What's wrong with WikipediaWikipedia. By the people, for the people. Unlike other such things that can be described in the same way, like communism and low power radio, Wikipedia is alive and thriving. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone outside of academia who hates Wikipedia, and who listens to them anyway?
But all is not well. Read about the example Wikipedia pages below and guess what I'm bitching about.
Minor Star Wars characters: A page on such famous figures as Nek Bwua'tu and Tal Hesz. 16 of my screen pages.
South America: A continent of planet Earth, home to 370 million people. 7 of my screen pages.
In any other encyclopaedia, the former subject would not exist and the latter would have a book dedicated to it. I like Star Wars, but I like the Incan civilisation too. Surely people are more interested in the Amazon rainforest than the manufacturer of Han Solo's granddaughter's droid. Let's take a look at another example.
Sony Playstation: For anyone over 30, the Playstation is a computer games console. 8 of my screen pages.
Warsaw Pact: For anyone under 30, the Warsaw Pact was the alliance of Soviet and Eastern European countries made famous by the Cold War. NATO's evil twin. 3 of my screen pages.
Can you see a theme here? Compare Cheetos and emphysema, or hentai and metal. Articles that would be of interest to the kinds of people who have traditionally used encyclopaedias (students, trivia buffs, bored housewives) are having less written about them than articles that would appeal to the Comic Book Store Guy from The Simpsons. Did I cherrypick the above examples to exaggerate my point? Absolutely! It's my blog and I'll stack the facts if I want to.
The effort put into Wikipedia tends to be slanted towards the interests of the good folk of the interweb. Does it matter? Bytes are cheap and there are obviously people out there willing to contribute their time, so let the baby have its bottle. Maybe Wikipedia isn't by the people, for the people, but rather by and for the subsection of people who will actually use it. If I thought that this blog would be read by suffocating wankers, I'd mention Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the message" statement.
Without doubt, Wikipedia's biggest travesty is not mentioning me on its silpheed page. And no, I've never played the game or known about it before I took this name.
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What? 10 comments for my last post and none for this one?
Note to self: less intelligent, investigative posts and more sniping dead celebrities.
i like wikipedia, because when you search something like 'batman's nipples', it tells you that the wikipedia page called 'batman's nipples' is only an '85% Match', and you're like... how can i match it any more?
that's just an example but
Not to mention those sanctimonious pricks who are the self-appointed gatekeepers of Wikipedia knowledge. You know, the ones who won't let you write a nonsense-filled post about yourself because of fucken Wikipedia by-law 206 3b#1 or something.
Star Wars fantasising dickheads.
I am either a british writer or the australian parliament house.
Apparently wikipedia is too cool for 3 letter combinations and disambiguates me. Sif thats even a word. nerds are really really bad at etymology.
The whole concept of Wikipedia is that is can be added to by everyone. So if you want to see more information about South America, the Warsaw Pact or anything at all, you shouldn't be complaining about Wikipedia as much as the non-contributing experts on this matter.
I'm sure that among the people writing pages on end about Star Wars trivia there must be a few with relevant knowledge of, let's say, more "boring stuff" than a film series.
It says a lot about what builds more status in the Internet community, facts or fiction, and fiction wins hands down.
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