Wikipedia co-founder criticises project

by Terry Tue Jan 04, 2005 11:47

This is definitely a problem if people just blindly ignore expertise for this project and similar ones that are trying to build a body of knowledge.

This is related to the development of science itself. At any given point in the past for any given subject, there would be or are many theories or views floating around. Clearly some are right, others are wrong and still others have partial truths. The beauty of science is that by doing experiments and putting theories to the test, nature itself would declare what theories were right. This system, then allowed newer and more refined theories to built on those closest to physical reality to be devised. Without this test by nature, experiments -the linchpin of science, theories would have gone off in all sorts of directions and there would be no way to tell fact from fiction.

Over time the scientific establishment built up it's peer groups, journals, insitutes and so on and these helped the process.

Now it should be clear here that we are talking primarly about physics, chemistry, geology and biology to a lesser degree. When we come to the so called softer sciences of social theory and or economics, nature does not provide the truth in so clear cut ways and the outcomes are heavily influenced by human nature or the human mind and therefore these fields were much slower to develop.

In the last few years as the corporate influence has touched more and more areas of sciences, the various expertise areas have been tarnished by the influence of money and as a result they have become much more unscientific and corrupted. This is particularly so in the area of medical and biotechnology fields where it is now almost impossible to find truly independent review of new research, since many of the people either have links to the corporations likely to benefit, either in the form of research grants, company shares or positions within the company.

Having said that, the reasons for the recent trends towards ignoring expertise and the development of anti-elitism, are not because of the corporate influence in science alone, but because of the wider changes that have taken place in society over the past 100 years or so. It is more to do with ignorance and lack of understanding and the narcistic nature of our culture, where people are increasingly selfish, self-absorbed, vain and attention seeking and are unable to tolerate the pain of not getting their way. This total focus on the self, means people are no longer interested in the substance of things, reason no longer applies. Thus people are famous for being famous, less for what they did or their achievements. And so someone who is actually quite expert in a given field is judged not by content of what they have to say and if it is logical, but by their appearences.

That of course is not to say that we should take as gospel what anyone who is trotted out and presented as an expert. We should of course listen to the content. But as I said, actual knowledge, reasoning and maturity of opinion are not a major currency.

Therefore the concerns of Larry Sanger are very real. There must be some mechanism to chaff fact from fiction.

by Ray McInerney Tue Jan 04, 2005 17:01

when people use material on wikipedia to make a statement or (back-up) an argument.

by pc Tue Jan 04, 2005 17:09

but surely the point of wikipedia was to not to have one person/expert write history...(because not all "Experts" are actually experts) although is he saying now that because of all the voices now _facts_ are being swamped... (if theres such thing as _facts_ )

what is wikipedia useful for then? a quick intro to a subject ie. like what an encylopedia is supposed to be... and aren't people realizing more and more you need multtiple sources on everything...? so use wikipedia (or indymedia) as a source but not just wikipedia?(or indymedia ) so all is good with wikiedia?

by redjade Tue Jan 04, 2005 21:40

''Governance is a certified Hard Problem(TM), and at the extremes, co-creation, openess, and scale are incompatible. The Wikipedia's principle advantage over other methods of putting together a body of knowledge is openess, and from the outside, it looks like the Wikipedia's guiding principle is “Be as open as you can be; close down only where there is evidence that openess causes more harm than good; when this happens, reduce openess in the smallest increment possible, and see if that fixes the problem.” Lather, rinse, repeat.

[...]

This pattern means that there will always be problems with governance on the Wikipedia, by definition''

found at
http://laughingmeme.org/archives/002682.html

source (but site currently down)
http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/01/03/k5_article_on_wikipedia_antielitism.php

by not a fan - grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! against error!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sun Apr 24, 2005 21:07

i've just looked at their article on "red hair".
they say its an irish or british thing total crap.
their soldiers went overtime arresting iraqi red heads looking for saddam's number two whom you'll remember - was a red head.
i wish there was a counter-wikipedia where all the challenged articles were collated.
their take on star trek is bolloxed too. lame theology, i'm sure the vulcans didn't really believe that.

by R. Isible Mon Apr 25, 2005 20:23

But why not take part in editing the article that you object to in order to correct the problems that you see? That''s the point and advantage of Open Publishing. You don't just have to complain about it ineffectively, you can /do/ something about it.

by Noel Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:52

Wikipedia can easily be edited.
I'd go easy on the rewriting of the red hair origins though.
Many in the Middle East have red hair, it's believed to be a genetic inheritance from the time of the Crusades. So don't get mad, get editing.