Who Writes Wikipedia - But Where Do You Go For This Data? European Web 2.0 Again; Chuquet
Posted on September 4, 2006
Filed Under For Argument's Sake, European Web 2.0 |
Browsing one of my favourite sites I came across this debate. Who really writes Wikipedia?
Why is the argument important? We want to know if web knowledge is constructed and purveyed by the elite or the masses.
According to Aaron Swartz, Jim Wales, Wikipedia founder and guru, says all the big work rests with a small group - 500 people.
“Wales presents these claims as comforting,” says Swartz. “Don’t worry, he tells the world, Wikipedia isn’t as shocking as you think. In fact, it’s just like any other project: a small group of colleagues working together toward a common goal. But if you think about it, Wales’s view of things is actually much more shocking: around a thousand people wrote the world’s largest encyclopedia in four years for free? Could this really be true?”
Swartz undertook his own study and found that although a group of around 500 marshall the categories and formal infrastructure the work is indeed done by the minnions - many thousands of them adding a line here and a line there.
Still - why is that important?
Because I wonder did Aaron ask the right question even though he began the right debate.
When I’ve done work on Wikipedia I’ve found my stuff deleted almost before I could save it - like there are culture vultures overlooking Wikidpedia waiting to kill anything that doesn’t fit the norm, as seen by an anonymous army of correctional knowledge workers. That’s my worry. That’s a bigger worry than the enemy you know.
And in Aaron’s debate you’ll find similar experiences. See cafecafe’s contribution on this Reddit page.
I came across the debate at Chuquet a European service that tracks web buzz.
technorati tags: wikipedia, aaronsw, content, democratic, channels
Comments
2 Responses to “Who Writes Wikipedia - But Where Do You Go For This Data? European Web 2.0 Again; Chuquet”
Leave a Reply
I plan to write more about this aspect of things tomorrow.
[…] media angler has it’s own worries and comments: Swartz undertook his own study and found that although a group of around 500 marshall the categories and formal infrastructure the work is indeed done by the minnions - many thousands of them adding a line here and a line there. […]