Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Considering The Jimborg

Proposition 1: Wikipedia is ruined, as a reliable information source, by edit wars.
Proposition 2: Generally, edit wars happen when people care about the information.
Proposition 3: People care more about information with a high social, as opposed to factual, value.

Theorem: The value of Wikipedia as a reliable information source is strongly inversely correlated to the social value of the information sought.

1st Corollary: Smart-phone access to Wikipedia will be the death of pub quizzes.
2nd Corollary: Wikipedia, en masse, has a significant social value.

The Cynics View: It is often useful to know, not just the truth, but what the mass herd of human sheep believe. In countries where the Daily Mail is not available, Wikipedia has an role.

1 comment:

James Higham said...

That's very true. I edited a wiki entry on Obama to state that he was not elibible for President and that started a war.

 
HTTP Error 403: You are not authorised to access the file "\real_name_and_address.html" on this server.

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