Comments on: Gabe’s Wrong

By: Jon

Jon — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 02:55:49 +0000

No, Bryan, it will not happen. Not for a million years. If you disagree it’s probably because you’re not an expert in anything.

Peace out,
Jon

By: Ken Lowery

Ken Lowery — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 05:30:23 +0000

First: Tycho, not Gabe.

Second: He’s no fan of Wiki at all. Behold: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/12/16#1134748680

By: bryan

bryan — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 07:29:50 +0000

I’m sorry but this is a problem to be fixed by time.

By: MGK

MGK — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:25:35 +0000

Jon, I’m not disputing that Wikipedia and the net in general has great potential to become the information clearing house we all want it to be – simply the actuality that it isn’t such, and isn’t going to become such any time soon, either.

By: Jon H

Jon H — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:17:50 +0000

Oh, also, the best way to get deep details on Byzantine armor would probably be to post pages and pages of the kind of information you want, but that is intentionally made-up and feasible, but wrong.

Knowledgeable people will feel obligated to correct it.

A basic principle of the internet: more information is obtained by asserting a falsehood than by asking a question.

By: Jon H

Jon H — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:13:22 +0000

“Wikipedia doesn’t have a whole lot on the specifics of Byzantine armour, for example. ”

True, but it could, if interested people put their minds to it. By contrast, there would be little incentive for a commercial encyclopedia to address the topic in any depth, and no economic case for it. Published books would likely take the form of an expensive specialized academic monograph, or a picture-rich coffeetable book with not much textual information (and that of questionable veracity).

There are areas in Wikipedia that get into pretty deep detail. And not just about Buffy and Trek. There’s a fair amount of information about locomotives and their parts, like all the different kinds of linkage used to join train cars.

While wikipedia certainly has flaws (largely in the process area, and the little napoleons with weird ideas of what’s a credible source) complaints about the depth of coverage of topics are on very shaky ground, given that it can change drastically over relatively short periods of time (months or years) if even a single person gets a passion for adding their pet subject.

By: Aardy R. DeVarque

Aardy R. DeVarque — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:19:13 +0000

Speaking as a degreed librarian (and no, I will not call myself guybrarian, libraryman, or libratorr), thank you for not only getting it, but putting it in writing.

By: TheDerangedBear

TheDerangedBear — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 15:19:43 +0000

That’s really smart. Haha, awesome stuff man.

By: Krinn DNZ

Krinn DNZ — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 02:10:28 +0000

That was a fairly inspiring riff on the “mile wide inch deep” problem – cheers.