The second part of Andrew Dalby’s book has three main parts explaining: why we love it, why we don’t trust it, and why we will trust it. The first of the three, why we love it, has five parts to it that Dalby considers; however, I felt that only two of the reasons had some real substance to it, and practical meaning behind it. According to Dalby, one of the reasons why we love Wikipedia so much is credible to the freedom that it allows its authors. Dalby clearly states on page 130 that, “we love Wikipedia because it lets us write about whatever we want.” Unfortunately, the author uses this one characteristic as one of the main flaws of Wikipedia as he pointed out several times in his book. I feel that the freedom that Wikipedia offers is both a gift and a burden. As I mentioned in my previous blog, the access to edit pages and topics is in the hands of anyone. This means that anyone can log in (anonymously) and change the wording of subjects that they don’t even know about. The controversy here, is that Dalby’s reason for us hating Wikipedia is the same reason why we love it.
Dalby also claims that another reason why we love Wikipedia is because of its equality. In the world of Wikipedia, every user has the same credibility. This simply means that anyone can edit anything on Wikipedia and not have to show proff of their knowledge. What does this mean? Well, ordinary textbooks, encyclopedias and other credible sources of information are based off the findings and impeccable research of professors and doctors, but when an article is found on Wikipedia, the author could be a high school kid. Again, Dalby’s point can be made here, “in this virtual world, we’re all equal, from professors…to unexpectedly learned school kids.” (Pg. 136) As Dalby shows us, the reasons why we love Wikipedia so much can very well be the same reasons why we hate it.
If that section didn’t make you dislike Wikipedia enough, Dalby mentions the amount of political controversy that arises with Wikipedia. Here, Dalby brings up Richard W. Worth again, and discusses how politicians, friends of politicians or even affiliates can change the articles of important people; dismissing the bad and glorifying the good. An interesting point that Dalby brings up is how Wikipedia has become a Virtual Marketing Tool. He uses the example of a fictional character, Jamie Kane and the Boy*d Upp band. Conspiracies flourished in this section of the book as one measly fictional article. With this one article, accusations were made, and fingers were pointed at, but in the end, everything turned out to just be a fake, fictional joke.
In one of Dalby’s closing remarks, he mentions that one of the reasons why we don’t trust Wikipedia is due to one huge faulty error. The fact that an article can make footnotes based off of another Wikipedia article makes room for something called double error. As Dalby explains it, this could result in false data based off of false data built on a foundation of false data. One could easily see the catastrophe in this type of background.
As for the book, I can’t say that I was a fan. I wasn’t a fan of Andrew Dalby’s random bolding of words, or the sporadic usage of usernames and witty remarks. And one thing that I couldn’t take was the topics that he chooses off of Wikipedia. Sure, Star Wars was cool, but did he really have to talk about historical politics for more than 10 pages? Ugh…
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