Duality of Wikipedia

by ricknight | June 15, 2007 at 07:47 pm
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On one hand, it's indispensable; on the other, it's the ultimate resource on things that don't matter -

There was once an Englishman named John Locke, who had some interesting thoughts about political theory. There is also a character named John Locke on the TV show Lost.

Which one has the longer entry on Wikipedia?

To the surprise of nobody, it's not the enlightenment philosopher. This is what we call "wikigroaning": the art of highlighting Wikipedia's bias toward things that don't matter. It goes like this:

First, think up two similar topics, one being of genuine historical or social relevance, and the other being useless to everyone but a small coterie of fans. To cite the classic example, you might pick "Knights" and "Jedi Knights." Next, load up the respective Wikipedia pages of each pair, and notice their respective lengths. Hear yourself groan? There you go - you're wikigroaning!

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jordan
jordan
flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 15:56 on June 16th, 2007

Such is the nature of the wiki: it's at the mercy of its contributors-- if I write a substandard page on an obscure topic, then it'll stand until someone else who both knows more about it than I do and can be bothered to change my article decides to do so! And, naturally, more popular stuff gets more editorial lovin'. The John Locke example is great, by the way. I wonder if Terry O'Quinn knows he outranks one of the more influential political thinkers?

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