Wikipedia and the Collective Hive Mind? 155
devv_null asks: "This morning on my drive to work, I was listening to the latest podcast of the Philosophers Zone. The topic of the program was 'Is a free market in ideas a good idea?'. It featured author and speaker Jaron Lanier, who in May published an article Digital Maoism. He highlighted Wikipedia as an example of the one of the worst kinds of 'collective intelligence' and using the 'wisdom of the crowd' to average facts about the world and include them in a massive, lifeless document. Being a habitual Wikipedia user, I could only disagree with his take on the web enterprise. While it shouldn't be considered the ultimate source of knowledge on the web, I think it's ideal in many cases to use as a starting point. Apparently, Lanier thinks a Google search results page is better." So, what is your take on this issue?
Wikipedia (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wikipedia (Score:3, Funny)
For those who don't immediately recognise the OCD TLA, you can read about it here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCD [wikipedia.org]
Re:Wikipedia does not allow exposing the Elite (Score:2)
Hell, they even record (without endorsing, striving to maintain that NPOV) criticisms against Ghandi [wikipedia.org] , FFS.
Forgive me, but from the tone of your post alone it sounds more like you violated the NPOV rule and had your edits reverted.
What exactly were the "evidence" and "good sources" you used, and what were your additions?
Re:Wikipedia does not allow exposing the Elite (Score:2)
Re:Wikipedia does not allow exposing the Elite (Score:2)
Re:Wikipedia does not allow exposing the Elite (Score:2)
Ohhh right - conspiracy nut. Sorry, I understand now.
Well clearly. And it's totally because your heresy is simply too dangerous and true to be promulgated, and not at all because Wikipedia's striving
They both have their place ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They both have their place ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They both have their place ... (Score:2, Funny)
Bush: re-elected
Moore: FUCKING RICH
NPOV is a fallacy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:NPOV is a fallacy (Score:2, Informative)
Re:NPOV is a fallacy (Score:5, Funny)
I changed wikipedia policy to state that, but a large group of assholes kept changing it back.
Re:NPOV is a fallacy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:NPOV is a fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
A better statement is from the NPOV policy [wikipedia.org]:
What's your alternate proposal? I gather that you have a notion that's not a fact and not a common point of view, but that you'd like it to be in an encyclopedia article because you consider it important. To me, that sounds like a recipe for disaster. Without the NPOV policy, every physics article would be filled with psychoceramic nonsense like the Time Cube cruft [timecube.com].
Just call it what it is (Score:2)
Re:Just call it what it is (Score:2)
Oh, and if you come to Wikipedia with political battle on your mind and scoffing at one of the core ideals, it's no wonder you're having a hard time there. You should come with a historian's cool. If you can't edit an article with the same level of detachment as when writing about a 15th-century earl, then you'll naturally have problems with Wikipedia, and you will be prone to misinterpreting Wik
Re:Just call it what it is (Score:2)
Re:Just call it what it is (Score:2)
You're taking that one word too far. Note that the forking document is actually a guideline; the actual policy is NPOV. The sentence you're quoting is a quick (and inaccurate) recap of the main policy. As the NPOV policy
What actually happens (Score:2)
Re:NPOV is a fallacy (Score:2)
How can you DENY the obvious SIMPLE TRUTH of the timecube? Are you one of the EVIL ACADEMIC SINGULARITY BASTARDS and evil stupid word gods?
I invoke a curse upon you and your BASTARD Singularity Brotherhood of Bastardism.
(Ahem.
Re:NPOV is a fallacy (Score:2)
everything2 [everything2.com].
For those who don't already know, the difference in a nutshell is that when you create content on Everything2 it is owned by you, covered by copyright law, and you can license it to people under any terms you like.
The Wikipedia model has proven to be far more popular, probably mostly because it produces more complete information (over time.) Since multiple people can write about the same thing on Everything2, it is more likely that you have to read multip
Re:NPOV is a fallacy (Score:2)
Perfect objectivity is a logical impossibility, therefore we should abandon all attempts to try and narrow down the scope of what may be regarded as factual?
