« Semantic Web | Main | Activist Technology on WorldChanging.com » Orlowski slams WikipediaI'm irritated with myself for blogging this, it's like feeding the troll. I think Orlowski (who is evidently a smart guy) likes to play devil's advocate to stir up controversy and attract attention (similar to Bill O'Reilly on Fox Network, only Bill O'Reilly isn't an advocate; I'm pretty sure he's the devil.) His latest target: Wikipedia, which he assails as the product of unqualified "wiki-fiddlers" (which he originally wanted to call "wiki-wankers," contributors to "the world's most useless encyclopedia." Make no mistake, the small coterie of self-selecting wiki fiddlers have done a fine job of producing a hyperlinked encyclopedia that appeals to um, wiki fiddlers. Yards of text are devoted to things that interest, mostly, people who like to write online encyclopedias. It's very much a religious belief, the notion that good stuff will spontaneously "emerge". But what you end up with is a hypertexted junk where Eric Drexler gatecrashes the Buckminster Fuller section and where the entry for "memes" is as long as the entry for Immanuel Kant. (Needless to say, there's no entry for Mary Midgley. We could go on, but you get the general idea).When he refers to the notion that good stuff will spontaneously "emerge", it's Orlowski that's fiddling, or failing to address the real meaning and impact of self-organization. Wikipedia works because knowledgeable people collaboratively refine the entries, and the resulting entries represent a broader perspective than a single "authoritative" view. Those who pay attention to the collection, distribution, sharing, and perpetuation of knowledge – consider Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, for instance – understand that "authorities" often constrain rather than expand our understanding of the world. Of course, Wikipedia will have some entries that are weak, and there's an ongoing problem with "edit wars" over controversial subjects, but in all, Wikipedia is a remarkable body of work, and a proof that emergent or self-organizing projects can yield impressive, if not always perfect, results. (Take a look at Wikipedia if you haven't already... maybe you'll be the first kind on your block to create an entry, or make a correction!) jon posted this at 11:41 AM |
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