A friend of mine recently offered a post lamenting the hooligans that currently terrorize Wikipedia.
Based on my past and recent experiences, my impression is that Wikipedia has become dominated by an entrenched group of individuals who are territorial rather than collegial. Any newcomer is treated as an interloper and is subjected to a hazing process that is likely to discourage them from returning.
Her zeal to contribute and support Wikipedia is contrary to this attitude, otherwise known as the common wisdom, expressed in today’s Chronicle:
The rise of Wikipedia seems to have afflicted some scholars with a mild case of existential panic. And understandably so: When the world’s most popular reference tool is such an egalitarian outfit, that can be interpreted as a fairly stiff challenge to the value of expertise, right?
To be fair, the Chronicle article focuses on the philosophy of Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, who left because “he felt the site’s credentials-be-damned approach benefited vandals and kept away scholars.” Dr. Sanger (Phd. Philosophy with a bent towards epistemology — he knows whereof he speaks) offers this hypothesis:
“The quality of a given Wikipedia article will do a random walk around the highest level of quality permitted by the most persistent and aggressive people who follow an article.”
I believe Dr. Butcher’s experience offers anecdotal evidence of the truth of his hypothesis.
So, if the public seeks knowledge (a value determined by the market) and knowledge is thwarted by a minority of the marketplace – whose failure is this?
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