User:Craigkbryant
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Craig Kenneth Bryant
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Professional systems analyst, amateur novelist, and general nuisance.
Born 1973, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
Resident since 1991 of Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
Loves dogs, history, Germany and German, Esperanto, backyard grilling, fountain pens and minimalist music, in no particular order.
Current guilty pleasures: Battlestar Galactica and George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire.
Favorite charities: Heifer Project International, Menschen gegen Minen (People Against Landmines), The Mad Housers, Amnesty International, Survival, DARE (Dachshund Adoption, Rescue and Education).
[edit] Wikipedia: Observations and Concerns
Two years ago, I was a real skeptic of this project. And today? Well, let me say that I am guardedly optimistic. It is stunning to see the level of effort so many people have put in to Wikipedia. With over 700,000 articles in the English edition, I can usually find an article--a good article, most of the time--on even quite obscure subjects. A very high percentage of my Google searches include a Wikipedia article on the first page. Even online magazines like Slate are starting to refer readers to Wikipedia for further information. It seems to me that sometime in 2004, Wikipedia crossed some kind of significant threshold in terms of quality and quantity of information.
That's the good part. But there are still many things that I find troubling, even as I've decided to jump in and donate some of my own time and effort. I think I can summarize my concerns in the following two points:
- Reliability: Wikipedia articles are often quite useful for a quick introduction to a subject, but, honestly, I never quite feel that I can rely on the information here. Let me put it in focus: would you cite Wikipedia in an academic paper? On, say, Global Warming or the Holy Roman Empire? I wouldn't dream of it. And, for me, that means that anything in Wikipedia is "second class" information--any fact I pick up here has to be verified somewhere else before I would rely on it in any way. Even what looks like a proper citation has to be checked out, because who's to say whether that snippet of text really comes form page 612 of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, unless the article and the citations have been through some kind of formalized fact-check or review process? And, even if this is done, who's to say what has happened to the text since that review? So this can not be cleaned up by slapping lots of endnotes on individual articles: Wikipedia, in its present state, is inherently unreliable, in a way that Britannica is not. I do not know how to overcome this shortcoming.
- Entropy: In our dealings with individual editors, we are supposed to assume good faith. But let's be honest with each other for a moment: there are plenty of editors who are not working in good faith to advance the goal of Wikipedia as a strictly neutral, factual, world-class encyclopedia. Many more editors are acting in good faith, but do not seem to understand Wikipedia goals and standards, and show no interest in learning. These two classes of editor together exert a powerful force for entropy on the contents of Wikipedia, directly opposed to the force exerted by informed good-faith editors striving to advance the goals of the project. This has two consequences:
- Quality articles must be constantly monitored by informed good-faith editors, lest they be damaged by the forces of entropy. This is a drain on the (finite) time, energy and dedication of good-faith editors. Even if the forces of entropy do not overwhelm the encyclopedia, it still means there is that much less good-faith energy to be put into actually improving Wikipedia, as opposed to putting out fires.
- It is not a given that articles will improve with time and editor contributions. In fact, it is entirely possible for articles to degrade, even featured articles: one group of informed good-faith editors can develop a wonderful article, get it awarded FA status, then move on to other things...and the wolves are always sniffing around, waiting for an opportunity. This is not a theoretical concern; I have seen the very thing happen on the articles Vampire and Hinduism, both FAs that, as of August, 2005, have fallen off dramatically in quality. Yes, a new crop of informed good-faith editors may come along and attempt to set things right...but see my previous point. Do we have to run as fast as we can, just to stay in one place?
Today is Thursday, June 12, 2008; it is now 08:36 (UTC/GMT).
