[WikiEN-l] New York Times article

Sun Jun 18 00:38:08 UTC 2006

On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 20:36:07 -0400
"The Cunctator" <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jimmy Wales may argue that the NYT got the situation exactly
> backwards, but the reality is that this is a semantic game and in this
> case the contrarian position the NYT is arguing is, if not ultimately
> correct, an important one to have. Wikipedia benefits by having
> outsiders challenging Wikipedia to be and remain open and free.
> Institutions by their nature are conservative and self-protecting, and
> their commitment to their claimed ideals must face constant challenge
> for them to remain true to said ideals.
> 
> I would say that neither Wales for the NYT is really right-- I would
> argue that Wikipedia, as it grows in size and prominence, is evolving
> rapidly and in ways that no one person could possibly understand
> fully. That Wikipedia will always be straddling the uncomfortable
> divide between reliability and editability, just as it embodies
> conflicts between universality and topicality, brevity and
> completeness, accessibility and accuracy, etc. It is neither the
> golden perfect lovely machine that Wales seems so insistent on
> portraying nor the decadent failure its critics decry.*
> 
> I would be happier if we lived in a world where the New York Times was
> writing articles promoting the promise of Wikipedia and Jimmy Wales
> was its biggest critic, finding fault where others see none, but I
> don't get to choose the world I live in.
> 
> That said, I found it quite interesting how Larry Sanger is now lost
> from the official narrative of the creation of Wikipedia. History
> belongs to the victors, I suppose. Although I became one of his most
> active critics during his tenure, he does not deserve to become a
> footnote, or worse, forgotten.
> 
> --tc

{{signed}} ~~~~