[lbo-talk] SDS and wikis

Jon Johanning zenner41 at mac.com
Wed Dec 1 08:47:01 PST 2004


I've been using Wikipedia (the main one) a fair amount lately, and find its quality spotty. Obviously it is best for very technical subjects (hard science, math). For politics and other controversial subjects, the discussion ("talk") of an article is often more revealing than the article itself.

On these subjects, I think it should be regarded as an ongoing conversation or dispute among people who care about the subject in question, more than as a traditional type of encyclopedia. If you really need to depend on what it says on a particular matter, use that as a jumping-off point for your own research. Self-education is always the best education.

Of course, the same could be said of the traditional encyclopedia, but it was always disguised by its hard copy (usually very expensive) format, presenting its smorgasbord of "points of view" as the holy writ of Experts carved in stone.

Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org _____________________________ "Simply by being human we do not have a common bond. For all we share with all other humans is the same thing we share with all other animals -- the ability to feel pain." -- Richard Rorty



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