I wasn't comparing. My interest is in Wikipedia. In any case, such comparisons do not make things inevitable and therefore unworthy of thought.
The very idea of Wikipedia, it seems to me, is to avoid the dominance of any one group or person. That it does such a good job of this is actually all the more reason to keep in mind that it is not perfect and why.
People where saying the exact same thing a decade ago when the world wide web was all the rage. That the "internet" would revolutionize human society, that direct democracy would become usable and that all forms of oppression and mass media control would magically disappear.. halleluja!
Well, it didn't and today the web is dominated by a few American giants like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and some others. Yes you can find alternative information on the net just like there was a lot of alternative papers that noone read before the internet too. But the overexposure of the mainstream (Beckhams sex life) makes it so noone but the few that actively look for alternative stuff will ever find it.
Then if Wikipedia really is different, then why does those list report many more Israelis killed than Palestinians when the real situation is the complete opposite?
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Eric B. Rakim a écrit:
I wasn't comparing. My interest is in Wikipedia. In any case, such comparisons do not make things inevitable and therefore unworthy of thought.
The very idea of Wikipedia, it seems to me, is to avoid the dominance of any one group or person. That it does such a good job of this is actually all the more reason to keep in mind that it is not perfect and why.
People where saying the exact same thing a decade ago when the world wide web was all the rage. That the "internet" would revolutionize human society, that direct democracy would become usable and that all forms of oppression and mass media control would magically disappear.. halleluja!
Well, it didn't and today the web is dominated by a few American giants like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and some others. Yes you can find alternative information on the net just like there was a lot of alternative papers that noone read before the internet too. But the overexposure of the mainstream (Beckhams sex life) makes it so noone but the few that actively look for alternative stuff will ever find it.
I first connected in 1994. Frankly, it did revolutionize my life from that year... thanks to a little client named talk... But a decade ago, Internet was just budding. We could see the dream but it was far away.
I got bored when commercial societies took it over.
I think it is on the verge of flowering *now*. Only 10 years is not so long. Consider how long television (which certainly changed people life entirely) took to really enter in most homes. Well, Internet was quite quick. Of course, it does not exist everywhere yet... and possibly never will. Just as TV is not in any home, but who would dare doubt its impact ? You look at projects such as wikipedia, you look at blogs, you look at rss feeds, classification, chat and such, and you may see the flower opening. It is just happening :-)
Then if Wikipedia really is different, then why does those list report many more Israelis killed than Palestinians when the real situation is the complete opposite?
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Eric B. Rakim wrote:
I wasn't comparing. My interest is in Wikipedia. In any case, such comparisons do not make things inevitable and therefore unworthy of thought.
The very idea of Wikipedia, it seems to me, is to avoid the dominance of any one group or person. That it does such a good job of this is actually all the more reason to keep in mind that it is not perfect and why.
People where saying the exact same thing a decade ago when the world wide web was all the rage. That the "internet" would revolutionize human society, that direct democracy would become usable and that all forms of oppression and mass media control would magically disappear.. halleluja!
Well, no, that's not what I said.
Christiaan