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Dark n Stormy Knight

(9,760 posts)
3. No money from me. Wikipedia is part of the problem.
Fri Dec 2, 2016, 04:53 AM
Dec 2016

In my opinion, the same anti-intellectualism/anti-elitism that brought us Trump is at work in Wikipedia. Just like Trump and his supporters, Wikipedia, by definition, rejects objective facts and instead says the crowd gets to decide what's true.

Knowledge by consensus

In conception and characteristics, Wikipedia is distinctively a creature of the internet: vast, sprawling and of dramatically variable quality. It is also, by design, an anti-intellectual project. Wikipedia recognises no intrinsic value in competence or knowledge; its guiding principle is agreement rather than truth. Intellectual inquiry involves testing ideas against the canons of evidence. Wikipedia's 'community' offers members a different route to recognition - one shorn of the burden of earning it.

From Larry Sanger, one of the co-creators of Wikipedia, who now feels there's a problem with it.

Is there a new geek anti-intellectualism?
In 2001, along came Wikipedia, which gave everyone equal rights to record knowledge. This was only half of the project’s original vision, as I explain in this memoir. Originally, we were going to have some method of letting experts approve articles. But the Slashdot geeks who came to dominate Wikipedia’s early years, supported by Jimmy Wales, nixed this notion repeatedly. The digerati cheered and said, implausibly, that experts were no longer needed, and that “crowds” were wiser than people who had devoted their lives to knowledge. This ultimately led to a debate, now old hat, about experts versus amateurs in the mid-2000s. There were certainly notes of anti-intellectualism in that debate.

Around the same time, some people began to criticize books as such, as an outmoded medium, and not merely because they are traditionally paper and not digital. The Institute for the Future of the Book has been one locus of this criticism.

But nascent geek anti-intellectualism really began to come into focus around three years ago with the rise of Facebook and Twitter, when Nicholas Carr asked, “Is Google making us stupid?” in The Atlantic. More than by Carr’s essay itself, I was struck by the reaction to it. Altogether too many geeks seemed to be assume that if information glut is sapping our ability to focus, this is largely out of our control and not necessarily a bad thing. But of course it is a bad thing, and it is in our control, as I pointed out. Moreover, focus is absolutely necessary if we are to gain knowledge. We will be ignoramuses indeed, if we merely flow along with the digital current and do not take the time to read extended, difficult texts.

dixiegrrrrl

(60,010 posts)
4. The above references 3 websites in an argument for relying on "experts"
Fri Dec 2, 2016, 12:56 PM
Dec 2016

Wikii--by which I mean Wikileaks and Wikipedia--offers a vast array of material along with citations, contrary to social media.
I am one of those people who actually read some of the citations, and often at least check them out.
Therefore I do not agree that Wikipedia "rejects objective facts "

Tis true there are instances of abuse on Wiki, in which articles are put up by political supporters, but these are usually notated by Wiki as biased, a warning that is helpful, and many are removed quickly.
If people follow the posting rules of Wikipedia, including accurate citations, it works well as a quick source of information, but one should not relay on it being the only source.

Comparing Wiki to social media such as Facebook and Twitteris, of course, a false argument, since they have different purposes.

As to Larry Sanger's argument, that knowledge should rest in the hands of experts, I need only point to the Texas textbook issue which shows the folly of taking "experts" as fact.

Sanger assumes that "information glut is sapping our ability to focus," and that "focus is absolutely necessary if we are to gain knowledge"
which would make more sense if he defined "knowledge", ( since he has a doctorate in Philosophy, he should know that defining terms is important to any philosophical argument)
but he seems to feel it is only available if we " take the time to read extended, difficult texts."

One could easily point to all sorts of knowledge available on the internet, with and without "extended, difficult texts."

Before I commented here I looked up Larry Sanger, since he was a cited source in your reply.
I note that he went on to form his idea of a Wiki, calling it Compendium, basically an online encyclopedia written by experts, and that has not exactly worked well.

Dark n Stormy Knight

(9,760 posts)
12. I do agree with you that Wikipedia is handy as a quick reference tool.
Mon Dec 5, 2016, 06:51 AM
Dec 2016

In fact, it may be that the frequently atrocious quality of other instances of the ubiquitous "anyone can publish or edit" info sources online (yahoo answers, imdb, etc.) is magnifying my negative feelings about Wikipedia, which at least has more and better procedures for at least trying to ensure the accuracy and writing standards of the material it publishes.

