The Wikipedia bureaucracy

I find Wikipedia tremendously useful, but I read it with my critical antennae tingling. Still, I like the healthy corrective Nicholas Carr provides to Wikipediaphilia: “Wikipedia is beginning to look something like a post-revolutionary Bolshevik Soviet, with an inscrutable central power structure wielding control over a legion of workers.”

Incidentally, you can follow an amusing World Cup minor Wikipedia tempest by looking at the edits on Arjen Robben’s page (which has been locked from further editing because of persistent vandalism). Robben seemed to take every opportunity he could to dive while his Netherlands team remained in the tournament. So a clever Guardian journalist added the following to the section on his personal life: “Robben is quite adept at chess and an accomplished SCUBA diver. He owns a pet parrot named Greg Louganis and collects model submarines.” The Robben nonsense shows both why some bureaucracy is probably needed and also why you need to maintain your critical faculties while reading Wikipedia (just as you should when reading Encyclopedia Britannica, by the way).

3 thoughts on “The Wikipedia bureaucracy

  1. Pingback: Scripting News Annex » Scripting News for 7/10/2006

  2. Overt

    When is this not the case? One of my cardinal rules is to ALWAYS question ALL authority. Without a vigilant critical perspective you are slowly buried in layers of tiny seemingly harmless propaganda through life that adds up to a substantially corrupted vision on many issues.

    The difference is that Wikipedia is meant to strive for a non-biased point-of-view in article construction. The key word here is “striving”. Perfection can’t ever be achieved, but you need a solid arsenal of defences against corruption.

    Reply
  3. James M

    Being a writer on wikipedia I can atest to the fact that this site is one of the single best resources on the internet. I am amazed how quickly this site has become a tool for millions of visitors every day. It is breathtaking.

    I live close to the St Petersburg Florida originator of Wiki and am proud to be a part of the team. Atleast a contributor.

    Happy New Year folks!

    Reply

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