[WikiEN-l] The Charms of Wikipedia - New York Review of Books

[Steve Summit]

Tony Sidaway wrote:
> On 29/02/2008, Keith Old <keithold at 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.