The Future of America & Wikipedia's Problem

[ethics]

And this guy (http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/18845104.html) (author really) nails it for me. It's not the facts, it's not the sources, it's the damn boring style!

The site is criticized for its superficiality, erroneousness, and amateurism, but, in fact, Wikipedia provides ready access to a fact, definition, or overview. No, the real problem with Wikipedia is a stylistic one. Read a dozen entries on the similar topics and they all sound the same. The outline is formulaic, the prose numbingly bland. Sentences unfold in tinny sequence. Perspectives arise in overcareful interplay. If a metaphor pops up, it’s a dead one. Consider the entry on Moby-Dick:
Ahab seeks one specific whale, Moby-Dick, a great white whale of tremendous size and ferocity. Comparatively few whaling ships know of Moby-Dick, and fewer yet have knowingly encountered the whale. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab’s boat and bit off Ahab’s leg. Ahab intends to exact revenge on the whale.

Compare that to a sentence from Collier’s Encyclopedia, first published in 1950:

“As he makes very clear to Starbuck, his first mate, Captain Ahab envisions in Moby-Dick the visible form of a malicious Fate which governs man thoughtlessly...” Or the description of Ahab in the 1953 Encyclopedia Americana: “a crazed captain whose one thought is the capture of a ferocious monster that had maimed him...” Or even this in CliffsNotes from 1966: “Ahab’s monomania is seen then in his determination to view the White Whale as the symbol of all the evil of the universe.”

[joseftu]

An excellent point. Thanks for that. The writing in wikipedia is just all over the place. When it's not erratic and weird (or sophomoric) it's dull. That's absolutely true. But it's the nature of writing by committee--there's never going to be flavor or style with that kind of authorship.

On the other side of the coin, however, there's the fact that other Web 2.0 tools, like blogs and even--dare I say it--forums like this one, make a far, far, wider range and far, far, greater number of individual styles and individual writers than we've ever seen before. He's certainly right about wikipedia, and he's certainly right about MySpace, but he's absolutely wrong that there's been any overall diminution of prose style.

Apples and oranges--he's taking the worst examples from the present and comparing them to the best examples from the past. Bad assignments produce wooden writing in school, and a long succession of bad assignments, bad teaching, and bad grading make them habitual. But there's nothing new about that.

[ethics]

Ah! Very well put, thanks for that. Makes me a bit more optimistic.

[Lovehound]

Sorry, I disagree. I've found mostly good articles and I've copyedited and contributed to some of the articles myself. I'd rate it "good" but "not authoritative."

[ethics]

As have I. But my contribution was mostly from changing some facts from anecdotal information. It's good for facts, basic overview, it's no where near of articles penned by the old Encyclopedia's.

[Swamp Fox]

There's going to be competition between a no-name brand like Wiki, and a name brand like Collier's. In fact, there's even going to be competition between encyclopaedias and blogs like "Joe's auto repair tips", where everyone who knows Joe the mechanic will trust what he has to say.

[mikepd]

Anything Wiki was banned as a reference source in my American Federal Government class as well it should have been. Not to mention Google and its derivatives.

As for Moby Dick, has anyone ever seen it mentioned in one of the sites (I'm fairly sure none of them mention it), read the book or viewed the story on TV about the whaling ship Essex, that was the base for the story.

http://www.maritimequest.com/daily_event_archive/2005/nov/20_essex.htm

[Arc]

As Joseftu says, the writing is all over the place with Wiki both in style and in quantity. In some cases the articles exceed "War and Peace."

As for "Moby Dick" I've always found the newer antibiotics very effective.

[cmhbob]

Not to mention Google and its derivatives.They wouldn't let you use a particular search engine? WTF? What others did they ban?

[ShinyTop]

As for "Moby Dick" I've always found the newer antibiotics very effective.

In my case it is not a disease, it is what she named it.:)

[Steve]

Banning the use of a search engine is simply moronic. Search engines are quite capable of returning authoritative sources on almost any given subject. It's not the search engines that are a problem but, I suspect, the tendency of the students to use one of the first 2 or 3 links that appear, without assessing the bona fides of the resultant sites.