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”:

1. Neutral Point of View is always impossible in theory, very often impossible in practice
2. The wasted energy on edit wars, and the eventual appeal to a higher power (i.e. Jimbo) who makes undemocratic decisions
3. 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.
4. 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.

Interesting, especially the future desire to publish the book in hardcopy. Assuming that the digital book remains networked and open-sourced, there will be a gradual drift between the hard and soft copies. For some reason Leaves of Grass comes to mind.

Presumably, if this method of open production becomes widespread enough, could we see an entire new generation of academics and scholars whose pastime is to track versions of network books. Scholarly papers tracking the evolution, through both the wiki’fied “history” pages and the various printed editions.

Technorati Tags: books, digital, info studies

I read the Wall Street Journal and several trade pubs, and I often find ideas that I want to retain. If theyÕre online, I can tag them with del.icio.us. But if not, I can only clip and file. Any ideas?

Since comments at Lifehacker are invite only, I’ll answer here. It is simple. A pen and a notebook. You can even get fancy–I have a fountain pen and a Moleskine. After that, all you need is to learn how to properly cite something, a skill you were supposed to learn in highschool/university. For magazines or newspapers in hard copy, the author, article title, publication title and date should be enough.

Then, take notes, think, brainstorm.

The real trick comes later. At the end of the day/week/month, depending on how productive and anal you are, you have to input the notes into your system. I use the lovingly simple OS X app Mori. If you want a full-text clip to go with your notes, then you have to move fast. What publication doesn’t have an electronic version? If you are an academic, most likely you have access to every publication out there. If not, many are free, and it is totally legal for you to photocopy. Buy filing cabinets.

I’m surprised people don’t have a notebook with them 24/7. It is a necessity.

Link

I was thinking about writing an essay about the essay, and on what no one really writes them much anymore. About why essays are not books, nor even articles, but how the best of writers incorporate aspects of essay writing in their books and articles. About how the essay has nothing at all to do with text length–although bloggers tend to erroneously think of themselves as essayists–and everything to do with exploration, experimentation and the strolling way they go around a topic without really getting to the heart of anything.

This is the real reason I think nobody cares about the essay: they not only want it short, but they also want it to the point. The essay may get to the point, it may not. A good essay is in the travel, not the destination.

And, so this morning I get this in my list of feeds: Death of the Essay? :

So now I’m wondering, Are we Ñ both in journalism and in the publishing world Ñ too fixated on the idea of a narrative thrust? Are we afraid of the rambling nature of the essay? Taking its name from the French word essai, meaning “attempt,” an essay doesn’t set out to tell a complete, narrative story, but rather simply tosses out an idea like a trial balloon. Are we too polarized these days to welcome such an art form that doesn’t bother with neat, tied-up-with-a-bow conclusions?

Exactly. Except one quibble: Montaigne was less “attempting” to toss out ideas which were interesting, but submitting himself to a “trial”, trying to find out what he believed, which of his thoughts he held true and which of them were just inherited from society.

I am writing on a wonderful blog posting client called Ecto, which can add links to Amazon, make categories and tags etc. I only wish Blogger was more feature filled.

No point waiting for the MacBooks in the 12″ size, I could never afford them anyway. Besides, I’ve become attached to this one already. I found it interesting just the other day how much of a personal relationship we forge with our computers. My desktop, a slightly aged Windows 2000 machine, is starting to run a little slow. It can’t open many programs at once, even after putting more ram in it.

However, I know its speed, the way it moves. I know exactly how long things will take to open, and I know all its little quirks. My hands have fit its keyboard, so learning the size of a new computer poses some problems. Already after a week with even the bottom of the line OS X machine, I already have a hard time going back to my old computer–I mostly VNC over to it and use the desktop for Bittorrent downloads and song storage. And, in some way, I miss it. I guess I miss my first computer too, an old Commodore 64. It is interesting how these things become not just metaphorical by literal extensions of us.