Stacy Schiff posted another good column yesterday, this time touching on the LA Times "Wikitorial" experiment, among other things (The Interactive Truth - New York Times). Her criticism of Wikipedia has, predictably, touched a nerve with fans.
Techdirt says (in Wikis And Reporters: Like Oil And Water)
Specifically, she's responding to the LA Times idea of making editorials into a wiki -- which we agree is a bad idea all around, but for very different reasons. Ernest Miller does a good job picking apart most of Schiff's reasons (including the brain surgery mis-analogy), but the biggest issue is that Schiff doesn't seem to grasp the fact that editorials are opinions -- not facts. The whole basis of her column is that these wikitorials will let people play fast and loose with the facts. Except, of course, editorials aren't about facts, so it's hard to see how that argument applies at all.
Editorials aren't about facts. True, but they're not plain, unfiltered opinion either. Some opinions are worth more than others. We have certain social constructs for judging the authority of documents. When I read an editorial published in a newspaper I know that it has been written by an experienced commentator and reviewed by the paper's editorial staff, whose judgment I've grown to respect by past experience. That's not to say they are correct in what they write, or that I am correct to use such criteria in valuing one commentator over another, but that's what we do. We all filter information somehow.
More from Techdirt:
She also uses the oh-so-popular single-source anonymous anecdotal story to support her position that kids believe everything they read on Wikipedia, despite the disclaimer. So, where's the disclaimer on Schiff's piece saying that she might have misunderstood the point of wikis? Or that her asking a single random un-named teen might not really be representative of how people feel? How can we fix her mistakes? What if people read her piece and believe it's accurate?
It's a little unfair to criticize a brief op-ed column for citing only one source and not naming him. Would you be happy if she cited two? a hundred? She's clearly just citing an illustrative example to raise the question, rather than claiming she's sampled the population and is presenting the summary view. That's how an anecdote works.
The "disclaimer" on Schiff's piece is at the top of the page -- it's an opinion column. You can't "fix her mistakes" but you can interpret and comment on her opinion (as blogs do). It's silly to think of "fixing mistakes" in editorials, which is why Wikitorials make no sense.
On to Ernest Miller's rebuttal of Schiff. Here's some of what he wrote (Corante: Fact or Fiction, Wikipedia or books?)
Oh, and let's make ridiculous comparisons between interactive editorials and structural engineering and brain surgery. You know, because editorial pages are so closely related to the processes by which we progress in structural engineering and brain surgery.
I don't particularly care to read amateur editorials, just like I don't want to undergo amateur brain surgery. Sure the analogy is a little extreme, but it makes sense to me. Just because anyone can bang on a keyboard doesn't mean we can all write editorials or encyclopedias.
On books vs. Wikipedia:
At least Wikipedia is honest. Are there any such guarantees in books? Do I get my money back if a book has a factual error? Judging from the errata sheets and books that take each other to task, I would say "no." Isn't "It's all true, mostly" a pretty similar standard to the one we hold for books?
In order to get published, every book goes through some degree of proofreading and review. It may not be enough, and errors happen. Even self-published books or articles require an enormous investment of thought and energy, which helps filter out poor quality material. Not so with instant posts to a wiki page.
Should we expect books to be perfect? Of course not. Any intelligent person should read with a critical eye and be perceptive to interpretations and biases. Reading isn't just inhaling facts.
I sometimes wonder what these people would have to say if the new technology for information creation and distribution arriving had been "books."
Unlike Wikipedia, books are written by a single author who is likely blind to their own personal bias and limited knowledge. Unlike Wikipedia, books aren't subject to peer review and revision by others. In fact, books aren't easily revised. Once an error makes it into a book you can fix future editions (not easily, but you can), but you can't fix the books that have already been printed. Consequently, unlike Wikipedia, books enthrone error. Once printed that error can sit waiting to ensnare an unwitting reader years, even decades, down the road.
This is nonsense. It's a rare book (and a foolish author) that doesn't get reviewed by at least a few people before it's published. People react to books by publishing reviews, commentary, and more books and articles, and that's how the dialogue progresses. The wiki model radically compresses this process and results in a big mess. With a constantly changing document, how do I know when it's authoritative enough to use it? Should I keep coming back tomorrow? People often tout the value of wiki "history" pages, but, unlike the published dialogue in academic fields, these don't show you any meaningful development of ideas over time; it's just the history of a document being pasted together from other more serious sources.
Furthermore, books certainly cannot keep up with rapidly changing fields of endeavor. At best, the very best, they're months out of date when published.
This is why scholars and serious students read periodicals, go to conferences, and share information with colleagues. People in even the most rapidly changing fields understand the value of writing books to capture the state of the art and synthesize ideas. If all you've got is a mess of constantly changing fragments, it's hard to grasp the material at higher levels of abstraction. When I'm trying to understand a new subject I'll take a classic monograph written by an authority in the field over a bunch of web pages any day.
You know, if someone was given the tabula rasa choice between Wikipedia and books to get facts, I'm not so sure books would win.
Facts, facts, facts! If I may get slightly literary: these guys sound like the ridiculous schoolmaster Gradgrind from Dickens's Hard Times. As many wise people have said, learning is about more than collecting facts.
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