Wikipedia and Me

Superiority. Photo by LucasD2009.

I don’t understand the Wikipedia.

I know that it’s an encyclopaedia that anyone can edit and how to look up the codes, but that’s a bit like telling someone “The Queen can move as far as it likes in any direction, the Bishops can only move on diagonals…” and then saying they understand Chess. While I’m looking more at how the Wikipedia could be used, I’m still very cautious.

It seems odd that academics wouldn’t automatically accept an continuously updated encyclopaedia that anyone can access for free. One reason perhaps is how they’re introduced to the Wikipedia. A good student will use the Wikipedia as a start point for research and then move on to more detailed sources. When you get their essay it’s likely the Wikipedia won’t be referenced as it was only used as a stepping stone rather than in the end product. Therefore if a student is using the Wikipedia well, there’s very chance you won’t notice.

A lazier student might reference the Wikipedia directly without reading further. This isn’t a fault of the Wikipedia – it’s not meant to be the last word on topics – it’s the starting point. Personally I’ve had chunks of Wikipedia quoted at me in essays and these were in entries that weren’t rubbish but were very dated. Quite a few people will discover the Wikipedia when someone plagarises from it. There are lots of bad ways to find Wikipedia, and that’s not Wikipedia’s fault, but it takes a little while to get over the prejudice.

There’s the ‘anyone can edit’ problem which is also another barrier. There really is no reason why the Euripides entry might not be utter bilge when it’s accessed. But observational evidence suggests that on the whole the entries aren’t too shabby. The entry on Atlantis is an excellent example of how open editing doesn’t mean that madness abounds, or at least didn’t when I checked the page.

Another problem is the common rejoinder that if you don’t like an entry then you can correct it. I can see that it is a good thing, I really can. It is. But there are diplomatic ways of saying this and there are undiplomatic ways. Put the wrong way something which is supposed to trumpet the flexibility of the Wikipedia sounds like “…and I don’t care if you’re overworked. If you’re that bothered then clear up after us.” I think part of the problem is the difference between show and tell. You can tell me how impressive something is all you like. I’m going to be far more impressed if you can show me how useful it is. What a lot of people are shown are the problems. I think if you are serious about making the Wikipedia a serious research tool then you need to more publicly show how useful it can be.

That’s not how I came to that conclusion. I read something awful by someone pushing their wild and speculative fantasies and I thought: “It’s not going to go away. Why don’t I use it to push my own wild and speculative fantasies?”

The first major attempt is a re-write of the Archaeoastronomy entry. I’ve been meaning to write a longer “What is Archaeoastronomy?” reference piece for the “Archaeoastronomy?” link at the top. What I’ve also done is decided that if it’s ok – people are checking it and you’re welcome to add your own thoughts – then I’ll put it up as an entry. Hence the many wiki cross references in it.

The reason I haven’t just put it up and left it for someone else to revert if they don’t like it is that it is a radical re-write is the social aspect. The current article is the result of collaborative work and I think it is impolite to unilaterally wipe that out with my entry, even if there is a revert button. What I’ve done is put up a note with a link to the proposed article on the talk page. If there’s a lack of response then I’ll assume that no-one’s much bothered and put it up with one of those re-write notes.

The final aspect which takes getting used to is that once it’s up I have to accept it’s free for people to change. I’m sure there are many potential changes for the better and many for the worse. There are also some which might not affect the quality of the piece but express it in an odd way. These might be the hardest to accept. If I write something for myself then I have control over how it approaches a topic. There are factual segments in individual sentences but there’s also the overall direction of a piece.

The reason I would want to change the current entry is that it seems to be based in part on the idea that archaeoastronomy is about finding astronomical significance in ancient things. It was, but that’s a bit dated, it’s now a matter of asking questions about how society interacted with the sky which is half of the visible environment. If someone changes that back to “If you look Nabta Playa you can draw lines!” then it’s a step back to irrelevance. But I’m not going to be obsessive enough to patrol the entry to enforce my vision.

This is a very lazy route to world domination.

A more positive and upbeat reason to embrace the Wikipedia is provided at Ragesoss 2.02, which I’ve been meaning to comment on after seeing it in the History Carnival 28. In fact I probably wouldn’t have found it again if it hadn’t been listed in the carnival. This seems an opportune time to remind people to submit entries to the next History Carnival. —–