Everywhere, But Not Notable
Earlier today Slashdot aggregated an article on Wikipedia entitled, "Wikipedia Is Failing," which actually points up one of the strengths of Wikipedia: That a weak and slightly whiny opinion piece (not even an article in any sense of the word) could be mounted there. There have always been gripes about Wikipedia, usually in comparison to print works like the Encyclopedia Britannica. This puzzles me, but it's a familiar puzzler. People sometimes bitch at me that Assembly Language Step-By-Step is flawed because it's too elementary and doesn't go far enough. Um...it was created to be elementary. It's precisely as elementary as I meant it to be. Not liking something (and especially not liking something because it isn't quite what you want it to be) is not useful criticism.
And Wikipedia is like nothing else on Earth. It's not an encyclopedia in the sense that Britannica is. Thank God for that. It fills an ancient need that wasn't possible to fill before the Internet: to provide a web of factual context embracing all human knowledge and all human experience. As others have said, Wikipedia isn't the endpoint for online research. It's only the beginning, but it gives you an overview and enough comprehension of the topic at hand to allow any reasonably sharp person to begin doing real research, both online and in print works. I have wanted it for many years, since before the Web was more than a curiosity, and in fact, the first time I saw the Web I knew it would happen eventually. (See my 1994 essay, "The All-Volunteer Virtual Encyclopedia of Absolutely Everything." What I described was more like Open Directory than Wikipedia, but that was a consequence of expensive disk storage. I did not anticipate terabyte hard disks in 1994.)
Most of Wilipedia's problems that people cite are amenable to simple fixes. Just requiring registration to post or edit would be a huge advance. Requiring several thumbs-down votes to delete an entry would also help, perhaps as part of a well-thought-out community feedback system. Right now, anybody can delete an entry unless it's been locked by one of Wikipedia's gods, and that's something that needs to be fixed. But Wikipedia's biggest problem is actually at a higher level than Web programming: the simple idea of "notability." If something is judged as "not notable," it's off into the bit bucket.
Here's an example: Years ago, a woman undergrad at Reed College posed for a set of stock photos to make a little money. Ten years later, those stock photos have been used in ads by so many different companies that poor Jennifer Chandra now has a nickname: The Everywhere Girl. The affair is a textbook argument against the use of stock photography in brand-intensive advertising, and something every newly-minted marketing flack needs to know about. (Is she the Dell Girl? Or the HP Girl? Or the Gateway Girl? Or...)
I didn't read about the Everywhere Girl on Wikipedia. People have tried writing the topic up, but one single person has repeatedly deleted the entry on the grounds that it is "not notable." It's impossible to tell if this person is simply clueless, or has an agenda. (Maybe he's an old boyfriend.) The issue is not about Jennifer Chandra. It's about the dangers of stock photography. When you are about to invest $100,000 in an ad campaign, that's real damned notable.
The Wall Street Journal had a piece on Wikipedia's notability obsession a month or two ago, and Wikipedia did not come off well. We're not just talking about garage bands or local recipes here. Elected officials have to be of a certain tenure and importance to be in Wikipedia. You don't automatically qualify by being elected to a city council or state legislature. WTF? Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force has his own page on Wikipedia, as does Carl, who isn't even one of the cult cartoon show's title cadre. I don't mind reading about Meatwad on Wikipedia. I actually don't mind reading about anything. If I don't look for it, I don't see it. If I do look for it, there's no reason for it not to be there.
"Notability" cannot be defined. Neutral point of view, sure. I learned about NPOV within a week of being hired on to my first job as a magazine editor; it's Journalism 101. But allowing any one person to judge the notability of any arbitrary topic is ridiculous. Worse, it's unnecessary. Wikipedia raised over a million dollars last year, and that will buy a lot of hosting. Text is very compact. I would accept a policy stating that "everybody gets 500 words" and allow editing of overlong entries to something below that length. (I would like to see at least three votes required to make that decision, however-and the ability to vote in favor of keeping an entry long.)
I don't look to Wikipedia for unbiased detailed writeups on controversial topics; generally, those topics are better covered elsewhere. I look to it for context, and to give other people context within essays I publish here in Contra. And when I say I want it to cover everything, I mean it. Why should Wikipedia strive to be merely an encyclopedia? It could someday become H. G. Wells' World Brain, which I might characterize as a Universal Context Engine. Wells didn't quibble about "notability." He said the World Brain would include "any book, any document." (My emphasis.) Personally, I won't settle for less.