[Web4lib] The Wikipedia Galactia

[Marion Sumerianlibrarian]

under what wikipedia heading would this entry appear?

--- "Alain D. M. G. Vaillancourt" <ndgmtlcd at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> Yes, the short head and long tail is an interesting
> way of putting it,
> but it's a bit more complicated.
> 
> For one, there is an overabundance of science and
> technical (computer
> programming mostly) in the short head, to the point
> that it overflows
> into the "torso".
> 
> Then, there's the fact that the long tail is not
> really a tail, since
> it is not true that one can write any article on any
> kind of obscure
> topic any time.  Even the obscure articles are
> patrolled for
> "notability".  It doesn't always work, but it means
> that there is
> actually no precise tail forming and it's hard to
> tell apart an
> "obscure" article on a nearly unknown 19th century
> author with
> absolutely no importance from an extremely scholarly
> one dealing with
> specialized topics in History or Artisan crafts.  Or
> it might be the
> other way around with insignificant crafts and ,
> since unlike a tail
> there's no precise end or beginning.
> 
> There certainly are Wikipedia "editors" who could be
> called zealots but
> you can't lump them all in one group of zealots. 
> Also there,s a
> question of zeal and Faith and there's also a
> question of Order and
> Beauty. For you they are etiquette-mad.  For other
> groups, such as Web
> comics artists who have had rotten experiences with
> the "bad editors"
> at Wikipedia those regulars are anal-retentive sorts
> who want to put
> everything on catalog cards and then find joy in
> sorting them.  They
> never use the words "frustrated librarians" to
> describe those "bad
> editor" cliques at Wikipedia but all the stereotypes
> are there.
> 
> You see zealots, possessed with Faith, and ignorant
> of Truth and they,
> (the foiled Web comics creators) see frustrated
> monomaniacs who are
> more interested in a petty ordering of their chosen
> limited knowledge
> than in reporting on Art and Beauty.  The bad guys
> deleted their Web
> comics articles you see, and when a few of them
> fought back using
> Wikipedia rules, the Order-mad "bad-editors"
> (cousins to the etiquette
> zealots most probably) started attacking (with the
> deletion process)
> many other articles surrounding Web comics, like the
> Oni Press article,
> in a show of petty vindictive actions.
> 
> Gentlemen (and ladies) we are not dealing with a
> mammal here, but with
> a giant amoeba, with no easily discernible head or
> tail and with a rich
> symbiotic mass of life within its body.  It's a
> social animal, but not
> the kind who's going to lick your fingers when you
> come home or go into
> the barn.
> 
> Alain Vaillancourt
> 
> --- Richard Wiggins <richard.wiggins at gmail.com> a
> écrit :
> 
> > And this is precisely what I worry about: the
> authenticity of
> > Wikipedia's
> > long tail.
> > 
> > I've already cited the particulars of my personal
> episode with
> > totally false
> > information on Wikipedia concerning the history of
> computing at
> > Michigan
> > State, so I won't relay the episode again here.  I
> will repeat that
> > Wikipedia zealots are more interested in Wikipedia
> etiquette than in
> > the
> > truth.
> > 
> > What that episode caused me to realize is this:
> > 
> > -- Since anyone can publish an article on any
> topic, the Wikipedia
> > corpus
> > will grow ad infinitum.  By contrast, a print
> encyclopedia has a
> > budget, and
> > articles on very obscure topics won't get
> published.  The Britannica
> > will
> > never offer a long tail of very obscure articles.
> > 
> > -- On Wikipedia the article on "Why is the sky
> blue?" will be
> > constantly
> > checked and corrected if a numbskull edits it to
> say "Because Crayola
> > says
> > so."   So the short head will be relatively
> reliable.
> > 
> > -- An article on an obscure topic won't be
> checked, and will live to
> > be
> > cited as authority someday when finally someone
> stumbles on it.
> > 
> > -- Therefore, where Wikipedia fails is in the long
> tail.  And it will
> > have
> > an ever-growing, ever-longer tail of falsehood.
> > 
> > /rich
> 
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> En finir avec le spam? Yahoo! Courriel vous offre la
> meilleure protection possible contre les messages
> non nollicités 
> http://mail.yahoo.ca Yahoo! Courriel  
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
> 



 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Need a quick answer? Get one in minutes from people who know.
Ask your question on www.Answers.yahoo.com