wikipedia

Wikipedia is awesome because how else am I going to find out that Nicolas Cage is a Coppola (I know, whaaaat? and his cousin's include Roman & Sofia Coppola, and Jason Schwartzman?!??) or that Pimp C died in 2007 from Promethazine/Codeine syrup overdose combined with sleep apnea, or what a juggalo is? I guess (like most people probably) I just head on over to the wikipedia when I don't know what something is (and when I'm bored enough to look it up), and then I just end up hanging around there and clickin on junk until I realize I've wasted way too much time and it's getting pathetic, and I didn't even need to know that Insane Clown Posse has made FOUR films.
I don't know if Wikipedia is makin me smarter or dumber.

Anyway,I think both Lessig's chapter from Remix and Schiff's article, "Know it All" offer important insight into the argument over Wikipedia (whether its benefits outweigh its shortcomings), because both writers approach the topic from different angles, examining Wikipedia with different analytic goals in mind.
Lessig discusses Wikipedia as just a good example of one possible outcome of a shared economy which is free to access and everyone has the equal (economic) opportunity to edit/contribute to the source. He views it as a community, built on the principle that, in any exchange of services, money "reduces" activity, or in this case the level of interaction and the exchange of information. (this reduction of activity--based on the fact that money changes a relationship for the worse--is what Lessig perceives to be the negative aspect of a non-shared economy). So Wikipedia is good, because it's free. (and all the crap about tons of editors equals better information, etc) And Lessig has already made it clear he likes free culture (because of all the opportunities it opens up for society).
Schiff's interests differ from Lessig in that she isn't solely concerned with issues of creative freedom/shared economy/copyright difficulties/etc. She's also interested in the quality of information provided by (specifically) Wikipedia--as an example of peer sharing/contribution/editing. This is where the question of expertise comes up, and I guess the most direct question is: IS AN ARTICLE ON WIKIPEDIA AS "GOOD" AS THAT PROVIDED BY AN EXPERT?

And the answer is: it probably depends on what you're looking for.
Of course, Wikipedia is awesome for getting general information about any subject you need. Whatever, birth dates of presidents, types of wildlife in certain regions, the name of the last Gucci Mane album. And that's all great.
But that's just facts, and what about the other aspects of quality that we might expect from an article? (I really like that Schiff addresses the quality of the writing itself, (as an English student, I still care about that shit) which, kind of, y'know, sucks. She describes Wikipedia as a "lumpy work in progress. The entries can read as though they had been written by a seventh grader: clarity and concision are lacking; the facts may be sturdy, but the connective tissue is either anemic or absent; and citation is hit or miss.") Obviously that's not writing that we would expect from an expert (or at least an expert who is also a good writer, or at least an expert who has a good editor). But maybe that's not even important?
Maybe we don't care if stuff is well written as long as we have the facts and those are accurate (enough)? So maybe it's just fine how it is. We get information that's (mostly) pretty close to being correct, and we take it and do something with it (I mean it's not the researcher's job to analyze the info right? The reader's should be making judgments and drawing conclusions). But personally, if I'm reading something that's about any academic or literary topic, I prefer it to not read as if written by a seventh grader.

On a different note, that cute little Bilton piece introduces the idea of "controlled serendipity" which has something to do with "sharing out of curiosity" (and, I bet, the expectation that we will also gain something in return for sharing with others). That's cool, a decent attempt to explain something that has just become a part of everyone's life--sharing what we find interesting on the internet. I do agree that we do this in order to spread information (usually of the cultural variety rather than the scholarly), and that we are becoming hungrier for more/faster/newer information (or at least more/newer/faster youtube videos of cats taking care of baby squirrels). And I think this curiosity is a pretty good explanation for why we do this, but I also think it has just become a part of how we communicate; the internet (and what we discover there) has become a part of our cultural vocabulary, and it's just how we talk. becuz tha intrnet is th futur.

(also:


awesome. I hope somebody's seen this movie.)