[WikiEN-l] Community vs Encyclopedia

Sat Jun 3 18:10:09 UTC 2006

Functionally speaking Wikipedia (as a website running a wiki and all of its
little rules and so forth) is a project to create an encyclopedia (a bunch
of text and images licensed under the GFDL). It is also a website where you
can view said encyclopedia as well.

When people say, "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia," what they mean is,
"Wikipedia, as a project, is primarily to develop an encyclopedia, and not a
group of links, and not a list of all information in the world, and not etc.
etc. etc." They are referring to the goals and the prioirities and drawing
up lines between what the goal of the project is and is not.

I don't think one can take the division between content and method as being
very rigid in this case. The content is unavoidably a direct result of our
method (and it shows, for better or worse), and that remains the case even
when you port it into another context (whether one takes this to mean in
terms of quality, style, appearance, conventions, or even just a statement
about the licensing scheme, it still follows).

This is part of the reason I am very wary when people try to draw very
strict boundaries. Sociologists call this "boundary-work" (we have an entry
on it, for the curious), and recognize that while such line-creating and
line-drawing usually is done in the interest of "method", it has obvious and
often conscious effect on things like "content" as well. (Usually this sort
of analysis is done on the struggles to delineate "science" and
"non-science", or "science" and "politics".)

Which is not to say that we can't have rules which enforce certain
distinctions, and is not to say that all forms of "community" are equal or
positive, but that we should be concerned more with the net effect than the
semantics of the rules, and be very conscious that much of what benefits
"community" will also benefit "the encyclopedia".

As an analog, there have been a number of studies which have convincingly
argued that regulatory frameworks work better when there is no pretense that
the line between "science" and "politics" is going to be murky in such
situations. In contexts where the distinction is perceived to be not only
rigid, but necessary, the entire process usually gets broken down over
pointless and endless debates and accusations. (Hence regulatory debates in
the EU are relatively smooth affairs in comparison with the US, whose system
is set up in a way which  encourages controversy rather than compromise).

FF

On 6/3/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/3/06, Joe Anderson <computerjoe.mailinglist at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > However, four different viewpoints of the Wikipedia have emerged
> recently:
> >
> >   - It is an encyclopedia with a community
> >   - It is a community with an encyclopedia
> >   - It is an encyclopedia
> >   - It is a community
>
> Interesting. The dichotomy I most often see, that people have trouble
> deciding on, is :
>
> - Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia
> - Wikipedia is a project to create an encyclopaedia
>
> It's probably more of a naming thing than anything else, but it does
> imply a point of view on whether the encyclopaedia has actually been
> created yet. Is the online version of Wikipedia an encyclopaedia, or
> is it a peek into a work in progress?
>
> Steve
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