The title says it all...
We've seen America's vitriol. Now let's salute Wikipedia, a US pioneer of global civility
by Timothy Garton Ash
for The Guardian (of what?)
By the way, Timothy Garton Ash's Wikipedia biography contains one reference note, and it reads little different than it did 6.5 years ago, when it was created by a single-purpose account in Wisconsin.
Full Version: The Guardian comes to an end
QUOTE(thekohser @ Thu 13th January 2011, 9:32am) 
The title says it all...
We've seen America's vitriol. Now let's salute Wikipedia, a US pioneer of global civility
by Timothy Garton Ash
for The Guardian (of what?)
By the way, Timothy Garton Ash's Wikipedia biography contains one reference note, and it reads little different than it did 6.5 years ago, when it was created by a single-purpose account in Wisconsin.
Pioneer of global civility? I've heard Wikipedia called a lot of things, but never that. Truly ridiculous.
Probably my favorite comment:
Ouch!
QUOTE
Wikipedia is a little bit like the Guardian. Random contributors can put all kinds of questionable "facts" into the piece with little to no fact-checking.
Ouch!
Has anyone pointed it out to him that he's got it reversed? What he's referring to as "America's vitriol" started getting really bad just after Wikipedia became a top-ten website. What he should be doing, and would be if he actually cared about history, is drawing logical inferences from the known (and well-documented) chain of recent events.
The fact is, Wikipedia does have a significant, though subtle and insidious, negative effect on political discourse in the United States. It's not direct; what it does is siphon off political moderates, attracted by the promise of "neutral point of view," and the false promise of artifical civility enforced by bans and such. These people might otherwise put in that time and effort to argue with extremist ideologues on other websites, if they really cared. Instead, they're told "don't feed the trolls," it's best to ignore the people who deal in "vitriol" and make irrational, or even violent, political statements online. In effect, they're fiddling while Rome burns.
This is all related to Wikipedia's Google footprint too, of course. (That sort of goes without saying!)
Anyway, the end-result is increased polarization and self-delusion - extremists thinking that the lack of opposition they see on their own blogs and news sites (and even their own encyclopedias) is actually evidence that everyone else agrees with them. Nobody blames Wikipedia for this because they're not deliberately trying to achieve this effect, but there probably isn't a better example anywhere on the internet of a site that does this.
The fact is, Wikipedia does have a significant, though subtle and insidious, negative effect on political discourse in the United States. It's not direct; what it does is siphon off political moderates, attracted by the promise of "neutral point of view," and the false promise of artifical civility enforced by bans and such. These people might otherwise put in that time and effort to argue with extremist ideologues on other websites, if they really cared. Instead, they're told "don't feed the trolls," it's best to ignore the people who deal in "vitriol" and make irrational, or even violent, political statements online. In effect, they're fiddling while Rome burns.
This is all related to Wikipedia's Google footprint too, of course. (That sort of goes without saying!)
Anyway, the end-result is increased polarization and self-delusion - extremists thinking that the lack of opposition they see on their own blogs and news sites (and even their own encyclopedias) is actually evidence that everyone else agrees with them. Nobody blames Wikipedia for this because they're not deliberately trying to achieve this effect, but there probably isn't a better example anywhere on the internet of a site that does this.
From The Guardian:
QUOTE
Comments on this page are now closed.
QUOTE(thekohser @ Sun 16th January 2011, 1:32pm)
From The Guardian:
QUOTE
Comments on this page are now closed.
Well, they really didn't need anymore after this one anyway:
QUOTE
Oroklini, 13 January 2011 10:29AM
But that's exactly why it's not good/reliable once you get away from very well-known subject areas: there simply aren't enough editors out there to create a true consensus. What you get, especially in humanities subjects, is a horrible mish-mash of opinion and very slanted fact. And that's just the entries I wrote.
QUOTE
But why not allow it to become the standard against which deviations in thought and opinion are compared? It is, after all, a constantly changing consensus view.
But that's exactly why it's not good/reliable once you get away from very well-known subject areas: there simply aren't enough editors out there to create a true consensus. What you get, especially in humanities subjects, is a horrible mish-mash of opinion and very slanted fact. And that's just the entries I wrote.
I think it amusing the comments got shut down right after this one:
QUOTE
antiarctic, 13 January 2011 11:11PM
Expenses that Wales tried to apply to the foundation included $300+ bottles of wine and visits to Moscow "massage" parlors.
QUOTE
what's the 'interesting background' of jimmy w you refer to?
Expenses that Wales tried to apply to the foundation included $300+ bottles of wine and visits to Moscow "massage" parlors.
QUOTE(thekohser @ Thu 13th January 2011, 3:32pm)
The title says it all...
We've seen America's vitriol. Now let's salute Wikipedia, a US pioneer of global civility
by Timothy Garton Ash
for The Guardian (of what?)
If you think that is bad, you should see the translation given in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet (T-H-L-K-D) : http://www.dagbladet.no/2011/01/14/kultur/...ments_container
....they have changed the headline to: "The idealist who won the world".
And the sub-heading is: "Wikipedia: Jimmy Wales could have been a multimillionaire, but choose utopian idealism instead"".
<Face palm>
QUOTE(The Adversary @ Mon 17th January 2011, 1:53pm)
If you think that is bad, you should see the translation given in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet (T-H-L-K-D) : http://www.dagbladet.no/2011/01/14/kultur/...ments_container
....they have changed the headline to: "The idealist who won the world".
And the sub-heading is: "Wikipedia: Jimmy Wales could have been a multimillionaire, but choose utopian idealism instead"".
<Face palm>
Good grief... Next we'll have a Vatican announcement that Wales is a new saint.
QUOTE(Somey @ Sun 16th January 2011, 2:54am)
Anyway, the end-result is increased polarization and self-delusion — extremists thinking that the lack of opposition they see on their own blogs and news sites (and even their own encyclopedias) is actually evidence that everyone else agrees with them. Nobody blames Wikipedia for this because they're not deliberately trying to achieve this effect, but there probably isn't a better example anywhere on the internet of a site that does this.
Spontaneous Generation ??? That's your answer ???
Jon
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