- No effort in history has gotten so much information at so little cost into the hands of so many — a feat made all the more remarkable by the absence of profit and owners. In an age of Internet giants, this most selfless of websites is worth saving.
Can you elaborate on that? How has Wikipedia given you personal identity? I'm genuinely curious. I know that there are a lot of people very involved in the editing etc. Is this what you mean? Has the site given you a sense of purpose?
Haha sorry for being vague. I was tripping out on how often I look something up on Wikipedia and how I learn those things affects who I am. I'm sure I would be different if I didn't have that resource- the faith I have in my chosen method of epistemology affects who I become, and that faith gets stronger when the sources I can draw on are stronger (-or at least appear stronger! ) Really all I was saying is learning things changes who you are, it's just weird to me how many of the things I learn have come through this one organization!
I miss that table at my grandparents, for sure....it's just weird to me how many of the things I learn have come through this one organization!
That's a good point, it's a very influential site, for sure. It makes me a bit worried that it's too powerful and holds too much societal sway. But then I think about what it was like prior to wikipedia and it wasn't so different, really. Although for a deep dive in to most topics, you had to research a number of sources, people would still initially turn to either a dictionary or an encyclopedia. Encyclopedia's were the shit. I can recall sitting around my grandparents dinner table and at least three times during the meal, one of them would get up to fetch the dictionary or the encyclopedia. Now, people reach in their pockets. Not so different, only that whats in your pocket is the equivalent of hours of research in a library in minutes.
It's hard to say whether Wikipedia is more or less powerful in its 'societal sway' than traditional encyclopedias of years past. It's free and certainly more accessible, which allows it to reach a broader audience. But it's also written and edited by many contributors of various backgrounds, where encyclopedias probably underwent thorough editing (and most likely have a consistent bias). Encyclopedias and similar resources were pretty limited too, as a person could only really access an encyclopedia set they owned or could access from their local library. Now we have access to all types of information with a variety of biases and viewpoints, putting the power in the hands of the researcher as long as they're smart about how they're getting their sources.
I don't see how this is such a threat to the existence of Wikipedia. The decline in editors is most likely based on the difficulties involved in editing, both technical and procedural, but this is an enciclopedia. Most of the important content is already there. These problems can be solved, but the challenge and constant threat is how to deal with the governance of such an organisation. I think both Wikipedia and Linux are pioneers in this issue, and what they do will determine the development of the internet we want.
It's doubtless a threat to Wikipedia, and a sustained one, but Wikipedia's well equipped to handle it. I spent several years as an anti-vandal editor; even back then editors had a huge and powerful suite of tools to quickly, easily, and accurately contextualise edits and revert them; I regularly checked several hundred edits an hour. Every edit is reviewed by a small army of diligent people checking facts, rephrasing contributions, and warning/banning offenders; it's less a question of if a mal-intended edit would be reverted, and more when it would be reverted (Generally in the first half-minute, rarely more than a few minutes) I stopped patrolling edits because I felt I was simply spending my time making an already very efficient machine only seconds more efficient; there were better things to do with my time.