Yearly Archives: 2005

wanting to like books we like

By now, y’all know that i have a book fetish. Just a small one. [Wanna help me move???] So, i really really want to like Books We Like, especially now that i’m revisiting content-motivated recommendation networks. And i do really like their intention (and their kind request for participants to “Be forgiving.”). There’s one small problem: i have *ZERO* desire to input all of my books again. Zero.

Most people bitch about creating a new profile on each service. I feel this way about my books. I currently have two Excel files: one for all books that i own and one for all articles that i own. I am awaiting the kind soul who will build my ideal application for text management. It would start with a XML or DB schema that would access my half.com and Amazon purchasing habits, record when i bought it (which indicates more label material than anything else seeing as i buy books while writing papers or starting classes). And it would allow me to scan what i already have using Marc Smith’s magic toy.

What makes last.FM so valuable to me is that i don’t have to do much but listen to music which i do all the time anyhow. I don’t even have to tag anything since i’ve already done that work for other purposes, namely to listen more without painfully crashing Gwar into Nina Simone (even if some whacked children think this is a good idea… hrmfpt).

Why can’t something like Books We Like connect with my already present habits? Why can’t it help me organize my books. I already write commentary on them – why can’t it help me connect this together? Why can’t it let me simply rate my books for others when i don’t feel like writing a commentary? Why is there so much overhead for participation? Sadly, i can’t be bothered to input information in there – i just don’t see the value as outweighing the effort required. And this is super sad because i really want to like the people’s republic of books.

Academia and Wikipedia

[Also an M2M entry in direct response to various points in Clay’s K5 Article on Wikipedia Anti-elitism which responds to Larry Sanger’s Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism]

First, let me acknowledge that i have excessive privilege in this lifetime. That said, i’m not convinced that academia operates solely on an aggressive exertion of privilege nor am i convinced that any institution in the United States can be discussed without an assertion of privilege. But that’s another story.

I would argue that many librarians, teachers and academics fear Wikipedia (not dislike it) because it is not properly understood, not simply because it challenges their privilege, just as most new systems and media are feared by traditionalists of all sorts. Have we not had enough conversations about blog fear amongst journalists?

As a contributor to and user of Wikipedia, there is no doubt that i have a deep appreciation for it. All the same, i roll my eyes whenever students submit papers with Wikipedia as a citation. This is probably a source of much Wikipedia dislike amongst academics.

Wikipedia appears to be a legitimate authority on a vast array of topics for which only one individual has contributed material. This is not the utopian collection of mass intelligence that Clay values. For many non-controversial topics, there are only a limited authors and we have no idea what their level of expertise is. Hell, i submitted a bazillion anthropology entries while taking Anthro 1 based on my textbook and most of them remain untouched. My early attempts to distill anthropology should definitely not appear as legitimate authorities on the topics, yet many students take them as such.

On topics for which i feel as though i do have some authority, i’m often embarrassed by what appears at Wikipedia. Take the entry for social network: “A social network is when people help and protect each other in a close community. It is never larger than about 150 people.” You have *got* to be kidding me. Aside from being a patently wrong and naive misinterpretation of research, this definition reveals what happens when pop cultural understandings of concepts become authorities.

I have extreme respect for those who seek to define concepts such as those who craft the dictionary and encyclopedias. It is extremely challenging to define a term because you are trying very hard to capture and convey excessive amounts of information in an abbreviated fashion that cannot be misinterpreted. This takes talent, practice, precision and a great deal of research. Consider, for example, the difference between a good science writer and a bad one. Not everyone can convey large bodies of research in an easily accessible manner.

This does not mean that i dislike Wikipedia, just that i do not consider it to be equivalent to an encyclopedia. I believe that it lacks the necessary research and precision. The lack of talent and practice mostly comes from the fact that most entries have limited contributers. Wikipedia is often my first source, but never my last, particularly in contexts where i need to be certain of my facts. Wikipedia is exceptionally valuable to read about multiple sides to a story, particularly in historical contexts, but i don’t trust alternative histories any more than i trust privileged ones.

My concern – and that of many of my colleagues – is that students are often not media-savvy enough to recognize when to trust Wikipedia and when this is a dreadful idea. They quote from it as though it cannot be inaccurate. I certainly distrust many classic sources, but i don’t think that an “anti-elitist” (a.k.a. lacking traditional authority and expertise) alternative is automatically better. Such a move stinks of glorifying otherness simply out of disdain for hegemonic practices, a tactic that never gets us anywhere.

I don’t believe that the goal should be ‘acceptance’ so much as recognition of what Wikipedia is and what it is not. It will *never* be an encyclopedia, but it will contain extensive knowledge that is quite valuable for different purposes. If the fuss dies down, i’d be exceptionally worried because it would mean that we’ve lost the ability to discuss the quality of information.

Alternatively, i too would love to see a vetted version of Wikipedia, one that would provide a knowledge resource that is more accountable and authoritative.

Update:

“The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him.” – Robert McHenry is Former Editor in Chief, Encyclopedia Britannica

[From Tech Central Station via Preoccupations]