Comments on: Wikipedia Wars http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/10/22/wikipedia-wars/ A graduate student in mathematics and a modern languages major take on politics and culture with the following aspirational motto: ‘Deregulate your mind.’ Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:13:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: shonk http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/10/22/wikipedia-wars/#comment-1556 shonk Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:43:19 +0000 http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/10/22/wikipedia-wars/#comment-1556 <p>I absolutely agree that it is inefficient, which is why I agree with Lynch that Wikipedia would be more useful if it served as a searchable database of links to other (and therefore more efficiently owned) pages.</p> I absolutely agree that it is inefficient, which is why I agree with Lynch that Wikipedia would be more useful if it served as a searchable database of links to other (and therefore more efficiently owned) pages.

]]> By: John T. Kennedy http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/10/22/wikipedia-wars/#comment-1552 John T. Kennedy Thu, 17 Nov 2005 08:31:11 +0000 http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/10/22/wikipedia-wars/#comment-1552 <p>And my point is the good pages strongly tend to be where private control dominates.</p> <p>The de facto ownership you ascribe to wiki articles is inefficient. Respect is not terribly effective protection on a wiki because it only takes one dope to trash a page. Writng on things which interest few is of limited value. Reverting edits made by dopes is inefficent.</p> And my point is the good pages strongly tend to be where private control dominates.

The de facto ownership you ascribe to wiki articles is inefficient. Respect is not terribly effective protection on a wiki because it only takes one dope to trash a page. Writng on things which interest few is of limited value. Reverting edits made by dopes is inefficent.

]]> By: shonk http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/10/22/wikipedia-wars/#comment-1550 shonk Wed, 16 Nov 2005 20:33:33 +0000 http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/10/22/wikipedia-wars/#comment-1550 <p>Sure, but the analogy I was trying to make is that the Internet itself, viewed as a whole, is sort of a commons. The analogy obviously isn't perfect, because nobody can really "own" an article on Wikipedia in the same way that I own this website, though there are lots of Wikipedia articles that are <em>de facto</em> owned by people, whether it be because someone did such a good job on the article that nobody makes any serious alterations, because other contributors respect them or because they devote the time and energy to reverting any and all edits back to their version. </p> <p>Anyway, my comment was a sort of toss-off, imperfect analogy (as I'd assumed everybody realized); the point I was making still stands: on both the Internet as a whole and on Wikipedia, there are lots of useless pages, but plenty of good ones if you know where to look.</p> Sure, but the analogy I was trying to make is that the Internet itself, viewed as a whole, is sort of a commons. The analogy obviously isn’t perfect, because nobody can really “own” an article on Wikipedia in the same way that I own this website, though there are lots of Wikipedia articles that are de facto owned by people, whether it be because someone did such a good job on the article that nobody makes any serious alterations, because other contributors respect them or because they devote the time and energy to reverting any and all edits back to their version.

Anyway, my comment was a sort of toss-off, imperfect analogy (as I’d assumed everybody realized); the point I was making still stands: on both the Internet as a whole and on Wikipedia, there are lots of useless pages, but plenty of good ones if you know where to look.

]]> By: John T. Kennedy http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/10/22/wikipedia-wars/#comment-1545 John T. Kennedy Wed, 16 Nov 2005 05:44:59 +0000 http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/10/22/wikipedia-wars/#comment-1545 <p>"The same could be said of the Internet as a whole, but, while there are plenty of places online where feces-splashing seems to be the primary objective, there are also plenty of quality websites that provide content you can’t find anywhere else."</p> <p>Sure, but a quality website is rarely a commons. There's usually considerably more private oversight of the main content then at wikipedia.</p> “The same could be said of the Internet as a whole, but, while there are plenty of places online where feces-splashing seems to be the primary objective, there are also plenty of quality websites that provide content you can’t find anywhere else.”

Sure, but a quality website is rarely a commons. There’s usually considerably more private oversight of the main content then at wikipedia.

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