Colin Brace wrote:
>There is a lot of Bad Prose on Wikipedia. It may not be the most
>critical problem with the site, but it very pervasive. Did you see
>this piece?
>
>http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2005/10/the_amorality_o.php
>
Excellent essay; thanks for pointing it out. "The flat noise of opinion" Ha!
I have consulted Wikipedia and been disppointed in the results. I am unhappy though with equating its failures with the nature of "collective intelligence." There is such a thing as collective intelligence and it does produce things like good journalism and good encyclopedias, but it's collectivity is not accretive; it is an engaged collectivity that depends on discourse rather than on aggregated, uninformed monologs. And there is nothing wrong with amateurs per se. But they need to be aware of their limits and not to confuse scholarship and creative work with the infantile desire to be seen and admired (narcissism).
Joanna
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