Philosophically sound, but completely nihilist. For practical purposes -- if I actually want to get anything done -- I don't think I'll be subscribing to your encyclopaedia. A reference source that actually makes an effort at objectivity -- like Wikipedia, or almost any printed encyclopaedia, or most academic journals -- is infinitely superior to one t
Re:NPOV is a fallacy (Score:2)
A group of scientists decided to conduct an experiment. They brought a mathematician and an engineer and sat each of them down in a chair at the far end of a room, at the other end they placed a buffet of delicious food. Every 5 minutes the mathematician and the engineer were allowed to move their chairs half of the remaining distance to the buffet. After the 3rd move the mathematician became enraged and stormed out of the r
Re:NPOV is a fallacy (Score:2)
Re:NPOV is a fallacy (Score:2)
Then, one day I was reading Jimbo Wales' Wiki bio [wikipedia.org]. The concept of NPOV may be an application (or possibly a principle) of Objectivism [wikipedia.org].
Re:NPOV is a fallacy (Score:4, Insightful)
If you need any other arguments of great philosophical complexity reduced to semantics, I'll be here all week.
Re:NPOV is a fallacy (Score:1)
Now if only more people had an IPOV (informed point of view) like this, then we'd really be getting somewhere
Oh, hey, look at that. (Score:3, Informative)
It's really funny how the people who complain about bias in Wikipedia invariably tend to have have massive ulterior motives, or at least a big chip on their shoulder. Unfortunately the chip on said shoulder is not immediately visible, so a resonable person would tend to take allegations of bias at face value and moderate them up on slashdot or wh
I think you missed my point (Score:2)
Bitterness (Score:2)
Re:Bitterness (Score:2)
=)
You only THINK you think that, 4 of 9 (Score:3, Funny)
You may think it's a starting point, but millions of people think it's the end of their research. As we all now know, research starts at MySpace. Whoever has the most embedded music videos has the most accurate link to the most salient Wikipedia article.
On an only slightly related note, I for the first time recently noticed that some of my web content was being crawled by a counter-plagarism search engine marketed to high school and college instructors. I'm not sure if I should be flattered or annoyed.
Re:You only THINK you think that, 4 of 9 (Score:2)
I'm not sure if I should be flattered or annoyed.
How about both? Sounds like a good option to me.
Re:You only THINK you think that, 4 of 9 (Score:2)
I am my own grandpa! (Score:2)
Funny you should say that. I was talking to an acquaintance the other day, about a common interest. I brought up a point that I've been making a lot lately, and asked if I'd just read that on the such-and-such web site. I laughed, and pointed out that I wrote it on the such-and-such web site, that being my site and whatnot. He didn't believe me until I hopped on a laptop and ch
Too deep (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too deep (Score:5, Insightful)
The question which isn't being asked is "why the bitter and sustained attacks on Wikipedia from the mass media?". What we have here is a free resource, a collaborative community effort which would be lauded as a benefit by any sane society, even if it isn't perfect. Instead it's being vilified. Why is this happening?
Successful community efforts terrify centralised mass media. Wikipedia, Wikinews et al, and even Youtube and Google Video are in their infancy now, and experiencing all the teething troubles you'd expect from a newborn. Anyone with a little vision though, can see the potential for these fledglings to replace todays big media organisations.
Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired magazine says our culture is evolving into a "mass of niches". Community efforts are better suited to serving those niches than centralised mass media, and people like Jaron Lanier, who makes his living writing for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harpers Magazine, etc, etc, recognise that threat and are fighting back.
This "Digital Maoism" article is an attempt at poisoning by association. The linking of Wikipedia and Maoist collectivism doesn't stand up to even minimal scrutiny. It's sole premise, once the verbiage has been stripped from the text, is that people take the information in Wikipedia too seriously.
That may be true, but it's not a valid criticism of Wikipedia. Many people take Fox news seriously too, but we don't see the Jaron Laniers of the world writing scholarly articles about that phenomenon.
Mod up, damn it. Nail hit squarely on head! (Score:2)
Re:Too deep (Score:2)
Re:Too deep (Score:2)
It won't make you smart, but it will make you less ignorant.
Re:Too deep (Score:2)
Re:Too deep (Score:2)
Re:Too deep (Score:2)
The difference is conciseness (Score:5, Insightful)
The ideal Wikipedia article (these days) is a concise summary of all the information that's available on the web, with each fact linked to a footnote consisting of a link to the URL of the page the fact came from. (Quite what purpose the extra layer of indirection serves isn't clear to me.)
So most of the time, a Wikipedia search is a good way to get most of the same factual information you'd get in a web search, but in a lot less time.
There are problems, however. The nature of truth is that it isn't decided by majority vote; often that which is true is extremely unpopular. In areas of knowledge where that is the case, Wikipedia's summaries often end up being watered down or padded out to appease the masses, with a corresponding loss of intellectual rigor or conciseness. The Libertarian socialism article is one, if you look through the history of it you can see how it turned into a mass of waffle, and the trolls and vandals still keep attacking it.
