Feminist SF Wiki talk:Wikipedia

issues with wikipedia: the branding of wikipedia is perhaps a valid complaint with wikipedia, but it isn't what drove me (as an individual) to create fsfwiki. ... it seems more like a generic critique of wikipedia. ... however, is it what drives some people to contribute to fsfwiki instead of wikipedia? LQ 11:59, 6 June 2006 (PDT)

The branding is part of what has distorted Wikipedia's implementation away from scholarship and towards unsupported trivia and pop culture blogging (which as an online activity seems to attract much more traffic). spidermite 12:42, 6 June 2006 (PDT)

That's interesting - I had assumed that inclusion of significant amounts of pop culture material was a result of popular interest in those topics. Can you give an example of what you mean? LQ

Basically, without some kind of moderation, the more popular a wiki topic is, the more likely its entry will be unreliable. It's not the popular interest, it's the well-described popular interest in undocumented codswallop, like unsupported gossip (especially unhelpful when inserted as fact into entries about widely known dead people... on the other hand, supported gossip is ok, even thrilling if put in context), or pseudo-science presented as science (a documented entry on a pseudo-science will always be helpful, but misleading readers without scholarly peer review is another tale). Politics is the extreme example because its mostly codswallop to begin with :)

A specialized wiki like this would likely not have such severe issues, unless it was replete, for example, with people who truly believed as a matter of faith that a Star Trekian warp drive enabling faster-than-light travel were possible and already supported by "alternate" but "valid" science, when in truth there's no evidence so far that such a drive could ever be built on any macro scale, never mind how frickin' handy it is as a plot device. It's like, the slippery slope: Asserting open-mindedness about possibilities or the freedom to imagine without limits is one thing, that's what SF is all about, but asserting that a given notion may be assumed as potential reality is way dodgy. Some can be, some truly can't (helpful/meed/necessary as they may be as metaphors or spurs to thought and exploration). For starters, there are ranges of liklihood to consider (which brings up the difference between "hard" science fiction and SciFi/Fantasy).

I mean, an encyclopedia, as a reference, has among its responsibilities the task of helping its readers learn about stuff so they can avoid making uninformed (dumb) choices. Lastly, popularity almost never correlates with replicable, refutable, documented observation, never mind there are likely some docking big patriarchal holes in our present scientific understanding. Nevertheless, our way to empowerment can only be found with the help of science, as it has so far in so many ways, rather than through muddle-headed notions which may prevail in popularity polls. spidermite 15:12, 6 June 2006 (PDT)

Well, I totally agree that pseudo-science in wikipedia is a problem, but I'm not convinced that it's a problem that can't be solved by the current wiki processes, as they exist, or tweaked in an ongoing basis to remedy failures. You've probably got a lot more experience than I have with wikipedia, though. But -- I think I still have a problem with this critique which is that it is not specifically a feminist critique; it's a very general critique that could be applied by any truth-seeker. And, frankly, it wasn't *my* motivation in putting together the FSFwiki, so the FSFwiki isn't geared in any way toward addressing a problem of "scholarship" or authenticity. I don't mean to say that only the reasons that I, Laura Quilter, had for establishing the wiki are valid for inclusion on this page; far from it. Reasons why you & other people participate in the FSFwiki are completely valid -- it ought to (I think) be a statement for the FSFwiki community to make. But, if the critique is that wikipedia is not sufficiently moderated to create scholarship (or some variant thereof), it's a little misleading to list it as a reason we are working on FSFwiki -- because in fact we're not doing anything different with FSFwiki. Are we?

It might be that this critique could be reframed as part of the neutral POV, and the feminist POV. Because in fact pseudoscientific ideas are based on objectively WRONG beliefs, and racism, sexism, etc. are likewise based on objectively WRONG beliefs -- notwithstanding the fact that there are feminist horoscopists and feminist racists and feminists with internalized misogyny. (And New Age feminists, please, I know this is offensive ... feel free to make a wiki page to discuss feminism & horoscopy or crystals or divination or whatever other arcane things that I would completely think are bogus.) So wikipedia to the extent that it has a "neutral POV" may fall prey to the same failings that mainstream media does when it presents "both sides" of evolution and young earth creationism. To the extent we can articulate a feminist POV on an issue, then that should always be the lens ... because as feminists we are Objectively Correct. LQ 09:04, 17 June 2006 (PDT)

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I liked this quote from NYT 2006/6/17 article on wikipedia:

Zephyr Teachout, a lawyer in Burlington, Vt., who is involved with Congresspedia, said Wikipedia was reminiscent of old-fashioned civic groups like the Grange, whose members took individual responsibility for the organization's livelihood.

"It blows open what's possible," said Ms. Teachout. "What I hope is that these kinds of things lead to thousands of other experiments like this encyclopedia, which we never imagined could be produced in this way."

LQ 09:05, 17 June 2006 (PDT)