I think Sanger's definition of knowledge is clear enough by the context of his argument. Especially if you read more of his writing on the subject. For instance http://www.larrysanger.org/hownetchangesknowledge.html

On the other hand, I'm not clear on what you mean by "has not exactly worked well," in reference to Compendium (with which I'm unfamiliar), nor what that's meant to suggest regarding my misgivings about Wikipedia.

dixiegrrrrl

(60,010 posts)
16. Compendium "has not exactly worked well,"
Mon Dec 5, 2016, 01:22 PM
Dec 2016

in that Sanger created it to be a Wiki with only "experts" providing information, but the site had very few articles, as it turned out.

 

BigBadDem

(29 posts)
6. What is so bad about being anti elitism?
Fri Dec 2, 2016, 01:00 PM
Dec 2016

Are you pro eliteism

Everyone can input on Wikileaks and help steer its content. That is way better than our MSM which does no such thing.

Response to dixiegrrrrl (Reply #7)

Dark n Stormy Knight

(9,760 posts)
10. No, DU is not anti-elite. I can guarantee you that the great majority of DUers would choose elites
Mon Dec 5, 2016, 02:15 AM
Dec 2016

over non-elites in many instances.

Most would choose a trained surgeon to remove their brain tumor, over someone whose closest experience has been carving a turkey. Most would prefer a science teacher who understands that evolution is not just a theory to a bible-as-textbook creationist. Most DUers object to congresspersons who are so ignorant as to believe that "pPregnancy from rape is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” serving in Congress at all, much less on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

Those are all pro-elite positions.

Often the word "elites" is used to mean "experts," as in "foreign policy elites have made a tragic mess of the Middle East" or "economic policy elites have given away the store in lopsided free-trade agreements." Let's assume that both these propositions are true. It is a matter of historical fact that the architects of the Iraq War — the single biggest U.S. foreign policy blunder in my lifetime — and the authors of NAFTA and other free-trade pacts were, indeed, recognized experts in their fields.

But what makes anyone think the Middle East would be less bloody, or the Islamic State less of a terrorist threat, if U.S. policy had been run by people who had no expertise — who knew nothing about the region's history, religious schisms or ethnic divides?

Ignorance is not a virtue. Knowledge is not a vice. Pointy-heads who spend years gaining expertise in a given field may make mistakes, but the remedy is to replace them with pointy-heads who have different views — not with know-nothings who would try to navigate treacherous terrain on instinct alone.
http://www.providencejournal.com/opinion/20160817/eugene-robinson-in-defense-of-elites-and-media

Tarc

(10,476 posts)
15. There was excellent example of this in Wired once; "Randy in Boise"
Mon Dec 5, 2016, 09:55 AM
Dec 2016
But why should I contribute to an article? I'm no expert.

That's fine. The Wikipedia philosophy can be summed up thusly: "Experts are scum." For some reason people who spend 40 years learning everything they can about, say, the Peloponnesian War — and indeed, advancing the body of human knowledge — get all pissy when their contributions are edited away by Randy in Boise who heard somewhere that sword-wielding skeletons were involved. And they get downright irate when asked politely to engage in discourse with Randy until the sword-skeleton theory can be incorporated into the article without passing judgment.

source
 

LanternWaste

(37,748 posts)
8. What specifically leads you to believe the ideology behind Wiki and Trump's campaign run parallel?
Fri Dec 2, 2016, 01:10 PM
Dec 2016

What specifically leads you to believe the ideology behind Wiki and Trump's campaign run parallel if not together? Additionally, can you provide particular and relevant example of Wikipedia rejecting objective, peer-reviewed facts in favor of consensus?

Dalai_1

(1,301 posts)
13. Thank you for the reminder...
Mon Dec 5, 2016, 07:51 AM
Dec 2016

I use Wiki daily!Have given in the past and certainly will continue to do so!

Tarc

(10,476 posts)
14. Oh please, you're just dropping more money into Jimbo Wales' yacht fund
Mon Dec 5, 2016, 09:50 AM
Dec 2016

The Wikipedia is the longest-running con on the internet; what better business model is there than to attract a legion of unpaid volunteers to toil in pseudonymity while the WMF (Wikimedia Foundation) rakes in millions to pay themselves for basically watching you edit. As for the edits themselves, we're talking about an "encyclopedia" that has an article on Yoshinori Ohsumi (401 words), winner of 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine vs. Beyonce's Formation Tour (4743 words). The WIkipedia is largely a collection of ephemeral pop culture, not a serious encyclopedia project.

Please visit the Wikipediocracy

http://wikipediocracy.com/

a noted Wikipedia criticism blog and discussion forum to see that things are not as rosy as you think in Wiki-land, and why they are certainly not deserving of your money.

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