August 05, 2006 (2): Further Reflections on Wikipedia

The Wikimania conference, at least as being reported by CNET News.com, seems to be providing me with an abundance of material for reflection. In this case I would like to pick out one paragraph from the report on Jimmy Wales' address to the conference that touches on "competition" with Britannica and the recent Colbert dig:

"The problem is that the technology barrier to entry keeps out really smart people who are geeks but not computer geeks. And it doesn't keep out all the other idiots," he said.

This may be an indicator of why, at the end of the day, Wikipedia cannot seriously compete with an organization like Britannica. Both Britannica and its contributors recognize that "really smart people" are only part of the recipe for a successful reference resource. The other import part involves the "really smart editors." Having edited book reviews for Artificial Intelligence, I know that, even in the geekiest of settings, even the smartest of people need good editing. The Wikipedia philosophy seems to be that collaborative contribution can compensate for the lack of smart editing, and I just cannot buy into that philosophy.

My reason for this position is based on one of the simplest truths about any text: Any written text has two elements, the what-you-say part and the how-you-say-it part. (This is one of the things that makes the study of how narrative communicates so fascinating.) The best editors recognize these two elements and know enough to figure out which of the two (or both) need to be tuned before the contribution goes to press. I simply do not believe that the collaborative approach does a good job at keeping these two elements properly separated. Collaboration may remedy errors at the what-you-say level, because someone who knows more about the topic can use the mechanism to add his/her two cents worth. However, I suspect that content edited by the Britannica process will always trump Wikipedia content when it comes to how-you-say-it; and this is the element that is particularly important if a reader is trying to come up to speed on a new topic.

Perhaps (since he can probably afford to do so) Wales should volunteer some of his time as an intern among the editors working at Britannica to get a better feel for what makes an effective reference resource!