Apparently this one just got a mention on the Citizendium list. The person mentioning it sort of overreacted, saying it might signal a "student-led backlash" against WP, but at the very least it's refreshing to see some student journalism that isn't written by WP apologists.

I imagine it took a lot of guts to write that - something like WP is always going to be popular with students more than any other demographic, I suspect.

Are you referring to the Citizendium poster or the student journalist? As to the article itself, I have read at least three other rather similar articles in student newspapers, including one in The Indiana Daily Student at my alma mater. WP may remain popular with kids for trivia (and harassment), but I think the word is getting out that they shouldn't be using it for class.

The student journalist. The post from the CZ guy was basically just cheerleading - not that there's anything wrong with that...!


Interesting... But were they negative in tone towards WP, like this one is? Lately there's been a spate of articles like this one from Stanford, all citing the inexpicably-prominent Middlebury College story, and all saying "well, of course you'd never want to cite it in a paper, and even Jimbo Wales says it's a bad idea, but we still love Wikipedia anyway."

The similarity of many of these articles (and this isn't the first time I've noticed it) suggests that the student journalists involved are simply regurgitating Wikimedia Foundation press releases, which they presumably send out to college newspapers whenever something pops up that either casts them in a good light, or that they can supply a legitimate counter-argument for. The resulting stories are all original writing, but they're eerily similar in the subject matter and the general arguments being made.

I like to call it "Pod People Journalism," but the fact is, we shouldn't really complain - the regular media is mostly negative towards WP, so hopefully it all evens out in the end.

True. Student journalists also regurgitate reports from the mainstream press (this happens quite frequently). That's why, IMHO, I think it is inevitable the college press is getting, and will continue to be, more critical of WP.

Yes, I think this is one of the major changes that has occurred recently. Eighteen months ago, you had the occasional piece by Andrew Orlowski dissing Wikipedia and blogs in the context of a general anti-Web2.0 (that is, anti-"social interactivity is new and wonderful") point of view. The major media, on the other hand, was still in its "Wow, look at all of those articles. Wow, look at how cool social networking can be. Wow, who needs Encyclopedia Britannica these days?"

Eighteen months later, things are a lot different. Today Nature magazine probably wouldn't even accept the piece that they ran about Wikipedia vs. Britannica, at least not without some additional peer review. Jimmy still gets quoted a lot in the press, but for different reasons — now they quote him because what he says seems absurd on its face, not because he's a guru endorsed by Time magazine. Of course, Jimmy doesn't realize that anything has changed. (More than one pundit has noticed over the decades that if Time magazine decides you are cool, then it means you're on the way down, not on the way up.)

It's the nature of the case that people with a huge media presence, who are surrounded by fans with cameras and microphones, generally develop a distorted perception of reality. That's because their self-image gets distorted by an insular layer of an adoring public that ends up feeding and reinforcing their trip. The fall of the powerful is one of the oldest stories in history.

A non-notable person, on the other hand, is in a better position to evaluate objective reality. Such a person gets a better sampling of feedback — from friends as well as foes — because he's not surrounded by interested parties with a particular bias, or a particular need to ingratiate themselves to those who are more powerful.

The mass media will kill Wikipedia much faster than anything we can expect from the courts or Congress. It's already likely that if Bubble2.0 starts leaking, and the high-tech stocks start declining, Wikipedia will decline with it.

The smartest thing Wikipedia could do is delete half of the articles. Keep the scientific articles, keep the articles that personal computer users find useful, and just delete everything that is controversial, and everything that is fancruft, and everything that is silly or pornographic. But it will never happen.

I've moved this thread out of the Media forum, just to prevent "bumpage." It could get a lot more interesting as time goes on...

Yes, but anything can get controversial on Wikipedia. Who'd think that there would be a flaming row about whether Britain's Attorney General was Jewish, or whether a poet who had disappeared was just hiding from the Poet Laureate?

I agree with Daniel Brandt.

Wikipedia in its current incarnation is going to fail for lack of funding (at least, the Wikimedia Foundation is), but Wikipedia will be resurrected in some other form (with advertising) and a more restrictive ethos on who can change what.

I sense that Wikipedia is at a tipping point - it can ill afford another Essjay scandal and yet there's Gary Weiss/Mantanmoreland, Slimvirgin, Chip Berlet, Fred Bauder .... scandals in one form or another waiting to break.

In a sense, Wikipedia has already achieved critical mass (number of articles) but probably needs to slow down the number of new articles and think about a proper review procedure that actually makes sense.

But its not going to, because its disfunctional.

Though I'm one of the few "token" pro-Wikipedians around here, I actually regard it as a good, healthy thing that the media has gotten over its "uncritical admiration" phase regarding Wikipedia, and I believe the current "Threat or Menace?" phase is one that also will pass, leading to an eventual balanced approach where both the good and the bad of Wikipedia are commented on as appropriate. The press is most useful when it's neither a "fanboy" or an attack dog, but give credit and blame where due.

