Enviropundit: Green Building Blog

The Little Website that Couldn't (Culture )

By pHatidic
Tue Sep 21st, 2004 at 02:05:05 AM EST

There once was a boy who for no apparent reason went around knifing his classmates. This boy's parents took him to nearly every mental health professional with no success... until one day a famous hypnotist came to town. There was a long line to speak to him, and as they waited medical doctors hovered around them trying to convince them it was all quackery. But the parents, figuring they had nothing to lose, continued standing in line with their disturbed son. At long last they told the doctor about their son's twisted history, and after a long pause the doctor looked the boy square in the eye and said, "My, won't you be surprised when you never do anything like this again."

Then the doctor sent the family away, greatly upsetting the parents who thought the doctor simply decided not to help them in their darkest hour. A few days passed and the boy had no more episodes; then weeks, months, and years. The hypnotist, through mere power of suggestion, had cured the boy. When the parents asked the doctors in
the white coats, who had been to medical school, how this change came about they simply said that the boy was only pretending to be cured. Which raises the fundamental question, what if the boy is only pretending but continues pretending for the rest of his life? Is that or isn't it the same as being cured?

The paradox of whether or not the boy was really cured is shockingly similar to the case of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia of over one million articles where anyone is able to write or edit any article at any time. According to the canon of academic orthodoxy, Wikipedia has no right to be as well written, professional, and
accurate as it is. Not to say it is perfect, it isn't, but the vast majority of the articles are well written and many are comparable or better than their encyclopedia Britannica equivalents. This from a website where any person can write or change any article at any time, with no one paid to do quality control and no real punishments to those who vandalize the system other than being banned from the site
itself. How then was Wikipedia able to accomplish this, despite all the naysayers? No one knows for sure what makes Wikipedia as good as it is, but there are some theories:


"Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea." -Henry Fielding

It is generally accepted that those fighting for what they love will always fight better than mercenaries. Perhaps it is only natural for those writing articles on subjects they are passionate about to do a better job than those paid by professional encyclopedias to write their articles for them.


"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." -Aphorism

One of the most deeply held taboos in western society is doing harm to other people, especially those less fortunate then oneself. Stealing from the poor is perhaps in the penultimate group of sins, coming only after violent and grotesque crimes such as murder, rape, incest, and cannibalism. In the words of project founder Jimmy
Wales, "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." Any vandals would forever live with the guilt of subverting this noble goal.


"How newspapers are based on "accountability" gets right to the heart of his problem. He's been taught that the system of newspaper publishing ensures that they are Objective and Factual. Despite working in a newspaper, and presumably seeing firsthand that the news is written by people, and reviewed (usually) by one or two other people, he believes that the magic pixie dust of accountability can imbue that information source with truth, while Wikipedia articles (which are written by people, and reviewed by at least one or two other people) do not have that magic. He sees the existence of Wikipedia as an attack on both his own magic powers of media
objectivity, and a threat to his lack of critical thinking skills. My god, man, if we can't unquestioningly trust an encyclopedia, what can we unquestioningly trust?" -Rusty, in response to Al Fasoldt's article.

Are traditional sources of knowledge actually more inherently trustworthy than grassroots ones? Everyone has one or two areas of special knowledge that they know everything there is to know about. I'm no sports physician but I've been rowing for seven years. Would a grad student paid by the hour to research for a professional
encyclopedia know move about rowing than I've learned from seven years of blood, sweat, and tears? Whose article would have more soul?


"For a long time... classical Athens distributed its most responsible public positions by lottery: army generalships, water supply, everything. The implications are awesome-- trust in everyone's competence was assumed... Anyone worthy of citizenship was expected to be able to think clearly and to welcome great responsibility. As you reflect on this, remember our own unvoiced assumption that anyone can guide a ton of metal traveling at high speed with three sticks of dynamite sloshing around in its tanks." -John Taylor Gatto

People are fundamentally good. It was assumed that all citizens of Athens were trustworthy and capable of holding positions of power unless proven otherwise. In modern society it is assumed the people are generally worthless unless proven otherwise by paper degrees. Athens is perhaps the greatest political success story of all time, whereas anyone who follows politics is acutely aware that our current
system isn't doing so hot. What if the Greeks had it right all along?


"The Internet made me rob a bank. The Internet made me kill 27 people. The Internet made me..." -George Carlin, Comedian

People already have a healthy skepticism of the Internet, which leads them to not take what they read at face value. Because of this when people read articles on Wikipedia they carefully scan them for factual inaccuracies and fix them as soon as they are found. Because of this, substandard articles are soon brought up to par.


There is only so far that theories can take you, be they theories about why Wikipedia is likely to be a great resource or a horrible one. Which is where that little boy who used to go around knifing people comes in. Because at some point it doesn't matter whether something should work or shouldn't work; you care if it just works. And Wikipedia just works.

"There's no cost to switching from an outdated old encyclopedia to Wikipedia -- just click and learn, and there you go. You can switch before your friends switch, but the knowledge you learn will be perfectly compatible." -Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia Creator