Conciseness? (Score:2)
If that is so, then how does one know if the linked-to web site is correct? What if the referred-to page disappears or i
Re:The difference is conciseness (Score:2)
Re:The difference is conciseness (Score:2)
Re:The difference is conciseness (Score:2)
What "new" policy? "No Original Research" has been Wikipedia policy from the very start, while original content is permitted: i.e. Wikipedia, like all encyclopedias, is intended to be composed of original content that provides the fundamental facts about established ideas, and lists the primar
Re:The difference is conciseness (Score:2)
Most encyclopedias do not footnote every single fact. Take a look at Britannica, for example. What's normal is to note a few additional sources at the end.
I didn't say web sources were preferred or the only sources allowed, so you can take that strawman down.
Once again (Score:4, Informative)
One person who is causing real headaches for Wikipedia is Daniel Brandt, who is upset that there is an article about him [wikipedia.org] that may potentially contain untruths about him. His response is to wage war [wikipedia-watch.org] against the encyclopedia and its administrators and most prominent users. A better idea for him and everybody, one that wouldn't be futile and one that would save everybody a lot of trouble, would be to use your soapbox to recognize the extraordinarily high quality product the Wikipedia project makes available to web users for free, while being very vocal and clear about its weaknesses that most people might not understand.
Re:Once again (Score:5, Insightful)
I think people should realize that:
the solution is to simply make sure it is more clear to people that any source of information is not the final authority and any particular document you are viewing might be inaccurate.
I think the real problem is that too many people accept information without being critical about it. Wikipedia comes along and suddenly people freak out and yell "you can't trust it for reason X." The truth is that you *always* need to double-check sources if what they are claiming sounds strange, or if you need high accuracy information, or if it is a controversial subject. This applies equally to Wikipedia, Britannica, the NY Times, Slashdot, and quality scientific journals.
I think Wikipedia is an amazing ressource that is right far far more often than it is wrong. However the general lesson here is that we all need to analyze all the information we receive in a more critical fashion. If anything, we can thank Wikipedia for bringing this issue to light (and providing a venue for improving the status quo).
Re:Once again (Score:2)
I think the real problem is simply there is not enough time to be critical about everything you read, there is simply too much information and human beings do not possess enough brain processing power to be able to assess critically everything one reads and still have time to perform the functions of daily living. It would simply take too much time for many people who have other things to do within their ow
Re:Once again (Score:3, Interesting)
Please cite an example article in Wikipedia and a reliable source showing that it is wrong.
Re:Once again (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with the Brandt article is that he keeps growing in "notoriety" (as per the WP definition) because he wants his article deleted from Wikipedia. The more WP denies his deletion requests, the more he piles it on WP. It's a vicious cycle.
This is not an isolated incident by any stretch of the imagination. There have been instances of WP articles appearing with personal information that the subject does not want to publicize,
Re:Once again (Score:1)
Bo-ring. (Score:5, Insightful)
great selling point there (Score:2)
That's true if your need for such knowledge is for just entertainment/casual purposes. For more critical needs, where research time needs to be low and source accountability needs to be high, beginning at a "starting point" is not an option.
Basically, your point is equivalent to: if it doesn't matter to someone whether it's crap or not, wikipedia is good enough to try fi
Re:great selling point there (Score:3, Interesting)
I know Wikipedia's servers are not always as quick as we'd want, but still, 30 seconds is not a lot of time and might give you precious pointers and keywords for further research; cross-checking data is a lot easier than finding new information. How many times have you googled and refined your searches using result data? bingo.
Re:great selling point there (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:great selling point there (Score:1)
CommunityWiki thoughts on the subject. (Score:2)
General take on things: (1) Nice sentiment, yes: don't surrender the individual to the group. (2) But no, this isn't a major danger here. (3) The title is inappropriate.
We actually have quite a bit of thinking about the HiveMind. [communitywiki.org]
Two things... (Score:5, Insightful)
2) I think there's a generational gap here. People with a certain degree of familiarity with the Internet take for granted that there's a certain percentage of error, stupidity and lying out there, and weight what they read accordingly. But others have expectations of an encyclopedia that include its being 100% goatse.cx free.
3) (And I don't feel like changing the subject header.) Who the hell cares what Jaron Lanier thinks, except for other Wired-ish blowhards?
