Wikipedia's not so devastating riposte
Oliver Kamm had a very sensible piece in the Times yesterday, about Wikipedia:
There is no necessary reason that Wikipedia’s continual revisions enhance knowledge. It is quite as conceivable that an early version of an entry in Wikipedia will be written by someone who knows the subject, and later editors will dissipate whatever value is there. Wikipedia seeks not truth but consensus, and like an interminable political meeting the end result will be dominated by the loudest and most persistent voices.This is an inherent flaw. The problem is not that there are too few voices in the editorial process, who can skew the result, but the opposite. Participation is prized more than competence.
Regular readers will know that I share Oliver's view of Wikipedia, which he rightly labels "a pernicious influence on our intellectual life".
As for the intellectual life of the founder of Wikipedia...I wish you luck in seaching for it, if his reponse to Oliver is anything to go by:
> "The notion that a false claim to knowledge is wrong is not part of> Wikipedia's culture."And, er, that's it. Not exactly a devastating riposte. Not, in fact, any kind of riposte.
This is preposterous.> "It combines the free-market dogmatism of the libertarian Right with> the anti-intellectualism of the populist Left. "
Nonsense.It is hard to know how to coherently respond to ignorant ranting which
appears to make no attempt to even connect at any point with the facts
of reality.--Jimbo