| | Here is another interesting facet to Wikipedia: It is rapidly becoming the most popular source of content for other writers - that is, many different publications, online and print, start (and often end) with a copy-paste operation from a Wikipedia article.
Some do a lot of editing (but for many you can still see Wikipedia's foot-prints). Some use it just to get started and then work from origonal source materials (those might not show any foot-print). Some attribute rather than plagerize (and every now and then a Wikipedia article itself is guilty of plagerizing).
These are some examples I found. I just Googled on "Property is theft" and looked at some of what came back - till boredom set in.
- Here is a page at TimesDaily that is a direct, and attributed, copy of the Wikipedia "Property is Theft" article. Note that on this one, the criticism section with the stolen concept information is there, others copied at a time when it the criticism section was deleted. I have no idea what TimesDaily is.
- And BookRags, who attributes the copy to Wikipedia,
- And SMSO, an anarchy site that did not attribute the copy,
- And Answers.com which uses an attributed version with the stolen concept criticism,
And there were blogs and comments that just have a link to the Wikipedia article as part of their comments on property. And this was just what I found on my very short search for an article of very limited scope (as opposed to a search on "Anarchism," for example.)
In software design, one of the key principles is to ensure the system you design has a single source for all data and any variables - like in a database (we called it the "authoritative" source for that item). Whatever is used internally by programs, or displayed, or is to be edited or distributed, should have a single, authoritative source. This prevents lots of problems that would otherwise occur. It appears that Wikipedia is naturally evolving towards being a single source - and on a global scale.
The good that come from this kind of increase in the scope and velocity of knowledge distribution is mind boogling! It could be a way for a developing nations to educate a single, new generation to a level that might otherwise have taken many, many generations - since it requires very little in infrastructure or existing, local knowledge-holders (the traditional way of passing on to the next generation).
It is also scary, since the spread of harmful beliefs is also accelerated.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is an old saying that if a million monkeys typed on a million keyboards for a million years, eventually all the
works of Shakespeare would be produced. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.
Anonymous
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The grand achievement of the present age is the diffusion of superficial knowledge.
John Stuart Mill
(Wow, if he could see how electronic media and the internet have amplified that in our age!)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
ikipedia