Re:Two things... (Score:2)
Top down collectivism creates some problems, inefficencies (see: some socialism) or plain murder (see: Soviet Union). It's wrong to write off all collectivism, however. See: Mondragon [wikipedia.org] (can't resist that link here) for one example. As a US citizen without a stock portfolio I would prefer the UK's national health to my current method of not getting check ups.
>2) I think there's a
Hard to take Wiki too seriously (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:wikipedia == fanboys (Score:1)
Story Links (Score:2, Funny)
Bad Metaphor (Score:5, Insightful)
A "free market of ideas" is a bad metaphor. In a market, people bargain for commodities. When there is a limited supply of commodity X, and lots of people want it, only the people who are willing to sacrifice the most (time, energy, money, whatever) get to use commodity X. If I give you my supply of commodity X, then I don't have it any more.
Ideas are totally different. If I give you an idea - I still have the idea. In fact, now we BOTH have the idea. Even if you pay me for the idea, I still have the idea too. My knowledge of the idea doesn't vanish when I transfer it to you. Thomas Jefferson said it best [uchicago.edu]: "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."
The marketplace metaphor is therefore completely inappropriate to ideas. You can't exchange ideas in the same way you can physical goods. It just doesn't work that way.
Re:Bad Metaphor (Score:1)
Perhaps it is a flawed metaphor (as all metaphors by definition are) but can you think of a better one? A love fest perhaps (wherein you give something, love, but still possess it after you give it, and soon there are a lot of children who all have your eye color...no, wait...)? In the marketplace, ideas are like money trees, the ultimate renewable resource (though with logarithmically decreasing value potential over time and use); but they are, in fact, traded, and the closest system we have to describe s
Re:Bad Metaphor (Score:2)
Yep. In fact, your own post suggests it: trees. Forestry. Or "environmental management" if you prefer. In a forest, you find many different species of trees. They are all in competition with one another for access to sunlight, water, and nutrients. Since they are in competition, and may not be equally suited to current conditions, some types of trees are more common than others. Trees begin from seeds,
Re:Bad Metaphor (Score:2)
At the very least, very interesting. I suppose what both metaphors have in common is they attempt to describe vast systems of resource distribution; money (and capital) for the first, and life and food (at least, energy) for the second. I think to a wolf hunting for deer, the forest is just as much about scarcity as the marketplace is to us. I suppose my only quibble with the enviornmental metaphor is that humans generate ideas, that is abstractions about experiences, they do not pre-exist us. Sure, the
Re:Bad Metaphor (Score:2)
I suppose it is a created environment, in that everyone has to grow their own forest of ideas from scratch. I'm inclined to resist the adjective "artificial" though, since it implies that the process is unnatural in some way. If you ask me, developing ideas is a completely natural thing for a human being to do.
A problem with my metaphor is that it doesn't draw sharp distinctions between individuals and groups.
Re:Bad Metaphor (Score:2)
I love it when Slashdot produces an actual conversation. ^_^ You're going on the friends list.
Ditto. It's always a breath of fresh air to talk (type?) with a person who likes to grapple with ideas.
I tend to resist artificial in the sense you point out at well; like you say, there is nothing 'unnatural' about producing ideas. Rather, I mean artificial in the basic sense of artifice, a device for making or giving order. I tend to think of the whole map of a person's ideas as a tool for comprehending e
Re:Bad Metaphor (Score:2)
Re:Bad Metaphor (Score:2)
Because "most" people* agree on something as a fact, doesn't mean it's true.
* and particularly when "people" in this case is defined as narrowly as individuals who care about the issue to edit it on Wiki...arguably, the only people that are going
collect (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:collect (Score:2)
Well, if this article has any value for me, it's in eliciting the above comment. Wikipedia is indeed representative of human knowledge; whether it's representative of the truth is another matter. Often it will be, sometimes it won't, but it will be guaranteed to be representative of human knowledge. Nicely analyse
I wanna have Wikipedia's babies (Score:2)
There's all this talk about how biased it is because of some controversy surrounding people editing articles based off of an agenda like the Ken Lay thing, but as has b
Do I get fries with that? (Score:2)
I'm confused.. is that an offer?
Re:Do I get fries with that? (Score:3, Funny)
Remember, there's no 'I' in "drone".
Re:Do I get fries with that? (Score:2)
Ask Slashdot, Wikipedia and the Collective Hive Mind.
wiki bashing (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason Wikipedia works is not because it is the "intelligence of the masses." Each article is usually edited by a relatively small fraction of the masses, a good portion of which are qualified to edit the article: those who know about the subject matter, those with good grammar skills, etc. With the masses viewing it, those interested in contributing from the masses will find the right place to do it, and thus it will naturally separate the many into the few. Assuming no one is malicious, people who are unqualified to write will generally stray away from writing, and those that are qualified can catch minor errors. Assuming people are malicious, malicious edits are either obvious or subtle. Obvious vandalism is kept in line by those of the masses drawn to stoping vandalism. Subtle vandalism is indistinguishable from well-meaning errors.
