I missed this from the other week, maybe someone posted it, but I didn't see it. Anyhow, here's a TV debate between Jimbo Wales and Wikipedia critic Andrew Keen who I admit is a bit of a hero of mine. The debate was just before Marsdengate, Woolgate, Merkeygate, Gardnergate, Bonogate.... etc etc

http://fora.tv/2008/02/28/Jimmy_Wales_and_..._Debate_Web_2_0

Andrew Keen 27.00:

"My biggest difference with Jimmy is a profound political one. What distinguishes me from Jimmy I think is that I believe there is a state, or a social responsibility to reflect that there are some things beyond the individual that have values, that can't simply be determined by ourselves. And I think newspapers are one of those things.

It doesn't mean that I'm a Stalinist, that I believe in some kind of aggressive totalitarian collectivism, where we're all put in jail unless we read newspapers. But I do believe that newspapers have some kind of social value, that if we do away with them then we're undermining critical social and political fabric. We have no way of sharing information, and ultimately, for all this talk of 'democratization' whatever that means, the ultimate casualty of all this is American democracy."

It was a turgid broadcast. Jimbo came across as a bit of a giggling girlie. He seems to have a set of stock phrases, though to be fair he has constructed a fairly complicated justification, but it all seems a bit by accident.

I didn't watch it all the way through, but I thought Andrew over-egged the social responsibility of newspapers. Although I agree, the danger is that the newspapers agree with this view and seem to think their role is therefore to govern rather than observe - very true with the Murdoch press who are well aware of their influential role in politics. However, the newspapers are not unknowing. It seems Jimbo is either incredibly naive or deliberately malicious in pretending that an influential web site has no moral responsibility.

While there are plenty of newspapers which fall short of the mark, there is a notion among professional journalists that accuracy, excellence and ethics in journalism are essential core values of the enterprise.

This ties into the thread about the BBC here:

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=16739

The BBC is the antithesis of Wikipedia in almost every way. Sure, the BBC makes errors and has a whole of stable of ethics issues of its own, but the BBC, from the top of its structure to the quality of content, is the gold star as far as I'm concerned. The layers of public accountability, the guidelines and regulations, the mission statements etc.

But as Keen says, in the weird world of Wales and the online evangelists, this probably makes me some kind of "Stalinist".

And Wales is so lacking in self awareness, and awareness of anything else for that matter, that he had the nerve to demand the BBC run a correction after they reported his "bad educators" speech. This is a man who hosts a website so riddled with falsehoods and bad practices that people are being detained on bogus terrorism charges because of it.

The lack of ethics at Wikipedia may well be its worst (and most fatal) flaw.

Yup. And the basis of all ethics, unless you're dealing with masochists, is the golden rule. Which Wales and his cadre of the clueless (some of whom post here) really cannot comprehend. As we see above where he's trying to fix some misreporting about himself, in some other medium. He just does NOT get it. He cannot generalize. He manipulates his own bio on WP, and those of people who get his attention, but he still fails to imagine the problems of people who CAN'T DO THIS. God, what a dork!