Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 29/02/2008, Keith Old keithold@gmail.com wrote:
The New York Review of Books has written a review of Wikipedia:The Missing Manual which is well worth a read. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21131
That's both one of the best external reviews of Wikipedia I've seen,
Indeed. Among other things, we could all do well to remember this bit:
[Wikipedia is popular] because it has 2.2 million articles, and because it's very often the first hit in a Google search, and because it just feels good to find something there -- even, or especially, when the article you find is maybe a little clumsily written. Any inelegance, or typo, or relic of vandalism reminds you that this gigantic encyclopedia isn't a commercial product. There are no banners for E*Trade or Classmates.com, no side sprinklings of AdSense.
"It just feels good to find something there." Let's not lose sight of that amongst our urges to make the thing unilaterally "encyclopedic" or "polished" or "professional".
and a very passionate, stirring call-to-arms for inclusionism.
Hallelujah.