Is Wikipedia Truly an Open Encyclopedia

September 1, 2006 · Comments

Dennis McDonald was working on an entry into Wikipedia for “Enterprise 2.0.” Things were going along well, until one day, it was gone. He asked about it, and an anonymous member of the community said they took it down. Read more HERE. It raises some very interesting questions about a supposedly “open” platform.

I haven’t worked directly with Wikipedia, so I have no say either way. But if there’s some mechanism that determines what goes into the platform, what are the criteria? I know they don’t want porn or slander or other silliness, but they also have lots of great information on comic book continuity. So who says something relevant or not?

For some reason, this really gets my goat.

Read the Article HERE, and weigh in.

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  • Fancy knowing that.I'm counting on you.
  • From the article:
    "this post refers to the Wikipedia article that was begun last week and mentioned by Andrew McAfee in his blog. It was a brief article that repeated a few of McAfee's ideas and began listing some relevant links."

    Well, that's the problem, people aren't supposed to put their original thoughts into Wikipedia. Yes there are people whose job it is to prune out stuff that doesn't fit Wikipedia's guidelines.

    Wikipedia is open in the same sense that the US is a democracy- that is to say within limits. Remember that a true democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for dinner. That's why we have senators and congressional reps. And why Wikipedia has editors.
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