[Publib] 2.0: It cheapens us, it cheapens everyone

[K.G. Schneider]

On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:24:42 -0600, "David King"
<davidleeking at gmail.com> said:
> "I've opted to be vocal about the weaknesses I see in Wikipedia and
> similar
> online efforts, and to NOT participate"
> 
> Instead of being vocal about weaknesses and NOT participating, how about
> simply improving the source? We're librarians - we know our facts, and
> can
> verify them. Why aren't more librarians correcting and even IMPROVING the
> quality of, say, Wikipedia entries (if that's really a problem)?

In fairness to the posters, the point made is that the problem is
systemic. Even for a "good" post, it's hard to tell who's responsible.
If you believe that Wikipedia has a problem at a higher level than the
quality of its posts, then simply asking librarians to contribute
content falls a little short of the mark. 

My take is that if you agree that Wikipedia has a problem, the key is to
fix the problem -- not to ignore Wikipedia (that won't make it go away)
but also not to assume that contributing sweat equity to Wikipedia will
lead to systemic changes. Neither approach can do that (though
contributing to Wikipedia isn't a bad thing; I have put some effort into
one entry. As long as you don't get sucked into edit wars, it's a good
use of time). 

Some (including I) believe that Wikipedia could use a change in policy.
But the current setup does a good job of serving the shadow bureaucracy
that runs Wikipedia, so it isn't likely to change soon. I wrote about
that here:

http://www.cio.com/article/141650/Wikipedia_s_Awkward_Adolescence 

K.G. Schneider
kgs at freerangelibrarian.com