Agree to disagree
Thursday, October 20th, 2005I like James Robertson’s take on wikipedia and finding truth.
encyclopedia up now - how does the entry on WWI address the war? How
does it explain the hows and whys? I’ll tell you how - it uses the
(then current) academic consensus. Is that “correct” in any abstract
sense? Who knows? It might be - or it might not be. The reality is,
even WWI is still too controversial for there to be a reliable
“consensus” view. Which means that the entry - whether it’s in printed
copy or bits - is just going to be some compromise view.
Exactly how does that differ for Wikipedia and any other work? It doesn’t.
The reality is, having “anyone” be able to edit doesn’t mean that
“everyone” will. Most people don’t care deeply about any particular
subject - the ones with an interest (and, of course, the vandals) will
be the ones who show up. With the printed encyclopedia, anyone who’s
views fall outside the current academic consensus will just get cut out
immediately. With Wikipedia, they have a chance to get their take peer
reviewed and commented on.
Which leads me to the opposite view from Winer, and Ryan, and most other people - I’ll take the Wikipedia approach over the standard. It’s far more likely to allow a larger set of views fight it out.
The
more views, the more to think about, and the more to help you draw your
own conclusions. As one commenter said, agree to disagree.