Re:‘You Could Look It Up’: The World Before and Since Wikipedia
by dredmorbius on Monday February 22, 2016 @12:12AM
(#11148626)
I'm a strong believer in expertise, and there's an argument to both modes (Britannica and Wikipedia). The latter seems to have won the past decade.
Recruiting and vetting experts, and not falling into the trap of mindlessly accepting received wisdom, is tricky. So is false equivalence / false balance, and wisdom-of-crowds stuff.
Though ... some of the wisdom-of-crowds bits suggest that if you can harness the sensibilities of the many, you may end up with better results than of a single individual. I'm not entirely sold. Area of active investigation.
Recruiting and vetting experts, and not falling into the trap of mindlessly accepting received wisdom, is tricky. So is false equivalence / false balance, and wisdom-of-crowds stuff.
Though ... some of the wisdom-of-crowds bits suggest that if you can harness the sensibilities of the many, you may end up with better results than of a single individual. I'm not entirely sold. Area of active investigation.