[WikiEN-l] All information?

Thu Sep 15 15:05:24 UTC 2005

On 9/15/05, Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 15/09/05, dpbsmith at verizon.net <dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:
> 
> > I thought that there was consensus that Wikipedia a) is an encyclopedia, and
> > b) is not "an indiscriminate collection of information."
> 
> I must say, I'm sure I've read: "Imagine a world where every single
> person is given free access to the sum of human knowledge. We don't
> have to imagine it. We're doing it" attributed to Jimbo, and I have
> never squared that with "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection
> of information."
> 
> Personally, I don't mind indiscriminate information - that's what the
> whole world wide web is. Search engines like Google have made it their
> mission to make it usable, and I don't see why Wikipedia need be any
> different in our little web-within-the-web. (Tagging - which is what
> our categorisation could be seen as - seems to be the other approach,
> but as far as I can tell that's more hype than useful).

I do mind indiscriminate information.  I mind it very much.  However,
I find a large gap between "information" and "knowledge", so I don't
find the statements at all incongruent.  Just as there's a difference
between raw data and information, I see a similar gap between
information and knowledge, although strict dictionary definitions
don't show them quite as distinct.  My personal view is that data is
raw, information is data organized to become useful, and knowledge
implies an understanding of the information.

I do think that the mission of giving "free access to sum of human
knowledge" absolutely demands that we address far more topics than any
conventional encyclopedia has ever considered, even including a
proportional number of "silly" topics.

-- 
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused