The Sum of Human Knowledge*
Well, he didn't quite put it in those terms, but that's the feeling I got from him in our friendly little debate
Be sure to read David's entire blog entry, but here are a few main points:
The bigger picture here is globalization and democratization of knowledge. Wiki knowledge fits within the framework of a new way of organizing knowledge in the modern world. The era of printed collections of information gathered by an elite group of experts is slowly coming to an end.
I see googlization as a positive trend but it brings with it a big change in how we access information. I remember writing a paper on the subject of royalty in the history plays of Shakespeare. In order to find the quotes I needed I had to actually... gasp... read the plays! Over and over again. Can you imagine! What would you do today if you were writing such a paper? You'd google the topic of course! You'd start googling combinations of keywords until you were pointed to an online information source that perhaps allowed you to search Shakespeare's plays. In the process you'd probably come across other writers who had tackled the subject and use them in your bibliography.
So, Rick, I respect your concerns. We're all concerned about Wikipedia being abused for political and ideological reasons. But frankly, Encyclopedia Britannica has its own political and ideological aims as well. The difference is that with Wikipedia you have a collective mind composed of hundreds of editors "mediating truth" rather than some ivory tower cabal working at EB. Rather than shooting down Wikipedia, I think the real discussion we need to have is how can trusted sources of information like Encyclopedia Britannica embrace Wiki forms of information gathering and disseminating in order to stay dynamic.
Wikipedia is a new kind of encyclopedia for a new kind of mind. The global citizen is going to need global information and it is unlikely that this knowledge is going to carry the name of an 18th century colonializer.
That last line was quite a cheap shot, don't you think?
Anyway, taking the high road, I ignored the ad-biblionem attack, and gently responded with these words in the comments:
No, I don't want Britannica updated by Wikipedia's methods.
Here's the deal...I'm not completely against the Wikipedia. I use it regularly and have quite a few links to it on my blog. I created a link to it in the blog I wrote today.
But I have trouble being confident in the Wikipedia for any kind of serious investigation of a subject. I might go there, but I don't know who wrote the information and I don't know how accurate the information is. At least with Britannica, I can at least know it was written by an expert in the area. Granted, "experts" can have bias, too, but at least the information in Britannica is not a moving target.
As for research as in regard to my students, the real problem is that the average student--high school, college, and even higher--does not adequately know how to discern good sources from bad sources.
I've watched as students run searches in Google and immediately run to the top selections regardless of whether they are actual good sources or not.
I'm not afraid of the democratization of knowledge, but more of the democratization of truth. That's what Colbert was driving at. If enough people think it's true, it becomes fact. And unfortunately, too many people don't know the difference.
Then in a counter-point to my counterpoint to his blog entry which was a counter-point to my blog entry, David wrote the following:
1. Determining truth. You see the concept of an "expert" being a safe-guard against falsehood, while I see the concept of "democratic editing" being that safe-guard. Maybe another way of looking at this is that it is an authority question.
2. Old vs. new media. Wikipedia and EB represent two very different forms of publishing. It seems to me that the rate of information growth and change in this century makes the thought of waiting 20 years to get an update unthinkable. At the same time, hyper-editing at Wikipedia seems fraught with danger.
My response: Point #1. It's not merely the "concept of an 'expert' being a safe-guard against falsehood," but rather an expert who is peer-reviewed by other experts (i. e., Britannica's editorial board). Granted, any such individual or group can have agendas or political biases, but at least I know my source since the larger and more significant articles in Britannica are signed. Yes, it certainly is an authority question, because if I read something on the Wikipedia, I have to ask, "Says who?"
Point #2. Britannica editions are actually becoming updated more quickly. For the print edition, a new 16th edition was recently released, plus they release updates annually in their Book of the Year 20XX. And as for the online edition, they update the content daily (okay, I'll admit that I learned this last fact from the "Encyclopedia Britannica" entry on the Wikipedia. So?).
And, David, your last sentence: "...hyperediting at Wikipedia seems fraught with danger." That's entirely my point--couldn't have said it better myself. The problem with the Wikipedia as a consistently serious source of factual information is that the content is--or can be--a moving target.
And David, just remember that every time someone reads your anti-Britannica blog and decides to forego a purchase of the print set in favor of a relativistic, knowledge-and-truth-democratized online source, well... that's 32 extra days in purgatory for you after you die (one day per each volume in the current set).
*The phrase "Sum of Human Knowledge" comes from a 1913 advertisement for the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
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