[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia as culturally assumed

[David Goodman]

You apparently don't  think its important that the writers of a
contemporary computer game  know something about some particular
important philosopher, and expect at least some of the players to
appreciate the reference.

Other people may think it quite significant. Those interested in the
philosopher are generally interested in his further reception, and can
be expected to find it fascinating that he has made his way into that
part of our culture. Those interested in the games culture will be
interested to know what sort of figures are used as referents--whom
the authors assume they are writing for. I as an educator find it very
valuable  & heartening to know that at least in some superficial level
there is a continuation of the intellectual tradition. As I don't have
much direct familiarity with most computer games, I learn out most of
what I do know about that aspect of things from Wikipedia.

It's easy to denigrate the importance of the part of the world we're
not interested in. It's been decades since I've seen a televised
wrestling match, and I intend to never see one in the future, but if I
ever do want to know about them, they'll be in WP. I never expect to
be on the Kuala Lumpur Monorail, but I might want see a news or
fiction reference someday to something that happened there, and want
to know about the stations.

On 11/25/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> 3) Trivia that's only trivia for ignorant teeny boppers (there was a
> reference to this extremely well known painting in whatever episode of
> the simpsons, or there was a character named after this extremely well
> known 17th philosopher in whatever computer game).
>
> (Personally, I hate 3) the most. They make me grind my teeth.)
>
> Steve
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


-- 
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.