I want to use this wonderful forum and gripe a bit about something that has been bothering me for a while. As some of the core readers of SGM know, I regularly teach American history to college undergraduates. Because I am a firm believer in communication and critical thinking skills, my students have to write a number of short papers over the course of the term. Here recently, the kids have began to turn to Wikipedia as one of their top sources for background information or quotations (all of my paper topics are derived from a book, so the Internet is not their primary source base). Although I am trying to break them of this habit, most kids have come to see this as a reliable fountain of information. That, on a number of levels, is sad.
You see, Wikipedia is a digital pissing contest. It is nothing more than the opinion of who is the last person to view the page and press edit. It is about as reliable as a Commodore Vic-20, complete with casette drive. Don't believe me? Go to Wikipedia, click on ANY article, and then click history. The reversions that people do are astounding. The "revert wars" that go on would be funny if they weren't so sad.
The current example is the page for the new ECW. As we all know from "that other site," the core readership of SGM HATED last night's ECW debut show. You wouldn't know that from the wikipedia entry, though, as some guy with the handle JFred has edited out every opinion on the show that has been posted. This includes links to the feedback page on 1wrestling.com, a statement that "Paul Heyman himself did not like how the show turned out," and numerous remarks saying that "hardcore fans were disappointed." I'm almost afraid to put up what changes that I have done for fear that JFred will see this site and remove them. A number of his comments (yes, you can comment on the changes you make) say "revert, not needed" or "revert, that detail not needed."
Who the hell is JFred to tell us what is needed? That is why Wikipedia sucks. Wikipedia does not allow for "open-source knowledge," it lets anyone censor the opinion of anyone else as many times as they want. On a blog or on a message board, you post your thoughts and they stay up as long as you or the Admin (i.e. the Iron Fist of Justice) allows it. Generally, those authority figures are limited and have set guidelings. In Wikipedia, any user can change anything at anytime. This means that the discourse has no way of ever solidifying into something that can be known. There is no permanent information. Sure, you can argue that no information is ever permanent, but to change something in, say, the discipline of history you have to do research, publish your findings in either a peer-reviewed journal or manuscript, and then go through a few years of debate before something is commonly accepted. With Wikipedia, if JFred doesn't like you talking bad about Vince McMahon, your shit goes away right there. No debate, no discourse...poof its gone. Thousands of gatekeepers can not be good.
Right now, the ECW entry ends with the line "while completely panned by fans and critics, received a relatively strong 2.7 rating." I guarantee you that by the time you read this, the 2.7 rating will still be there, but the panned by fans line will be gone. Apparently, that is a "point of view." You can't have a point of view on wikipedia, you have to give them "just the facts." Now if that isn't the dumbest thing. Knowledge is interpretation. It isn't a bunch of dates and names thrown together, unless you are in an 8th Grade social studies class. Wikipedia is knowledge for Middle-schoolers and the technogeeks think it is the greatest invention since honey mustard came in a squeeze bottle. I never thought that when technogeeks used the internet for something other than porn, things could get this dangerously close to the edge of total disaster for the fundamental practices of mankind.
If people are on here controlling the knowledge regarding a pro-wrestling show, what are they doing to important things? If you go to the Christianity page, there is currently a pissing contest....er....debate over whether or not Christianity is a mono-theistic religion. That would be funny if it just wasn't so sad. We can't say that ECW sucks, but we can debate whether Christianity has more than one God. (Although it was kinda funny when someone said that followers of Jesus were called "home-g's," but I digress....) Well, the debate is limited to single lines inside of reverts and a few broader comments on the "Talk page."
This is just dangerous. Absolutely, positively dangerous.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Technology Ruins Your Mind
2 comments:
I almost forgot. Another way technology ruins your mind is when you make a newspaper interactive. This tragedy has befallen the Kingsport Times-News. Click on this link, for example, to see the level of discourse put out by a guy in response to a frivolous lawsuit. Note the "gotcha" by some guy claiming to be Ric Flair.
http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=3644289
Wikipedia isn't exactly infinitely editable, as some pages have been locked due to edit wars and some users have been permanently banned for vandalism. I'd imagine given what wrestling is you'll be more likely to see questionable editing by retards and attempts at moderating by self-important cunts like J-Fed with little interference by legitimate Wiki staffers on a wrestling entry than on, say, the page about the Battle of Waterloo. That's not to say that Wikipedia is a great source of knowledge in and of itself, but solid information on a Wikipedia page is going to be supported by sources and I think that's probably the most important point you should be imparting to your students: if a fact on Wikipedia isn't sourced, it probably isn't a fact.
I'll second you on the interactive newspaper point, though. The only not-cell-phone-related websites I can access at my desk at work are websites ending in .gov, .edu and USAToday.com. USA Today's website allows comments on the articles and if it involves politics, holy fuck Moses, dumbassery runs rampant from both sides. "Flair"'s comment about shopping for minors is pretty funny, though.
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