Megacorporations

Sometimes the writing in Wikipedia just makes me smile:

“Megacorporation” is a term popularized by William Gibson derived from the combination of the prefix mega- with the word corporation.

Easy to criticize, but I don’t think I could do better.

In Popular Culture

For no reason whatsoever today the phrase “elephant graveyard” popped into my head, which of course meant I had to look up the Magic: The Gathering card of the same name because I couldn’t remember what it did1. Naturally the first place I look is Google, which leads me to Wikipedia, I kid you fucking not:

In popular culture

In the collectible card game Magic: the Gathering, an elephant graveyard is a land card.

Compare to yesterday’s XKCD. Can something be parody when it’s that close to reality?

1. Tap to add 1 colorless mana to your mana pool or regenerate an Elephant or Mammoth. (source)

Wikipedia Nofollows Links

Wikipedia Nofollows Links

Certainly it’s important to stop spam links, but if a site is genuinely the authoritative source on a matter it seems like it has earned and deserves its Google juice.

The Sausage Factory and the Sausage Fest

The Sausage Factory and the Sausage Fest

What happens when someone uploads explicit photos to Wikipedia that are relevant to the explicit topics being covered? (Warning: NSFW. Seriously. Explicit photos.)

Who Writes Wikipedia? (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)

Who Writes Wikipedia? (Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought)

Cite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikipedia adds a page about citations, with information on how to cite entries in different style guides. Click “cite this article” on the left of any page.

Schrödinger's Encyclopedia

Wikipedia’s been on the mind lately. As syncronicity would have it, Penny Arcade had something to say about it yesterday:

Any persistent idiot can obliterate your contributions. The fact of the matter is that all sources of information are not of equal value, and I don’t know how or when it became impolitic to suggest it. In opposition to the spirit of Wikipedia, I believe there is such a thing as expertise.

[…] the collaborative nature of the apparatus means that the right data tends to emerge, ultimately, even if there is turmoil temporarily as dichotomous viewpoints violently intersect. To which I reply: that does not inspire confidence. In fact, it makes the whole effort even more ridiculous. What you’ve proposed is a kind of quantum encyclopedia, where genuine data both exists and doesn’t exist depending on the precise moment I rely upon your discordant fucking mob for my information.

Fair enough. My feeling, though, is that I’m not looking to Wikipedia to be the authoritative source on which I base my entire dissertation. Usually I just want to look something up quickly, and Wikipedia’s a great source for it. The question is, what sources on the web can be seen as authoritative, credible, trustworthy? In my mind, there’s a hierarchy, and it goes like this:

1. The primary source. (Like a company’s own website, if you’re looking for their mailing address, for example.)
2. Sites published by reputable sources you already trust. (The Washington Post, The New York Times, BBC, CNN, maybe Encarta, sites written by a recognized expert in the field in question, assuming you’re sure that they’re actually written by that person, etc.)
3. Wikipedia
4. Websites dedicated to the subject matter in question.
5. Other websites, blogs.
6. Forum posts, blog comments.

The question of authority on the web is, how do you know you can trust something that’s on any given page? The answer of course boils down to how much you think you can trust the author. If the author works for a source you otherwise trust, you can probably trust the page. But more often than not you don’t know who wrote what you’re reading. Sometimes you’ll run across something you know to be factually incorrect, but can’t do anything about it because it’s not your website. Hence, Wikipedia. Sure, the articles may change, and there might be some petty vandalism going on, but those sorts of things are fixed pretty quickly, and generally I’d say it’s still the best source of on-the-spot information out there.

One thing I would like to see is more citation on Wikipedia pages. Every page should have a footer section containing bibliographic links where the information contained therein can also be found. Granted, as stated above, there’s no reason to believe that the other pages are any more trustworthy than Wikipedia, but it’s good to have the trace there anyway.