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comment by thenewgreen
thenewgreen  ·  4772 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Meme Weaver
With a name like "Poe", you are destined to have unattainable expectations of yourself as a writer, I'd imagine. I think his take (from the little I read beyond your link) of Wikipedia seems right on: It’s more like a dictionary. It has the definition, a kind of rough description, of the way we talk about everything. It’s not expert knowledge, it’s common knowledge. It's precisely why Wikipedia is so widely utilized. It's "the peoples".

After reading this, I wish I could read the book of "ideas" he came up with. Chances are I'd enjoy it more than I would a book about the next "big idea".

Great article.





NotPhil  ·  4772 days ago  ·  link  ·  
> It’s not expert knowledge, it’s common knowledge.

If I remember correctly, some of the studies which have tried to gauge the accuracy of Wikipedia compared to traditional encyclopedias concluded that Wikipedia's great for uncontroversial subjects, but it starts faltering on subjects where the information we all tell each other is wrong or things which aren't very well, or very widely, understood.