In good encyclopedic tradition, a reference to that quote in context, is
probably in order. Ziko, I suspect you got this quote from this 2010
chapter?
If I look at this post, he talks about progressivism in the context of
methodology and technology used, much more than where it comes to content.
It is very well possible to be progressive in the way you edit your
encyclopedia, or to hold progressive values, and at the same time be
conservative in the decisions what knowledge to incorporate and what to
leave out. But maybe I'm reading it wrong?
But I'll let others read Reagle's chapter, and draw their own conclusions -
it's an interesting read either way.
Lodewijk
On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 6:46 AM Yaroslav Blanter <ymbalt(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Ziko,
there is a long-standing problem of recentism. There are a lot of Wikipedia
articles which are only based on new sources (though reliable) and not on
serious academic literature. There are some which contain zero encyclopedic
information because they basically only retell the news stories. There are
twe whole classes of articles which are not even written in prose, such as
all COVID-19 article (with a couple of exceptions). I have just given up at
some point, I think we are beyond the point of no return. As soon as we are
working on really notable topics and their quality is improving and not
degrading I can live with this.
This is just one aspect of what you mention but I think an important one.
Best
Yaroslav
On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 3:36 PM Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Dear fellows,
Some time ago, Joseph Reagle wrote that an encyclopedia must be
progressive. In my personal view, something "progressive" sounds to me
intuitively more sympathetic than something "conservative". But of
course,
these are only two words loaden with meaning, and
reality is always more
complex.
It seems to me that many Wikipedians or Wikimedians think of themselves
as
being progressive and modern. Our wikis are a
tribute to science and
enlightenment. Spontaneity and a laissez-faire-attitude are held in high
regard; "productive chaos" and "anarchy" are typical for wikis.
When I had a closer look at our values and ideas, I got the impression
that
the opposite is true. Many attitudes and ideals
sound to me more like
bureaucracy and traditionalism:
* being thorough, with regard to content and writing about it
* community spirit
* treating everyone equally without regard of the person (the highest
ideal
of the Prussian civil servant)
* individual initiative
* reliability
What do you think? Is this just my personal or national background, or
has
Wikipedia been build up on a different basis than
we usually tell
ourselves
and others?
Kind regards
Ziko
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