Wikipedia vs. the “Truth”
I came across this article on slashdot in my daily grind of web reading. The title is a dead give away- “The Faith-Based Encyclopedia”
From the title of course we know where it’s going. There isn’t any doubt about it. But polemics aside, I’m intereted on what Robert McHenry (Former Editor in Chief, the Encyclop?dia Britannica) is actually going argue.
To be fair, in some respects, I think the critique that McHenry lays out against the wikipedia is not only accurate, but for the most part, fair. His critique of the process of information gathering and verification process is something that needs to be considered in any kind of “open” process. Yet my concern is more what the implications of his argument end up being in general.
The sumation of the article pretty much gives it all away:
The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him.
True enough. Yet the question isn’t so much “now, do we give up the wikipedia?” rather, “how do we apply this standard to all sources of ‘truth’?” Overlooking McHenry’s rather absurd allusions to some obscure and transhistorical truth, his own argument applies just as well to the Encyclopedia Britannica as it does to the wikipedia.
His snide remarks about the open and free nature of the wikipedia seem to assert that the Britannica is immune from the problems of “truth” (as a stand in for his descriptions of the problems with the wikipedia). The reality is that commercial nature of the Britannica in no way makes it immune from the same charges. If anything, the closed nature of the Britannica makes it more culpable to the same charges because there is no possibility for revision.
While I think it is important to be critical of the wikipedia and I would personally like to see more rigorous editing and writing for it, as a resource, it has certainly surpassed my use of the 1968 Britannica set that I grew up with. Where McHenry actually critiques the wikipedia he raises some valid points, but he ought to be more cognizant that his argument is vastly more destructive to projects like the Britannica than to the wikipedia. His time might be better spent helping contributors write better pieces.
