[WikiEN-l] One article, 12 volumes, and a snapshot of how news becomes history

[Charles Matthews]

  On 11/09/2010 15:07, geni wrote:
> It's an impressive example of churnalism.
>
> Original source is:
>
> http://booktwo.org/notebook/wikipedia-historiography/
>
> Talk can be found at:
> http://huffduffer.com/dConstruct/25256
> http://www.slideshare.net/stml/james-bridle-dconstruct-20
>
>
>
I've always thought that WP is not in the business of "writing history". 
I'd need convincing that [[Iraq War]] has made the transition from 
"current affairs" to "history": it's obvious why some people might be 
consigning the War to history just now, but that is far from saying that 
the article measures up to the criteria. (In fact if archival research 
is used as the determinant of what is history rather than journalism, 
it's clear that our sensible ban on the use of primary sources in most 
ways means it never will.)

It's an interesting general discussion, particularly because one of the 
general weaknesses still visible in enWP is that "bad history" often 
goes unchallenged for years. We should spend more time looking at what 
should be done about such areas, where our methods have less traction in 
improving quality.

Charles