[Web4lib] Is Wikipedia Failing?

[Craig, Emory]

Alain, 

You have a good point and one that Goldman misses -- the "shouting newcomer." If Wikipedia continues to be successful, I think marketers and self-promoters will eventually become an issue (an ex. that comes to mind is MS efforts to hire a blogger to change articles) in the future. But for now, there is enough of a challenge dealing with those whose knowledge is inversely proportional to their desire to be heard. I can see how it would wear you down.

-e

Emory Craig
Director of Academic Computing
The College of New Rochelle
914-654-5536

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Alain D. M. G. Vaillancourt [mailto:ndgmtlcd at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 11:28 AM
To: Craig, Emory; web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: RE : RE: [Web4lib] Is Wikipedia Failing?


--- "Craig, Emory" <ecraig at cnr.edu> a écrit :

> will soon fold under the weight of marketers and self-promoters, that
> volunteer editors will eventually grow weary of maintaining its
> integrity:
> 

I've been editing in Wikipedia for a bit more than four years, at a
rather fast pace at first but at a much slower speed about two years
ago.

I grew weary maintaiing the integrity of articles I started or worked
on not at all because of the weight of marketers and self-promoters
(there are very few in the kind of out-of-the-way articles I cover like
the ones on antique furniture) or child vandals like the ones
constantly chipping away at the "Industrial evolution" article but
because of the constant renewal of newcomers who decide that they know
everything about a topic after reading three or four Web pages on it,
or seen two movies on it and then decide that their facts are better
than anyone else's and are willing to "shout them down" in a continuous
textual fashion, in any series of appeals to consensus-oriented
committees made up for the purpose.

I'd seen this phenomenon right from the start, in articles I didn't
care too much for. As the months and years went by I wondered how long
it would be before articles I did care for got this kind of "shouting
newcomer" attention and what I would feel about it. One day it happened
to one article, because it had been featured, and then to another
because a movie indirectly connected with it got some media attention. 
The shouting newcomers exhausted me very fast.  I don't like
controversy or arguments, that's why I've always avoided articles
surrounding hot topics like Israle or Armenia or Turkey.

So it's more than the marketers, the self promoters and the petty
vandals that are chipping away, constantly.

Alain Vaillancourt

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