Wikipedia works not because of market forces or anything, it works because there are enough people using the encyclopedia. There is enough "manpower," and I define "manpower" to mean the number of people working on it who will provide a positive contribution. And by "positive contribution" I mean something that will make the article more correct. It works because of the same reason open source works. If you look at it, there is very little difference between a central organization checking patches into a repository and an "edit first, ask questions later" style on a system designed to be easy to correct mistakes in. The only difference is when the quality is checked. With central control, you can control what version users see so bad patches never make it in. This is important in software where complete correctness is extraordinarily vital. The downside is that you can't get new features for a while, and the social barrier to contributing is higher. With Wikipedia, you are on the 'bleeding edge' - so you have to be careful of bugs. The upside is that information is processed more quickly, and if you are capable of contributing, you can do so immediately.
What people don't realize is that because of this, Wikipedia is not the most correct it could be. Assuming an ideal Wikipedia where experts contributing to Wikipedia could cover a subject 100% correctly, Wikipedia's correctness would be less than 100% - maybe 85% or 95% depending on manpower. The more manpower, the closer that number gets to 100%. (Imagine an asymptotic curve.) The surprising thing about Wikipedia is that the manpower to "chaff" ratio of visitors remains constant as the number of visitors increase. Will this change in the future? I think that's impossible to tell. My guess is that it won't unless the popularity of vandalism protection goes down.
Point of course being, USE WIKIPEDIA AS A STARTING POINT. It's amazing if you want to learn basic facts about things - who the fuck Jethro Tull really was, etc., but always check references. Wikipedia is quite thorough in its referencing, but a proper researcher should be more thorough. Of course, it's better than most political non-fiction out there now, anyway.
It's quite reminiscient of American government - the basic desires of the masses are communicated to a select few who are (in theory) smart enough to know how to legislate, lead, or judge to make those desires a reality in addition to keeping the country in line.
Re:wiki bashing (Score:2, Interesting)
A starting point for infinite knowledge, if you ask me. Where else can you begin by looking up a movie, get sidetracked into the crusades, and end
Re:wiki bashing (Score:2)
Yes, especially by people who can spell "vogue"
[SNIP CRAP]
Point of course being, USE WIKIPEDIA AS A STARTING POINT. It's amazing if you want to learn basic facts about things - who the fuck Jethro Tull really was, etc., but always check references. Wikipedia is quite thorough in its referencing, but a proper researcher should be more thorough. Of course, it's better than most political non-fiction out there now, anyway.
Wikipedia's referencing go from poor to non-existent.
Re:wiki bashing (Score:2)
As thought by people who can't conjugate their verbs correctly.
[SNIP CRAP]
First of all, Wikipedia's citations tend to be excessive rather than lacking.
Wikipedia points you to almost all points of view on any given subject. Chances are extraordinarily high that the Holocaust in fact happened, but truth is not so easy to find as you might think. Therefore, if you want to check out the opinions of groups or individuals who think that the Holocaust did not ha
Re:wiki bashing (Score:2)
Um, no, they're not. Wikipedia has the advantage over dead-tree encyclopedias that its references can include hyperlinks. But it can, and does, also use traditional references just like everyone else: the name of the source, its author, its date of publication, and a page number.
It (obviously) can't reference film reels, newspapers, recorded sound bites and so forth, unless those sources have been added to the web. And have they al
Digital _Maoism_!? (Score:1, Insightful)
With information, however, there's always enough to go around--the more you share, the more everyone has. Moreover, I
Offcourse it is correct but it is not restricted (Score:3, Insightful)
And that really is the problem with hiveminds. They tend to supress discussion. This can be very dangerous.
At least part of the current race problems in western europe can be blamed on the fact that for several decades discussing race issues was stiffled by political correctness. The hivemind of politically correct media comes down like a ton of bricks on anyone who dares to say something that isn't PC. The truth doesn't matter (either way) what matters is what the group thinks.
This is extremely dangerous because it tends to close you off from the real world. Several countries have been suprised by the emergence of new parties wich suddenly get a huge amount of votes because they dare to say the things the public thinks but that the "mainstream" parties have ignored because in their own circles there hivemind thinking have made it seem the issues were non-existant.
