<img alt="" height="1" width="1">The Truth According to Wikipedia
TechCrunch, CA -39 minutes ago
Dutch filmmaker IJsbrand van Veelen stirred a lot of controversy last week at the Next Web conference when he premiered the documentary above, ...

View the article

"Dutch filmmaker IJsbrand van Veelen stirred a lot of controversy last week at the Next Web conference when he premiered the documentary above, The Truth About Wikipedia. It has now been posted to YouTube and is worth watching when you have a spare 45 minutes. The film pits Andrew Keen, the disapproving author of The Culture of the Amateur, and Bob McHenry, former editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia Britannica, against Wikipedia co-founders Larry Sanger, Jimmy Wales, and Web 2.0 guru Tim O’Reilly, among others."

This documentary cannot be trusted. It labels Jimmy Wales as "co-founder" of Wikipedia!

That's not correct at all, is it?

Greg

"Co-founder" SPIT I assumed they were going to tackle this documentary with WP:NPOV, WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL but NO!!! They engage in WP:NOR, WP:RTFM, and most importantly totally ignore WP:TINOSFBUTSF!"

The above is a very good video, and well worth the 50 minutes it takes to watch it.

This is one of the few videos where Larry Sanger appears and presents his philosophy as it contrasts to that of Jimmy Wales (who also appears).

Andrew Keen clearly presents his critical analysis of the Cult of the Amateur, and Bob McHenry provides a sober view of the issues from the perspective of a seasoned editor of a traditional encyclopedia.

Choice Wales quotes:

Academic vs 17 year old

"the 17th year old is often right!!"

about Larry Sanger

"He tends to be a more old fashioned academic about this sort of thing and wants people to have credentials and proof of who they are"

Oh, but that would just be terrible wouldn't it? People who have studied for decades, the most knowledgeable in their area writing encyclopedia articles - what a crazy idea!

If the article is about some item of popular culture, the 17-yr old may well be the more comprehensive source. And in that regard, Wikipedia does excel as a compendium of popular culture.

But if the article is about some traditional scholarly subject that one would also expect to find in a print encyclopedia, I have to go with Keen, Sanger, and McHenry.

Had I been aware of Sanger's remarks last fall, before I appreciated what I was up against, I might have tumbled more quickly to McHenry's model of Wikipedia as "The Encyclopedia Game."

How hopelessly retrograde!

I'll echo Moulton's comments. If you have ~50 minutes, plunk down and have a watch.

Translation, please, Jorge?

There Is No Other Sole Flounder BUt The Sole Flounder!

Ergo, the fish rots from the head down.

We need to have a few episodes of Wiki-Doctor-X, along the line of Wikipedia Brown. Schtick is that the 17 year-old kid doesn't need no stinkin name nor degree to practice medicine, cause he's not going to treat you except as Verified by his on-line sources, at MEDLARS. Says he. And if there's a diagreement, there will have to be consensus amoung whoever else he can find down the hall or out on the sidewalk. Of course, it might take longer (madly looking up "Rectal Exam..., Human") and the results are going to be something like you'd get from Dr. Zoidberg. Due to the fact that there's a lot of information on MEDLARS and our kid is going to have a hard time digesting it. Even with help from a lot of other passersby.

Speaking of Zoidberg, I saw the following scene on Futurama last night:

Crew is served a meal by super Neptunian Chef Elzar, who forgets to tell them there will be a bill.

They read it and gasp: "Twelve Hundred Dollars! We can't pay that!"
Hermes: "Especially not Dr. Zoidberg!"
Zoidberg: "Ahhh. They toook avay my crredit caaard!"

I nearly lost it. Reality imitates art.

Compare to Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber... Transcript Video