I've been following this thread as well. Ken makes an important point that — I'm sad to say — is not hypothetical but now historical. He writes:
This leads to a major final distinction. On Wikipedia, the fact that
there is no expert-level peer review process means that one can — in
theory – assemble a claque of voters to bestow “good article”
status on nearly anything. Imagine, say, a biography that is not
directly political that lauds Michele Bachmann’s expertise on
constitutional law with 12,000 Tea Party fanatics signing up as
pseudonymous Wiki editors solely for the purpose of protecting and
voting for the Bachmann biography. Or a group of conservative Catholics
working to expand and deepen the biography of John Paul II – already
recognized in Wikipedia by the posthumous title of John Paul the Great
– to subtly support the cause of canonization. Santo subito! All
things are possible on Wikipedia.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (and I can't find the reference, if that isn't ironic!) said of that one of the most surprising aspects of his job, once taking the position, was to learn of the massive propaganda and misinformation campaigns used by governments in spaces such as Wikipedia to provide false information about history, human rights abuses, and generally political opposition. For the average reader simply interested in "Darfur" (i.e. this keeps coming up, and I really just want a 30 second tutorial because I'm tired of being in the dark on this, which is pretty common for most of us on many topics), it is easy to be misled because it requires a tremendous amount of knowledge and access to evidence to know what is misleading about what we're reading.
A few years ago, during the TV writer's strike I wanted to know two things: What's all the fuss about, and when are my shows coming back on. Beyond that I didn't care and I thought they were all spoiled and whiny anyway. I found remarkably detailed information on Wikipedia. I actually used it as a source of information, and it all worked out fine (for me). Evidently, it was accurate about both because A) as I got more interested in matters of digitial copyright, I actually started probing deeper and found confirmation from trusted authorities that can be "triangulated" for consistency (not validity!). And B) my shows came back on as they predicted.
So for some stuff, it's fine. For some stuff, it's worse than bad. It's a battleground. And we can't know the difference.
In this new digital age, we will soon find ourselves hungry — not for information — but for authoritative voices. And soon after, we'll come to learn, in my view, that authoritative voices come from sources of authority that are earned. And one of the main ways to earn it is through solid method in our chosen fields. This is why I bang on about method, and about education, and about grounding our claims.
Ideas matters. They move the world. We have a burden of responsibility as people who work with ideas and even get paid for it. We define the character of intellectual (and artistic!) life based on the value we have about ideas and what to do with them.
Wikipedia is not a bad thing. It can be handy. But it is not an authoritative source. We therefore need to be conscious of what kinds of questions require what kinds of authority so we can build from there.
Meanwhile, when is The Good Wife coming back on?
Best,
d.
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On Wednesday, August 17, 2011 at 4:39 AM, Ken Friedman wrote:
> This leads to a major final distinction. On Wikipedia, the fact that
> there is no expert-level peer review process means that one can — in
> theory – assemble a claque of voters to bestow “good article”
> status on nearly anything. Imagine, say, a biography that is not
> directly political that lauds Michele Bachmann’s expertise on
> constitutional law with 12,000 Tea Party fanatics signing up as
> pseudonymous Wiki editors solely for the purpose of protecting and
> voting for the Bachmann biography. Or a group of conservative Catholics
> working to expand and deepen the biography of John Paul II – already
> recognized in Wikipedia by the posthumous title of John Paul the Great
> – to subtly support the cause of canonization. Santo subito! All
> things are possible on Wikipedia.
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