[Foundation-l] "The problem with Wikipedia..."

[Ryan Lomonaco]

Forwarded per request.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Joseph Reagle <joseph.2008 at reagle.org>
Date: Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 6:45 PM
Subject: Fwd: Re: [Foundation-l] "The problem with Wikipedia..."
To: foundation-l-owner at lists.wikimedia.org

On Thursday, June 17, 2010, phoebe ayers wrote:
> Actually, the other way around, as others have stated.
>
> Now that you mention it, I've seen that quote attributed to Gareth
> Owen before, so that may actually be the origin of it. I think it's
> quite a bit older than 2006 though.

A wonderful question and one I've been interested in since I think such
aphorisms have an interesting normative power (e.g., some others include
[a]). Of course scholars, at least, like it so much because it shows that
the theory is incomplete and hence is grist for their mills, i.e., new
theory! :-)

I can't provide a provenance any more specific than already noted (i.e.,
appearing on Gareth Owen's user page) and I always found it ironically apt
that such a prominent statement about Wikipedia is attributed to an
anonymous. (If anyone knows Owen, please ask!) However, here's a bit of a
time-line, I think it certainly spread as a meme in wider circles thanks to
Cohen at the NYT.

20060120: Gareth Owen's user page [1].
20060321: Raul654's adds it to his laws [2].
20070423: Noam Cohen reference in NYT [3].
20070501: Quoted in Wikizine [4].
20070613: Sage Ross refers to it as old hat a few months later in response
to popular Britannica blog entry [5].
20080106: Cohen references it again [6].

[a]:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html
[1]:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Gareth_Owen&oldid=35978744
[2]:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Raul654/Raul%27s_laws&oldid=44834502
[3]: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/technology/23link.html
[4]: http://en.wikizine.org/2007/05/year-2007-week-18-number-69.html
[5]: http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2007/06/authority-of-a-new-kind/
[6]: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/books/06cohenintro.html