There is a very real battle of ideas playing out RIGHT NOW on Wikipedia.
It is a known Wikipedia phenomenon that competing "editors" with opposing agendas are editing and re-editing each other's entries around key terms as fast as they can type, seeking to control the very meaning of words and by extension, the tenor of the debates around them. Which goes straight at issue raised in an earlier post: how do you know whether what you are reading online is credible, when so many entries can be anonymous or can be entered under false names or aliases?
Type in "gun control" on wikipedia.org and the entry you get is topped with the following graphics:
 |
Please see the discussion on the talk page. |
 |
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message. |
Hot button topics like "Abortion" have been hit so many times, Wikipedia no longer allow unregistered users to post, and the entry is topped with this message:
 |
Editing of this article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled. Such users may discuss changes, request unprotection, log in, or create an account. |
FranticIndustries's Stan Schroeder writes:
"Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia’s co-founders, has decided that the Wikipedia is no good. His alternative? Citizendium - a Wiki without anonymous editing...
Citizendium is...a free, nonprofit encyclopedia...supervised by experts, with article-writing limited only to certified “contributors”, which are identified by their real name...
The question is whether [Citizendium] will ever achieve the critical mass of contributors to make it a resource comparable to Wikipedia. Wikipedia’s popularity isn’t due to its coverage of topics which can be found in standard encyclopedia; it’s due to those unbelievably detailed articles about computer game villains, Linux kernel versions, and other stuff you can’t find anywhere else. Citizendium will have more authority, but will it ever achieve such diversity?"
Interesting. There are a lot of profound tensions being played out in the digital space right now, one of the bigger ones being Anonimity v Authority. Everyone wants to protect the right of people to play/use/publish in the digital space anonymously, and yet authority begs of authorship, so that you can actually judge whether someone's work is worthy of paying attention to. Unfortunately, we seem to be experiencing the worst of Anonimity right now, e.g., attacks on various bloggers (Gladwell, for example) and this Wiki situation. Some have posited that the difference in Authority between blogs and traditional journalism is that blogs are meant to be more stream of consciousness (i.e., less Authoritative) while other forms of journalism are supposed to be more researched, thought out and, well, authoritative. This might over-simplify the distinction, b/c it gets tricky when you get into the area of Wikipedia. It's supposed to be authoritative b/c of the open-source nature of the contribution. The more who contribute, the truer it is supposed to become. But as long as people can't be held accountable for their opinions, can it ever truly be authoritative?
Posted by: joshmandel | 2007.03.28 at 14:40