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May 19, 2005
Random Thoughts on Wikipedia
In my everyday intellectual life Wikipedia, the online free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit, has become indispensible. In fact, I don't know how I ever lived without it. Whether it is in the course of reading a book, The Economist, New Yorker or any number of other magazines, other weblogs, etc. I frequently run into a reference to some obscure person, term, etc. with which I am just not familiar. Wikipedia is an excellent and very accessible resource in such circumstances.
That said, I'm thinking of taking a more pro-active role in it, perhaps by editing or making some other type of contribution. For one thing, I think it is far too skewed toward the cult of one particular culture. I was simply appalled in the last few days when I checked out the Wikipedia bios of Stan Greenberg, James Heckman, Joi Ito and Justin Hall. Those of Heckman and Greenberg were far less detailed than those of Ito or Hall.
Greenberg is a major Democratic party pollster whose impact on the party has been either hugely beneficial (he was Clinton's original numbers guy) or destructive (he was Clinton's original numbers guy), depending on who is offering the opinion. One could argue that his fine tuning of party message to shifting sands of electoral opinion was the key to Clinton's success in two presidential campaigns. One might also argue that Clinton's victories had far more to do with a temporarily divided Republican party (between the Buchanan wing and those who actually wanted to win) and that Greenberg's "tack to the smallest winds" approach, which favored carefully crafted initiatives that were targeted to well defined consituencies over any larger sense of a coherent ideological agenda, only deepened the disconnect between the Democrats and America's middle class.
Heckman is the Nobel laureate University of Chicago economist who has simply revolutionized behavioral modelling and social policy analysis with vast methodological contributions. Starting with his early work on sample selection bias and control functions through to his insights into the comparative merits of experimental and quasi-experiemntal estimators, Heckman has helped to re-define the landscape microeconometrics and hence all that turns on the contours of that landscape. His influence has been so vast, both in the arcane world that I live in and the policy environment that affects us all, that he deserves several thousand words on the Wikipedia (at a minimum).
Joi Ito is a nice enough guy (I visit his weblog from time to time), but I'm not really sure what his contribution is. He attends tons of conferences all over the world and knows all of the right people in this sort of open access, no intellectual property rights movement. (This wasn't exactly fair: as his Wikipedia bio makes clear, he has had real success and impact as an internet entrpreneur and has contributed to some critical institutions, such as ICANN.) He also styles himself as something of an activist, and while I can't comment about much of his activism (he has a much better grasp of some technological issues than I), that in the areas where I do have some understanding seems to me to be for the most part completely misguided. And even then I'm not sure that he has ever had an opinion truly independent of Lessig's. (This isn't completely fair either: many of the people who promote the sort of views Joi does can frequently come across as basically disciples of Lessig. However, by my tone, it should be clear that I am not a disciple of Lessig.)
And Justin Hall...a spoiled narcissist whose only talents-by the evidence of his own contributions to his weblog-appear to be exhibitionism and a capacity for flight from any serious responsibility.
I basically like Joi Ito and really do not doubt that he is a decent guy. But the real question is this: in any reasonable intellectual ordering of the universe, do either Hall or Ito merit anyhwere near the attention that either Greenberg or Heckman does?
Hence my thinking that I might start contributing more to Wikipedia. It needs voices from a broader range of social networks, as Joi might say.
Posted by dag at May 19, 2005 11:16 PM
Comments
"Hence my thinking that I might start contributing more to Wikipedia." Exactly. I hear many people saying, "that article's wrong" or "this article doesn't have enough detail. See! Wikipedia biased." ;-) But as you point out and I often do to such people, "Then go and contribute to the article and fix it!"
Also, there is a semi-official rule on Wikipedia that you can't edit articles about yourself except to fix factual errors. It is a bit weird seeing an article which emphasizes aspects about yourself that you wouldn't choose to emphasize if you were writing it yourself.
As for my "activism"... My real activism has centered around privacy in Japan. See my National ID category on my blog and doesn't really have much to do with Lessig's work. My recent work in Creative Commons, as you say, is clearly within Lessig's domain and as you correctly point out, I probably don't have many thoughts that Lessig hasn't already developed quite extensively. My contribution here is primarily to try to collect examples and information and to try to promote the concept together with him.
Anyway, I'm starting to sound defensive. ;-) The main point of my posting a comment here was to encourage you to contribute to Wikipedia yourself and help offset the systemic biases towards all things Internet related which is an inevitable outcome of the nature of the demographics of active Internet users.
Posted by: Joi Ito at May 20, 2005 07:02 PM
Joi:
You may not believe this but I am really honored that you have visited my rather parochial corner of the net.
And my post isn't meant as an attack on you (though I pull no punches about Justin Hall: he may be a nice guy in person but I think his celebrity points to something really wrong with our society).
I just think the weight Wikipedia gives you and Justin is too much for better... and worse: I think that Stan Greenberg was basically a destructive force for the Democratic party (what is their message in the Greenberg era???).
Basically my point is that for well or for ill the weighting is strange. I myself don't merit two sentences on Wikipedia-and probably never will!
As for the Japanese ID system: that is a tough call. There is no absolute right to privacy or anonymity: this consideration must always be weighted against society's legitimate need for security. It is the reason I sort of wish to see Roe v. Wade overturned: its not that I am opposed to a woman's right to reproductive choice (pending review of the details, I would probably vote for any constitutional amendment designed to deliver that focused right). I oppose Roe v. Wade because it appeals to some vague and ill-defined right to privacy. Such a right, if it is to be invoked, needs to be explicit, including in its limitations.
By the way, to my scraggily band of readers who have told me in various emails today that they have no idea who Joi Ito is: if you want to know what is going on with the internet world, Joi Ito's site (http://joi.ito.com) is an essential stopping point. He really is one the people at the center of this whole interesting open source movement, and is genuinely one of the people who really got this whole blogging thing going. I extremely grudgingly admit the latter about Justin Hall as well.
By the way, Joi, we have one thing in common: constant global travel (I'm a development economist often on the road). I want to recommend a book I have recently read that will probably resonate with you: Pico Iyer's The Global Soul.
Posted by: dag at May 20, 2005 07:50 PM
I'll take a look at The Global Soul. Thanks.
I don't know if this is the right place to get into an extended debate about privacy, but there are various meanings of privacy and people focus on very different things. I believe that the most important role that privacy has in society is to enable free speech, participate and the ability to hold unpopular beliefs. This opposition against those in power is an essential element for a healthy democracy. I believe that technology is making it harder and harder for people, especially in oppressive regimes, to hold and voice unpopular opinions. The Federalist Papers were publish under pseudonyms. Anonymity saves lives in many countries.
I believe other elements of privacy are also important, but my "activism" focuses on those aspects of privacy protection that ensure a healthy functioning of the democratic process.
Thanks for your thoughful comments here and on my blog. I do appreciate the feedback.
Posted by: Joi Ito at May 20, 2005 09:33 PM