On 07/06/2014 14:42, MZMcBride wrote:
>The part of the piece I found most striking was
that the author
readily, and almost boastfully, admits to speaking to "a
minority of the
minority of the minority," but she seems to have no issue using this
very limited sample size to evaluate Wikipedia on the whole.
But she is about right, isn't she? I mean, there are millions and
millions of people who edit Wikipedia, about their garage band, e.g., or
about a company they were paid to edit for, or to write something
incompetent or plagiarised about history or philosophy, or whatever.
Some are remarkably good at it, many aren't. Most of these I suspect
would not call themselves 'Wikipedians'. Then there are those who are
regularly involved with the site, mostly as 'content contributors', but
who would also shudder to call themselves 'Wikipedians'. I would have
put myself in that category, when I used to edit. I care about the free
knowledge stuff, very much, actually, and I would always do my best to
ensure articles in my specialist field were reasonably accurate. Even
though I don't edit any more I still try and get stuff corrected
http://wikipediocracy.com/2014/02/23/islands-of-sanity. But I have
never seen myself as part of any 'community'.
Then there are the people who _would_ call themselves 'Wikipedians', but
wouldn't have the time or location or money to go to any of the
'community events'. Finally there are the hard core, who talk about the
'movement' and who proselytise for it and who do turn up to such events.
So it's a minority of a minority of a minority, yes. That's a rough
picture, obviously, but I don't think the journalist meant anything else.
, Ed