Comments on: Big Media doesn’t understand Wikipedia

By: Dr Zen

Dr Zen — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 09:14:00 +0000

It’s a good starting place if you know nothing about a thing but only because Google’s ranking algorithm doesn’t tend to list pages in anything like a sensible order.

I’m not convinced that all media are doomed. That’s down to whoever’s creating the content, really, although it’s certainly true that once an exciting new form ossifies, innovators tend to steer clear.

By: Del

Del — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 12:48:00 +0000

Inevitable really. Tends to be the way that these things go. They start out well, but as soon as they become part of the status quo, they succumb to the same arrogance that all established forms of media exhibit. An equivalent to the Animal Farm effect in politics. Just human nature really.

Wikipedia is still an excellent resource though, but it’s created by people and therefore as flawed as we ourselves are.

By: Dr Zen

Dr Zen — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 02:34:00 +0000

Selfcriticism actually is quite unusual on Wikipedia. It has internal critics, but the community as a whole is very smug. It doesn’t handle criticism with the approach that it knows it contains errors and must fix them, but with a rather more strident approach that says that yeah, we’ve got mistakes but our model will fix them in time.

The “finally” thing was not off the mark, because it is clearly pointing to lack of oversight (no one knows what libels the site contains) rather than alacrity of response. Jimmy pisses his pants at any suggestion of a lawcase, so no surprise that he bottled it when challenged. And the stuff about courtesy is utter bullshit. Usually when people have shit written about them, the bullyboys treat them abominably. Courtesy is very much lacking on that wiki.

As for the Britannica thing, ask what it compared before getting your panties all wet over Wikipedia’s good showing. Most of Wikipedia’s big-topic articles are cribbed from Britannica in the first place, so it’s a bit of a headscratcher that they have more mistakes. It rather implies they are what the wiki’s adding.