[via New Media Musings]
This Guardian UK article takes a look at the culture and behavior, and nature of the knowledge commons emerging in Wikipedia.
The Guardian article takes the angle of looking at Wikipedia as a “Utopian” social construct. The alleged Utopianism in this case stems from the social rules and norms the govern the culture of Wikipedia. Social rules and norms such as open editing, and Neutral point of view (NPOV). From The Guardian:
Wikipedia, endlessly replicated on the web, is one example of a glut of hazy information, the consequences of which we have barely begun to explore, that the internet has made endlessly available. Is Wikipedia really the best the net can offer - and if it isn’t, where should we be looking for the answers?
While plenty of people nurse resentments against Wikipedia, having failed to win a consensus for their views, Skip’s colleagues at WikiTruth have a different motivation. Branding themselves the true keepers of the flame, they argue Wikipedia’s wounds are self-inflicted and unnecessary.
When the business author Nicholas Carr identified last October a typically banal Wikipedia entry (http://tinyurl.com/8mr5x), he prompted a rare admission. Wikipedia’s co-founder and site owner Jimmy Wales agreed, calling the examples Carr cited “horrific crap”. Yet these articles were mature, Carr pointed out, and had been edited hundreds of times. Might the mass participation be hurting, not helping?
I think that Wikipedia and similar systems are not about creating a flawless information and knowledge publication. Rather, their purpose is (beyond being a living online collaboration experiment) to create a shared and open knowledge commons. This makes Wikipedia a beginning point in the refining and contextualizing and processing of knowledge and information, as opposed to an ending point. It is like an organic,and chaotic ocean full of shared knowledge resources that everyone can pull from and then form and shape and re-use in different ways. It is also a resource that people can easily add to. We don’t expect the ocean to turn out pre-packaged and ready to consume cans of tuna. We shouldn’t expect pre-packaged, ready to consume knowledge and information products from Wikipedia, either.
Comments
@ 10:30
I’m just intrigued by a print newspaper including a TinyURL. I hadn’t noticed that before, although of course it makes perfect sense. Is this old news that I’ve just missed by not reading enough newspapers?
@ 09:38
Your post and Nicholas Carr’s article highlight an issue that will become increasingly critical in the near future. Few today will deny that there is great power being unleashed on earth through the communication and collaboration mediums developing on the world-wide web. An analogy is found in man’s growing understanding of the energy in atoms. The inherent and mind-boggling power is immediately evident. However, in both cases humankind’s technical adolescence, along with our widely varying levels of knowledge, imperfect natures, and inevitable frictions result in great powers wielded by simple youths.
A 12 year old with access to the web can readily add content to Wikipedia. With appropriate signals to the reader, this may be lauded, even over the long term. But factor in the possibility that accumulations of such “free” content destabilize venerable sources of information, such as an Encyclopedia Brittanica, and the risks inherent in our ventures become apparent.
I am fascinated by such modern developments as wiki, and have fostered their use in my own endeavors. There is a shortcut to Wikipedia in my browser. There shuld be a link to a scholarly encyclopedia next to it. Perhaps a way to meld the two types of content will emerge. The finest results in organization arise from freedom in balance with hierarchy.
Much is in the hands of the entities behind such powerful tools as Wikipedia to work responsibly in addressing change, as their tech-creatures foster a great deal of it. Tools simply manifest what their users embody. I am glad 12 year olds are not allowed to drive on freeways.