Or Why This Is the Way It Has to Be

Bits blog on the NY Times discusses flagged revisions on Wikipedia in this post. You know that there are going to be the wailers and gnasher’s of teeth that this is the end of Wikipedia. How could it possibly continue if we require anonymous users to undergo peer review? Well, here’s the problem… we’ve been through this all before. When the Net first became useful, it was pretty much an open system — there were actually anonymous ftp sites that allowed you to upload files without any kind of authentication at all. And all of that stopped when the unwashed masses showed up and started parking their pirated porn or movies or whatever on people’s servers.

Wikipedia is the same way. Open, anonymous editing worked as long as everybody showed restraint and maturity. And if you’ve met a significant number of people in your life you know that’s not likely when you gather together more than 25 people. Here’s the thing – Wikipedia is the de facto standard for encyclopedic information on the web. So much so that Brittanica has announced that it will allow regular human beings to submit articles. It’s the de facto standard because it is timely and for the most part accurate. Timeliness without accuracy does me no good at all. If I can’t trust the information that I find on Wikipedia, I’ll look someplace else. There are plenty of places on the Net already where I can get useless bullshit disguised as fact. If it takes a week to get valid information posted that’s something I can live with. Don’t listen to the anarchists, Jimmy.

Of course the easiest way to continue to get up to the second articles (as well as having your entries appear immediately) is to become a registered user. It’s not painful… I’ve been one for years.

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