Wikipedians & Anti-Wikipedians Square Off
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Written By Reprise Media | October 18, 2005 | Share This
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If you’ve ever walked away from an interview wondering whether the reporter’s going to trash you, the first line of the article is often all you’ll need to know about which way it’s going to go.
That’s why Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales couldn’t have been too pleased with this lead in:
“Yes it’s garbage, but it’s delivered so much faster!”
The article outlines some of the recent criticism that’s been leveled at Wikipedia, focusing on this anti Wiki rant by Nicholas Carr, who had the following to say:
“This is garbage, an incoherent hodge-podge of dubious factoids that adds up to something far less than the sum of its parts.”
Now tell us how you really feel.
Author Andrew Orlowski goes on to outline what he feels are the three primary ways the company deals with criticism:
“Traditionally, Wikipedia supporters have responded to criticism in one of several ways. The commonest is: If you don’t like an entry, you can fix it yourself. Which is rather like going to a restaurant for a date, being served terrible food, and then being told by the waiter where to find the kitchen. But you didn’t come out to cook a meal - you could have done that at home! No matter, roll up your sleeves.
As a second line of defense, Wikipedians point to flaws in the existing dead tree encyclopedias, as if the handful of errors in Britannica cancels out the many errors, hopeless apologies for entries, and tortured prose, of Wikipedia itself.
Thirdly, and here you can see that the defense is beginning to run out of steam, one’s attention is drawn to process issues: such as the speed with which errors are fixed, or the fact that looking up a Wikipedia is faster than using an alternative. This line of argument is even weaker than the first: it’s like going to a restaurant for a date - and being pelted with rotten food, thrown at you at high velocity by the waiters.”
Read the rest here in The Register and then head over to Threadwatch for the insider scoop & some excellent analysis in the Commentary section.
Topics: Wikipedia |