wikipedia

Wiki, wiki

Apparently, Wikipedia is rethinking the open edit situation. Now, they are looking to limit user edits...for good reason, too. An entry claiming that Senator Ted Kennedy died after President Obama's inauguration on the 20th sparked this flaming interest in changing the way things are done. For more, read about it on cnet news.

Also in the news...a new social bookmarking tool that is strictly for the world of academia. It's raising quite a stir because it limits who can join (joining requires a working university email address). I say, if you don't like it, don't join it. Viewing doesn't seem to be limited to members (i.e., I can use my email address to create an account, but Joe Schmo can see what I have bookmarked). I signed up to test it out, so I'll talk about it more later. Until then, read about it on the California Sate University, Northridge site.

Bunny Burnstein

PS - Sorry for my absence. I just recently started a new job, so things are a bit hectic. I will be blogging more regularly in the future. Thank you for your patience.

The Wikipedia Paradox (okay, a different one)

"Wikipedia does not publish original thought: all material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source." (I read that at Wikipedia.)

"Wikipedia's standards of inclusion--what's in and what's not--affect the work of journalists, who routinely read Wikipedia articles and then repeat the wikiclaims as 'background'..." I just read this here at Technology Review by Simson L. Garfinkel.

When the published source relies on Wikipedia content, the paradox arises.

If journalists continue to cite Wikipedia as a source, and Wikipedia links to those articles for reliability, then Wikipedia ultimately will use itself as a source, something its rules forbid: Catch-22.

How this hasn't happened yet, I don't know, but it should happen soon. But I do know that when it does, Wikipedia will vanish in a puff of logic. [1]

Eventually Wikipedia "verifiability" will be supported entirely by sources citing Wikipedia in one form or another, essentially citing itself as expert.

We can only hope that the resulting anti-net ("anti-Internet," think antimatter) black hole won't suck us all in. (But I guess if it's a black hole, it will.)

[1] What happens to God in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

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