h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/08/jimmy_wales_wikipedia_listen_up_london_and_learn/

I've seen some seriously biassed articles in Wikipedia. For instance, whoever wrote the survey article about classical music seemed unaware that classical composers had ever written much vocal music -- opera being the only vocal category they noticed. This would come as news to those who enjoy the hundreds of cantatas by Bach, or the largely a capella works of much of the Renaissance and Middle Ages.

At the end of the day, h2g2 and Wiki are both largely based on incomplete, unverifiable or biased evidence, which is almost inevitable.

The big difference is that Wiki suffers from an authoritarian, self-important and power-hungry editorial hierarchy. Whereas we have editors who will - like, you know - actually talk to you constructively.

B

And, of course, that we have an entry on 'the Joy of socks', something, which I believe, does not, and even could not, and probably would not, ever 'grace' the pages of that 'other' site...

One of the things I like about h2g2 is the sense of ownership. Yes, your writing will be tidied up a bit by a sub-editor. Yes, curators will occasionally tweak things a bit, or add extra information. But fundamentally, an entry I've written is mine: my structure, my phrasing. I like that.

TRiG.

The Register is Punch without Judy.


~jwf~

I know what you mean, TRiG. I also appreciate that when I read an article. Prose written by committee can be woeful stuff.

While we have collaborative entries here, they benefit from having one steering hand - usually one person 'collates' all the contributions into one entry, and one person sub-edits it.

With the wiki model, people edit bits of sentences, add a fact here, remove a claim there. Sometimes readability suffers badly because of it.

Two things largely put me off Wikipedia: how the writing style can just suddenly change, and how if you correct a factual error the error can be reinstated just because the person who made the error is 'more senior' in Wikipedia's 'community' than you are (yes, this actually happened to me. It took a lot of carefully explaining exactly why his writing was incorrect and mine wasn't before they finally agreed to leave my correction in place).

I corrected a factual error on Wikipedia once. It was reverted as "vandalism". I didn't bother to argue. They had the benefit of my superior knowledge. They failed to take advantage of it. Their loss.

It's not through want of trying, I can assure you.

Wiki's science articles are either impenetrable to the point of uselessness.
(e.g. I'm quite familiar with the uncertainty principle but this is just meaningless equation city http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle)

or so simplistic as to be useless.

Here they are of a completely different flavour - much more user/layman friendly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

As to Wales complaint regarding UK libel laws, he has a point. Just ask Simon Singh.