Erik Moeller wrote:
On 7/20/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian(a)djini.de>
wrote:
One hypothesis:
Allowing too much "fancruft" in Wikipedia creates an imbalance in the community
structure. There is a really large pool of 15 year old, computer savy kids (some
may be older) who get easily attracted to writing wikipedia articles about f.e.
star trek compared to a very small pool of for example experts on let's say
homer.
What? We have lots of Simpsons articles! ;-)
Homer Simpson as a modern Ulysses would make an interesting essay topic.
An alternative hypothesis: The kind of editors who
would avoid
Wikipedia because it accepts the work of 15-year-old Star Trek fans
might also be likely to run into social problems when arguing about
the influence of the Iliad on modern storytelling -- because, in their
character and their social interaction, they are simply not used to
notions like the search for consensus, or collaboration in WikiLove.
Many of these skills are learned through participation. Traditionally,
school systems have told children what to think and how to believe.
They learned that God was in His heaven watching what they did ready to
throw thunderbolts at bad children. Good and bad were determined by the
priests who had a direct phone line to Thor. As society became more
secular citizenship and patriotism became the new values. When you told
a child to think it was assumed that he would do so on a sound
foundation of those values that the society had previously inculcated in
him. All this prepared him to be a contributing adult member of the
society.
What some of us would now do cost Socrates his life. We want our
hypothetical 15-year-old to explore and ask questions. We want him to
challenge the theologies that underlay our social structure. If The
Simpsons, or Pokémon, or Star Trek are better suited to his explorations
than the prevailing Christian, Islamic or Hindu fairy tales that's just
fine with me. Indeed posing the questions in such fictional contexts is
safer than a direct approach to the prevailing superstitions. Great
messages have often been shrouded in fictional drapery.
If our 15-year-olds can freely develop their ideas around topics that
are important to them at this stage of life, they will certainly apply
those skills at a later stage in life to topics which some of us would
call "more important".
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia _built_ by a community,
and the
encyclopedia can only be successful if the social interactions of the
community are healthy. Therefore, expertise cannot be an excuse for
aggressive or dismissive behavior. If there is a group of
knowledgeable people who cannot exist in the social environment of
Wikipedia, then we should provide other means for them to contribute
than being a full member of the community -- rather than trying to
restructure our content and, by extension, our community to allow them
to fit in.
I personally find it amazing and wonderful that so many teenagers wish
to contribute to a work of knowledge. That many of them do so in areas
of popular culture is hardly surprising, and the environment of
Wikipedia is well suited to gradually expose them to new ideas and
knowledge.
Exactly, and to accomplish this we must begin by impressing on them that
what they believe matters.
Ec