Wikipedia factoids aren't knowledge

by Jesse Corn
Atlanta Journal Constitution

The acceptance of the online database Wikipedia as an authoritative source of knowledge is the most damaging development to Western intellectual life in our young century...

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Wow — the lights go on in Georgia



Jon

Very nice article.



I like the phrase "exhaustive and convoluted recitations".

what are journal articles, books, and whatever else aside from collections of factoids, sometimes with commentary?

what makes something knowledge, then?

maybe it just isn't good knowledge, or biased knowledge, but if it ain't knowledge of some sort...

lol;;; it's probably not wisdom, at least.

Good ones should include analysis, implications, and tying it together (synthesis) so that it fits into some larger construct of scientific theory or human behavior.

Hey! That's My Job!



Jon

Emperor, why don't you start a Wikiquote account and add that quote? With your ability you'd be an admin there in no time.

Actually, you don't even need an account to start articles on Wikiquote though I suppose youd want to hide your IP address.

Wikiquote is a cool idea, and I agree it would be nice to have an admin account somewhere in Wikimedia.

And there's not really much conflict of interest with Encyc because we don't focus on quotes and probably won't anytime soon.

The greatest source of damage to the intellectual life of mankind is the same in all centuries: elitism, control of information, and the treatment of "intellectual life" as something reserved for a privileged minority. Wikipedia is a tremendously powerful tool for providing accessible information to ordinary people, so it's only natural that it draws such contempt.

Encyclopedias cost $10 used. Newspapers are cheap. Library cards are free.

I'm not saying Wikipedia is a bad idea, just that cost isn't really the reason people are reading it. It's the convenience of not having to move from the computer.

It's good for some things, but is not always the right tool for the job, and encourages misuse because it's so easy to get to and too many people buy into its delusions of grandeur.

Jimbo should just back away from all that sum of human knowledge stuff, and focus on things Wikipedia is good at and how Wikipedia can help its readers in a modest way.

I'm sure you'll see things differently once Jimbo treats you to that Absolutely Fabulous dinner at Eve's — just don't ask where the money comes from.



Jon

You're thinking of egalitarianism. "Intellectual life" is very much damaged by the devaluation of research and the scientific method, as well as the spread of misinformation and propaganda - not to mention that fact that the internet is making the information accessible, and Wikipedia is merely centralizing it in a place where Google can give it undue prominence. The "elite minority" can only control information if it's centralized.

Yes.

One of the problems with the internet (not just Wikipedia) is that it tends to mask the sheer volume of human knowledge-- a sense of which that was actually formally available, in an inadequate but at least ponderable way, from the physical size of a library full of books and bound journals. You could go to the library of congress or a good university library, and walk through echoing floors and floors and halls and halls of books (sometimes not seeing another soul). Walk down and find the volume you're looking for, and then look next to it, or on the shelf above, or the next rack. The next room, another level...

Okay, now remove a volume, open, and read. Most likely you get a carefully edited paragraph which teaches you something that you had NO IDEA existed. You see that it was crafted and set down in type by some person fifty or a hundred years or more before, and who is probably dead. And it was something you wouldn't have even bothered to look to find....

A good trip to a paper library like that should make you humble to the point of depression. Not only did they print far more than you can ever read or even read in summary, but you're falling behind each second. The depth of scholarship is shocking, even if you read the language. And if you don't, you really feel left out.

Now, I love the paper, the smell, the dust, the art and the physicality of books, but that isn't the point. Even without the aesthetics, it all serves another purpose, which is destroyed by sticking it all on the other "side" of my computer screen. No, I'm not preaching retro. Yes, I know it's all destined to be reduced to Guttenberg Project and Google Books eventually, so I can access it online, and that's a good thing in many ways.

But where, then, do I get the sense of how much I cannot see? And will never know? Where's the "semi-random" sense of looking at a "near miss" in Dewey Decimal Space?

Where's that sense I had in college that I was growing stupider and more ignorant day by day, because the water got deeper faster than I could swim into it. I came out the other side less satisfied than I went in. This doesn't happen so much on the net, and I know that this is basically wrong. It means the presentation is off. A fundamental feature has been messed with, and turned off. And I know it's not me, since I can go back into the library or onto campus and still "get" it.

One day they'll configure internet databases in a more physically intuitive way, so that how little you see of the written world is more obvious. In the meantime I have little patience with the people who complain that we're drowning in knowledge and have no wisdom. Yes, damn it, but that's not fixable by pretending we've digested the knowledge and cut it off 5 pages down on a Google search. You're SUPPOSED to feel like you're drowning when looking at human knowledge. If you're not, it only means you're not in contact with reality.

Grump.

Oh, by the way —

It's Raspberry Koolaid with Beef, Lime Koolaid with Fish.

Jon

It's the writing quality that really humbles me. To read something that someone worked years on, and had a skilled editor check and then published, makes my chickenscratch look ridiculous.

Not that I'm going to give up.

If I were more into giving out Acadummy Awards than I am, Everyking would definitely take the consolation cake for Lifetime Achievement in a Wiki-Pathetic Role. After all these years of going through what s/he's gone through, s/he still hasn't thumbled to the fact that Wikipedia, Inc. is far more under the thumb of e-lite oligawds than any establishment enterprise ever dreamed of being — on top of which WP, Inc. is wholly uncontrolled by any hint of professional ethos or organizational accountability.

Jon