A very simple example. There is a dutch radio program with a couple of male presentors kinda of the type of top-gear presentors. Jobbo's I think they are called by the brits. They are strong supporters of the tuftuf club wich a is an illegal group that targets speeding camera's.
They reacted pretty suprised when a newspaper reported that a poll indicated that speeding camera's have the support of the majority of people. How could this be? All the people they know are against them.
Well, yeah. They would. Hivemind. You make friends with the people that agree with you and ignore those that don't. It is very easy to then start to believe that all those people around you that agree with you are "all the people". Since all your friends think speed camera's are the devils tool surely that is the opinion of the entire country?
Slashdot is the same, everyone here thinks DRM is evil so surely the entire world feels the same?
The problem is very real. Mario Antionette who commented on the poor not being able to afford bread said, "let them eat cake". Could this be simply because she existed in her own little world where that was indeed an option? That she existed in the hivemind of the superrich?
That mentality still exists. "Just get a job", is what business leaders say on the subject of social security because the superrich who never ever get fired live in their own little world where they reinforce their own ideas by making sure to only ever associate with people who share their own ideas.
And offcourse the "left" is the same when you look at some nature lovers who propose schemes that just can't work in the real world. Banning all meat products? Just because all your friends are vegans doesn't mean everyone in the world wants to become one.
Hell it is as simple as soccer. Soccer is huge it was watched by millions! Yes and it is NOT watched by even more people. If you are in the pro-soccer on tv 24/7 camp you will find yourselve surrounded by people who agree while watching the latest world cup match. If you don't like soccer you will also find yourself surrounded by people not watching the latest world cup match during the latest world cup match.
Two groups, each convinced they right and getting it confirmed by everyone around them.
So how can Wikipedia possibly hope to only publish the aboslute truth? It even starts with the basic idea of wich articles need to be
Jaron Lanier, I got two words for you. (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium [wikipedia.org]
http://www.google.com/search?q=Nash+Equilibrium [google.com]
Where do YOU take your information? (Score:2)
Re:Where do YOU take your information? (Score:1)
It's like the Firefox and naked women sig... (Score:2)
Well, Google lets you search for Wikipedia articles :-)
Re:It's like the Firefox and naked women sig... (Score:3, Funny)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google/ [wikipedia.org]
It seems the tables have turned!
Google & Wikipedia are the same... (Score:1)
Google & Wikipedia both do exactly the same thing; they cross-reference a massive set of otherwise inexplorable data and provide a means by which to intelligently navigate it.
The key (and essentially only effective) difference is that one is a machine and the other is human.
Google: the machines interpretation of the world with all the brute-force power that machines offer but no real intelligence. Ever tried searching for the anti-thesis of a given topic? Google can't help you because it can't
Re:Google & Wikipedia are the same... (Score:2)
Hopefully averaged? You hope that history tends towards the mediocre? How appropriate.
Let me quote Richard Dawkins:
"When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly half way between. It is possible for one side simply to be wrong
Missing option: Everything2 (Score:4, Interesting)
Do I still use Wikipedia? Yeah, on occasion I'll want images or more information than I find listed on E2, but I typically use Wikipedia as a sort of study guide and an aide to doing further searching. E2 tends to function much better as a primer.
Re:Missing option: Everything2 (Score:2)
E2 is great for getting perspective on things, because it has the same high standards as Wikipedia but offers the things that Wikipedia doesn't:
And that's just the factual stuff. The fact that E2 allows fiction, poetry etc. takes it another quantum leap away from Wikipedia. They a
Pop Culture (Score:3, Interesting)
Topics I would check on Wikipedia:
Who was the Green Lantern Rough statistical facts or histories Basic guidelines for brewing beer. or learning the terminology.
Things I would not rely on Wikipedia for:
Anything that I would want to be correct when presented to the public.
Wikipedia is basically my electronic Guiness book of world records. Nice for trivia, risky for research.
Jaron Lanier? (Score:2)
Re:Jaron Lanier? (Score:2)
As any librarian will tell you, an encyclopedia is NOT a "be all, end all" resource. It's meant to give you a brief overview and a place to start further research. In fact, once most school kids hit junior high, most good teachers won't even allow you to use an encylopedia as a reference in a paper, and if they do allow it they limit it severely.
Wikipedia fills these needs,
Who can you trust? (Score:2)
Jason is also more very keen on Google in preference to Wikipedia. But again the results of Google are the result of a hive mind: that of the collective set of all links by p