Interestingly if you pitched the idea of Wikipedia to anyone before it existed and assured them there would be enough interest, the main objection would be that there would be too much freedom and that it would be full of far too much crazy out there and just plain moronic info.
Instead of Wikipedia being a "Hippie" I guess due to the audience it attracted initially most to become editors tend to be more conservative and really quite skeptical and that is how Wikipedia is. I think it might well have been the fear it would become full of fringe and crackpot info causing no one to respect it that has stopped these people from being corrected, Wikipedia might be overcompensating. Of course even if Wikipedia were to be corrected where the correct balance would be for Jed would be different to where I would insist it is. An encyclopedia can either give a biased answer/opinion/pov/conclusion that the reader should ignore, or give no answer/opinion/pov/conclusion presenting all sides letting reader choose. Perhaps as I suggested earlier Wikipedia is mostly fine as it is but should have a notice on all articles that cause controversy stating that the reader should not blindly assume the conclusion in the article is the right one as this article may be permanently biased and that only in depth research may assure the reader of his or her own answer.. I have one other thought, people don't always expect to get the truth from an encyclopedia, people expect to get the "official story" to a degree, it's not a place you look for the hidden secrets, the newest breakthrough, it's not where you find original research. No, it's when you expect to find the most official, most consensus view of what is even if it's a fabrication as it so often is. On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 1:44 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: > John Berry wrote: > > >> I think the only issue is that people would assume that Wikipedia may be >> free of the influences of corruption, power and academic dishonestly to a >> greater extent than the above and oddly it is not, that's the issue not the >> quality but the bias and only because Wikipedia would be hoped to be better >> but it's not. >> > > Excellent point. I guess the underlying assumption is that Democracy is > good. Or that many people cooperating together are likely to come up with > the right answer. Also, I guess they thought that people who are not > professional academics have less of a stake in the outcome and will be more > objective. There is some truth to that but it isn't a panacea. > > Come to think of it, people working in opposition or competition are more > likely to come up with the right answer than people working together. To be > precise: one group will be right, and the others wrong. > > - Jed > >
