I think this guy's a little right, and a little wrong about the quality of Wikipedia. I think Wikipedia's greatest strengths are its breadth of information and its free access, and I think most people use it knowing that there's a possible trade-off with the depth of the information.
Most Wikipedia entries that are available in traditional encyclopedia probably don't describe the material nearly as well as the paper version. I'd be surprised and dismayed if they did. It's a bunch of paid editors and writers against a motley collection of random people who may or may not be knowledgable, objective, fluent, etc. The underpinnings of economics would be turned inside out if the professionals were worse on average than the amateurs about the same subject matter. The most benefit comes when the amateurs cover something the pros don't.
I'm fairly confident that the Encyclopedia Britanica doesn't have any entries on b-trees, and Encarta certainly doesn't (it suggested entries having to do with the lumber industry). I'd like to check Britanica, but you have to pay to use the online version and I don't feel up to jumping through the hoops for a 30 day trial. I doubt any general encyclopedia will ever have an entry for b-trees. It's really a subject for computer science textbooks, but even if you have one handy, it's nice to have an alternative resource with a different set of references. Wikipedia's breadth of topics is its quality.
The argument that Wiki-fans shouldn't respond with "if you see something broken, you can fix it" is flawed. You can argue that the Wiki-fans' view of the ecology of users is wrong, but to complain about the inaccuracies of entries without writing corrections is to simply be a part of the ecology. You pay restaurants to serve you and you have the right to complain, but if you told your mom that her food was terrible, she'd respond with "well, there's the kitchen." And you should count yourself lucky if that's all she responded with.
The Wiki ecology (really any collective) consists of a number of species including leeches and hosts (or more generally sinks and sources). Knowing that an entry is wrong makes you a potential host. Contributing solidifies you in that role. Complaining without contributing makes you a whining leech who's unwilling to be a host. The assumption is that there are enough hosts out there to cover any entry that any leech may want. This may or may not be the case, but regardless, it is entirely valid in this paradigm to say "if you think you can supply the leeches better, do it, or else quit complaining or quit leeching."
Incorrect knowledge masquerading as correct knowledge is really bad when combined with consumers who assume that everything is correct. For those who know that an entry may be incorrect and are willing to fact check, Wikipedia plugs important holes by covering uncovered topics and offering different/multiple perspectives.
Posted by kstroke at October 18, 2005 05:33 PM