Q: Wikipedia-- the online encyclopedia written and edited by users-- is another of your favorite topics. What's your problem with that?

A: In the book I focused on the fact that Wikipedia was riddled with errors. I think it probably is. To me there is a more important problem with Wikipedia: It has no context. I was on the (Stephen) Colbert show (on Comedy Central) recently. He asked me about Wikipedia. If you go to Wikipedia, the entry on "truthiness"-- Colbert's sort-of very funny play on "truth"-- has almost as long and as carefully and meticulously footnoted entry as on "truth," the corner stone of the Western philosophical tradition. Tradition which has spawned thousands, tens of thousands of books. It represents the foundation of Western academy, everything, for the last 2,000 years.

The problem with Wikipedia is there is no one determining when something is more important than something else. So, Wikipedia just reflects our own obsessive 24 hour news cycle. The entry on Pamela Anderson is as carefully footnoted and meticulously researched as the entry on Marie Curie or Joan of Arc.

There is no one in charge. There are no grown ups there. It's just kids. So you have a lot of garbage. You have entries on irrelevant footnotes of footnotes. Popular media stars in a few days or a even few minutes often get forgotten.

I'm sure the entry on OJ Simpson is incredibly complex. People don't understand that if you want to have a really valuable encyclopedia, you have to escape from today, from this month, from this year. You've got to have some perspective.

Andrew Keen talks about Wikipedia (he speaks truth):

Q: Wikipedia-- the online encyclopedia written and edited by users-- is another of your favorite topics. What's your problem with that?

A: In the book I focused on the fact that Wikipedia was riddled with errors. I think it probably is. (snipped)

Uhm - I can't help but notice that this is easily paraphrased as: "I wrote a book about how Wikipedia's filled with errors. I have no idea whether or not what I wrote is true, because I didin't bother to check, but I'd guess it is. I mean, anything's possible, right?"

I would say that Keen's criticism--that Wikipedia lacks regulation according to the ascribed importance of subjects, and simply builds up content on all notable subjects to a comprehensive level--is perhaps its greatest strength. Nobody is saying "truth" does not deserve a rich and deep level of coverage--as an inclusionist, I want Wikipedia's coverage on that subject expand far beyond what you could find in any single book, to represent volumes worth of thought and the history of it--but our content on "truth" is not to the slightest degree harmed by our content on "truthiness". Hurt the content on "truthiness", and you only hurt the people who want to learn about "truthiness". Deletionists fail to appreciate the true value of information; they have an essential contempt for both the idea of a comprehensive collection of knowledge and for the readers who want to learn from it.

I guess you don't see the problem that the article on South Park is longer longer than the article on the Upanishads, or that while every aspect of characters of South Park are analyzed in depth, with links to separate articles on each character, the bulk of the article on the Upanishads is nothing more than a list of the texts that comprise the cannon, usually with no corresponding link to a separate article?

The point is that it's an irrelevant comparison - Wikipedia is (supposed to be) a work in progress, it's just progressed farther on South Park than the Upanishads ...
In a finished state, the total material on the Upanishads should be larger than that on South Park, but the South Park stuff is easier to write for most current editors, so it's been written first. Is this really a big deal? Is there any reason why Wikipedia should limit its coverage on any topic because of the length of something unrelated? I don't see it.

The point is that it's an irrelevant comparison - Wikipedia is (supposed to be) a work in progress, it's just progressed farther on South Park than the Upanishads ...

It becomes relevant when the "culture" of the editors who lovingly tend to the South Park article begins to bleed over into areas that are well outside the milieu of South Park. That's when you get people like Samuel Blanning (an admin with over 20,000 edits to his name) uttering daft nonsense in a deletion debate about the Arch Coal company. (Blanning questioned whether Arch Coal was an encyclopedic topic because it "seemed weak" that it is the second-largest coal-mining operation in the United States).

That, I feel, is the problem with the imbalance between pop culture trivia and actual real-world history, science, and business.

Greg

Wikipedia's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness, currently.

Is this Andrew Keen character any relation to Commander Keen in the computer games?

I guess you don't see the problem that the article on South Park is longer longer than the article on the Upanishads, or that while every aspect of characters of South Park are analyzed in depth, with links to separate articles on each character, the bulk of the article on the Upanishads is nothing more than a list of the texts that comprise the cannon, usually with no corresponding link to a separate article?

So the big question is, how does someone like Tiffany survive in this kind of commercial environment? I mean, other than by marrying a rich CEO or something... I noticed that Dust Off and Dance is on eMusic, along with the Cleopatra reissue of "I Think We're Alone Now," but other than that, doodley squat.

I long for those days when it really wasn't considered serious and people weren't treating it as if it was a full time job. I think that is why I tend towards inclusion, hoping that it will help return to that. I reject the idea that WP should be considered anything serious at all.

I guess you don't see the problem that the article on South Park is longer longer than the article on the Upanishads, or that while every aspect of characters of South Park are analyzed in depth, with links to separate articles on each character, the bulk of the article on the Upanishads is nothing more than a list of the texts that comprise the cannon, usually with no corresponding link to a separate article?

Personally, I don't. In fact, I think South Park is a much more appropriate topic for a site written by amateurs.

I think Keen is dead wrong when he says that Wikipedia reflecting pop culture is a more important problem than it being riddled with errors.

There is also the disruption caused by admin earning their buttons working on the cruft articles interfering with article writers on scholarly topics they know nothing about, as Jonny has explained so well.

I would have less of problems if WP held itself out as a cartoon catalog instead of a proper encyclopedia.

There is also the disruption caused by admin earning their buttons working on the cruft articles interfering with article writers on scholarly topics they know nothing about, as Jonny has explained so well.

I would have less of problems if WP held itself out as a cartoon catalog instead of a proper encyclopedia.

Hardly irrelevant. Article length and citation numbers is an objective means of measuring relative importance. This demonstrates why WP should not be seen as a serious endeavor. And it is not getting better. With each new episode the South Park article gets longer while serious articles do not. It is as much a "work in regress" as anything else. WP has no editorial restraint and no capacity to get any. Do you anticipate any improvement in the quality, or even the interests, of your "current" editors, who by your own description, are immature and intellectually stunted?