[WikiEN-l] A sudden thought on the media coverage of flagged revisions

[Ian Woollard]

2009/8/26 David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>

> There is a perennial media narrative that unmediated content
> production cannot possibly work, as it goes against everything media
> people understand. They have run pretty much THE SAME story about
> Wikipedia every year since it was created.
>
> This narrative is so strong that no mere facts or objective reality
> can kill it. I expect to see it next year and the year after too, and
> the year after that.
>

That perennial media narrative is a "meme" you're fighting.

You need to come up and use a countermeme that will chase it down and kill
it- the meme has to spread faster than that idea, so that every time
somebody says that, some bright spark kills them dead with the mildly
amusing/apropro reply and do your work for you.

One counter meme I've seen (that you're probably all familiar with) is:

"That's the THEORY, that unmediated content CANNOT work, but the wikipedia
works only in PRACTICE, but not in theory!!!"

There's probably other, better memes you can use.

- d.
>
-- 
-Ian Woollard

"All the world's a stage... but you'll grow out of it eventually."