Comments on: Wikipedia’s tactical change mistaken for strategic

By: Mirek Sopek

Mirek Sopek — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:32:54 +0000

Well, I think that openness of Wikipedia was one of the gusts of a wind call “Web 2.0″ and I would never credit only Wikipedians for the idea.

However, I think both of you (comments #2,#3) may be right about classical media “mental” attitude toward Web. Digging in my memory I could dig out articles, columns, essays in my part of the world, that indeed were negatively biased against all things on the Web….

By: Two sides to every coin

Two sides to every coin — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:38:23 +0000

It seems to me that the idea that open-edit wiki can create a great encyclopedia was pushed by Wikipedians, while the gut response of the media was to resist this idea. So naturally, they would want to say “I told you so”. But in fairness to them, it should be acknowledged that the over the top claim that an unmoderated wiki is the way to go often comes from Wikipedia lovers.

By: davidw

davidw — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:27:29 +0000

I thnk it’s part of the media’s generally negative reaction to the Internet: If it seems to show that the Net isn’t as good as people think, they run the piece.

My KCBS interview was fleeting and isn’t posted. Nice of you to ask, though.

By: Mirek Sopek

Mirek Sopek — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:23:58 +0000

I’m a bit more moderate in my opinion about this fact.
I agree that it is not any u-turn of Wikipedia’s idea of openness and freedom of publishing,

But I’m not surprised that media noticed the step.
People are worried about the possibility of the largest existing corpus of human knowledge to lost its grounds. Some could take this small step as a bad signal.

I feel I want to paraphrase your expression:
Wikipedia could fail in her efforts to be the greatest encyclopedia if it compromised on freedom and openness…

Is your KCBS interview somewher on the web?

By: Steven

Steven — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:50:16 +0000

I think you got it 100% right. It’s not even really a tactical change yet, it’s just a test of a tactical change.