(The hierarchy at Wikipedia, whose head office, the Wikimedia Foundation Inc., will be moving from St. Petersburg, Florida, to San Francisco this winter, is complicated. Learn about its “mix of anarchic, despotic, democratic, republican, meritocratic, plutocratic, and technocratic elements” at meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Power_structure.)
Indeed, some disillusioned former Wikipedians gripe about such bureaucratic heavy-handedness and/or the rabidity of some of the site’s devotees, grumbling about “Swastikipedia.” Meanwhile, Web sites such as wikipediareview.com and wikipedia-watch.org charge themselves with debunking what they see as the self-satisfied smugness of so-called Wikipediots. (“They have a massive, unearned influence on what passes for reliable information,” the latter proclaims.)
Hell, Wikipedia’s own co-founder, Larry Sanger, left the site in 2002 — not just because he was uneasy with the potential for abuse and inaccuracy, but because he believed Wikipedia’s populism went too far, to the point of disdain for experts and scholars. He’s since created another reference site, Citizendium, which, striving for “credibility and quality, not just quantity,” enforces stricter rules, and requires editors to post under their own names. (Having launched in March of this year, it currently has 4200 entries.)
Of course, it’s never heartening to learn of the CIA and the Vatican perpetrating propagandistic edits all over the site, or to hear American Library Association President Michael Gorman castigating Wikipedia for creating “a generation of intellectual sluggards incapable of moving beyond the Internet.” But, by and large, Wikipedia is doing good work.
When Klein first discovered the site, in 2001, “It was really unattractive. There was no design, just text. I remember I wasn’t particularly impressed.” Now, having spent thousands of hours helping build and refine it — and not just the English site; he also posts in German and in the Uto-Aztecan language of Nahuatl — Klein is convinced that it’s one of the great projects of world history: “a completely free, public collection of modern knowledge about society.” That’s one reason language-specific Wikipedia content will be bundled into each One Laptop per Child computer shipped to the developing world.
It shouldn’t be too staggering to see how big this has become. “We’re now a people who dedicate most of our time to our online personas,” says Diana Boston (username: OneWomanArmy923), 38, a non-governmental-organization worker who’s originally from Whitman, and who’s written on feminism, Émile Zola, abortion, responsible drug use, and ducks. “I’m not surprised that an online encyclopedia of knowledge, where anyone can give their two cents, is a big hit.”
Glazkov sees another factor fueling its ineluctable growth: a desire for a sort of immortality. “Wikipedia is a good way to leave a trace of your life. It’s a great thing, to share your knowledge with other people.”
“History has shown that, when there’s a need for something that benefits society, there’s no way that anyone can stop its progression,” says Blackburn. “One of the most powerful things in our world is knowledge — whether it’s a train timetable or the specific flora and fauna in your neighborhood. Everyone has a need for information. And most people have a desire to explore. That’s what Wikipedia’s there for.”
