Dave Winer: “We need to determine what authority means in the age of Internet scholarship. And we need to take a step back and ask if we really want the participants in history to write and rewrite the history. Isn’t there a place in this century for historians, non-participants who observe and report on the events?”
A few years ago, observers looked at the Internet and wondered how we could deal with the quantity of information we now had easily available. The more interesting question is now evident: how do we determine quality?
Keeping with Dave Winer, his People with erasers article gives a good perspective on the quality of some online sources.
But aside from that, I think it’s important to have historians engaged in documenting history as it happens, writing and rewriting views on events. However it’d be interesting to know what future archaeologists and historians would have to say about this topic – what history they’d prefer to work with: a “richness” and diversity of sources, or definitive answers about what historical interpertations are right and wrong.
However this kind of leads not to a question of “how” we determine quality, but rather “who” will determine quality in this glut of information. Will the blogosphere accept something like Wikipedia as the definitive answer? Or will some author who’s widely accepted come on to the scene?