikitruth, swoops in often at the request of third parties, and summarily edits a page out of existence. Plus the unconscionable act of Wales editing his own bio, specifically against Wikipedia policies, because he disliked the characterization of his previous employment.
Then we have the critique by Jason Scott, operator of Textfiles.com, a great history of the BBS textfile. (Side note: I’d like to do historical research on the humble textfile, the clay tablet of digital media.) A presentation he gave, The Great Failure of Wikipedia, identifies many of the critiques of Wikipedia, some of them old-hat. He does notice a few that are philosophically important, beyond “Don’t believe anything on Wikipedia”:
- Neutral Point of View is always impossible in theory, very often impossible in practice
- The wasted energy on edit wars, and the eventual appeal to a higher power (i.e. Jimbo) who makes undemocratic decisions
- Counter to the theory of “greatness through mediocrity”, the decline of articles from “Featured” status–this shouldn’t be the case, if everything, theoretically, moves towards perfection.
- The dislike of experts:
Experts are derided on Wikipedia because they don’t tend to follow the rules. They tend to put down cited sources and then say “I don’t really care about your view of notability, I just proved it, done.” And when you say “well, screw you” and then undo it and they realise that they can’t follow the rules, they leave.
His apt conclusion is that Wikipedia started as “an idea of human knowledge edited by everybody, with no idea of how human beings actually are.” What they actually are are untrained (I won’t say uneducated) and selfish about their perceived expertise, and wiling to fight to the death over such selfishness. The joke is that Wikipedia is not a place for debate, but a place for argument. Or, like the Monty Python sketch, not argument, but blatant contradiction.
Dan Visel at if:book suggests perhaps “the reason that we find the Wikipedia frustrating is that we need to learn how to read it.” I am not so sure. I don’t think we can be apologists or media optimists by saying that it is the fault of us as readers.
I admit, Wikipedia is addictive. It contains trivialities, and that makes it a place where those who have grown up with television as our pre-kindergarden teachers can get their short attention span fix. Yet, as Neil Postman notes, just because the media has effected the way we tend to read and write, or the way reading and writing is going to become, doesn’t mean it is necessarily beneficial.
I think that wiki’s, perhaps not Wikipedia itself, are going to be an essential part of our future cultural creation. In this sense, it is almost a return to the collaborative oral composition of epic songs. I think, less then the fault of the readers reading Wikipedia, the fact is that we don’t know how to write Wikipedia yet.