The World Wide Web itself has gone through a series of "mood swings" of the media's reaction to it, going approximately like:

1994: You probably haven't heard of this yet, but there's this neat "geek curiosity" around called the World Wide Web that you might want to check out, if you can manage to find access to it. It started as a way to exchange information about high-energy physics, but it's expanded into much more. Though it's still mostly used by academics and computer people, it's got some interesting potential.

1995: If you haven't gotten onto the World Wide Web yet, you're really missing out! This thing is amazing! It's got endless arrays of information about every conceivable thing, with more stuff being added to it every day, and now it's easily accessible to the general public, not just the geeks who used it last year. And the most fascinating thing about it is the way that things on the Web have what's called "hyperlinks", which go to other things on the Web... you can keep following them for hours and hours... really addictive! You'll never need to go to a library, or bookstore, or video arcade, again... it's made all other forms of information and entertainment obsolete!!!

1996: It's time to throw some cold water on all the irrational exuberance about how "fantastic" the Internet and the Web are. So it's got an "amazing quantity of information"... almost all of it is crap! And it's full of the most vile pornography, with nothing to stop your kids from accessing it. It's an irrational addiction that wastes the time and lives of lots of people who really ought to be doing something more useful. Because it lets any idiot publish stuff anonymously, it's a hornet's nest of libel, slander, and defamation, without any accountability at all. Fortunately, it's just a fad, which is bound to go away soon, or be legislated out of existence, and it'll be about time.

1997: I think we've all gotten past both the initial wave of exuberance about how fascinating it is to "surf" the Web, and the moral panic over how evil it allegedly was; both reactions were exaggerated, and it's clear that the Internet and the Web are a part of the mainstream infrastructure of the world, not a fad or a threat. Now, the thing we should all concentrate on is how the commercialization of this important part of the modern world is just barely getting started... if you act now, you can get in on the ground floor of it and really get rich!

1998: If you took my advice last year and got into the burgeoning market of Internet business, you're probably already rich, or well on the way to it. But even if you didn't, it's not too late... things are still only getting started, and there's a lot of wealth to be made!

1999: Some naysayers are starting to talk about an "Internet bubble", like it's all just a fad or something... I thought we'd gotten over that years ago, but the fact that there's been so much money made on "the Net" seems to be annoying to those who think there's something wrong with that sort of wealth. They're wrong; the Internet is here to stay, and you ain't seen nothing yet!

2000: Finally the "dot-bomb" crash has happened, as I always knew it would; from tulip bulbs in Holland to South Sea Island real estate, these irrational booms always have a bust ahead of them. The Internet is pretty dumb, actually... turn off your computer and get a life.

2001: Look... there really isn't anything special about the Internet; it's just another means of communication, like the telephone. It's not something to get emotional about one way or another. Anyway, the time of rapid change and innovation in the Internet and the Web is past; it'll just stay a boring but useful tool from now on.

(and then soon afterward, we got the whole "Web 2.0" hype, starting a new cycle.)

Hello, boys and girls. This is your old pal, Stinky Wizzleteats. This is a song about Jimmy Wales. No! This is a song about being happy! That's right! It's the Happy Happy Joy Joy song!

Happy Happy Joy Joy Happy Happy Joy Joy
Happy Happy Joy Joy Happy Happy Joy Joy
Happy Happy Joy Joy Happy Happy Joy Joy
Happy Happy Joy Joy Joy!
I don't think you're happy enough! That's right! I'll teach you to be happy! I'll teach SlimVirgin to suck eggs! Now, boys and girls, let's try it again!

Happy Happy Joy Joy Happy Happy Joy Joy
Happy Happy Joy Joy Happy Happy Joy Joy
Happy Happy Joy Joy Happy Happy Joy Joy
Happy Happy Joy Joy Joy!
If Essjay aint the grandaddy of all liars! The little critters of nature... They don't know that they're ugly! That's very funny, a fly marrying a bumblebee! I told you I'd ban you! But you didn't believe me! Why didn't you believe me?!

Happy Happy Joy Joy Happy Happy Joy Joy
Happy Happy Joy Joy Happy Happy Joy Joy
Happy Happy Joy Joy Happy Happy Joy Joy
Happy Happy Happy Happy
Happy Happy Happy Happy
Happy Happy Joy Joy Joy!

If you don't talk happy,
And you never have a dream,
Then you'll never have a dream come true!

Still, we shouldn't be too dismissive of Tobias's points here; the media is notoriously fickle at times, and does indeed have a tendency to change its tune on certain subjects. True, they're down on WP right now, but who knows? All it might take to get back in the media's good graces would be for them to do one really, really wonderful thing, something that everyone would immediately agree was supremely beneficial for the world, something that would make everyone full of happy happy joy joy! Such as, say... disappearing, for example.

Agreed. The media of today is too prone to fashion. This has always been a problem, and it probably is nearly as bad today as in the 19th Century, when "fair and balanced" was merely a slogan or a sales pitch. Granted all of this, I still find the pollyannish chatter on WP to be creepy, and eerily reminiscent of the happy-happy talk of any number of totalitarian regimes just before they were flushed down The Toilet of History.