Dear friends and strangers, I have come to reveal my true self to you. I can finally acknowledge that I am, without a doubt, a nerd. There, I’ve said it. And I feel good about it— and so should you. Aren’t we all, in our own ways, nerds? Own up to your secret love for 80s New Wave; your fascination with “elven culture“; your private collection of rocks that look like US Presidents; or the untold hours you spent tripping out your Japanese rice burner.
Coming to terms with your inner nerd is the first step on the road to acceptance. Or at least, being accepted by the many other wonderfully nerdy individuals out there. Because, let’s face it, nerds gets some of the greatest ideas… which leads me to the newest expression of my inherent nerdiness : a fascination— nay, addiction to the wonderfully idealistic Internet venture, Wikipedia
The Wikipedia is a free repository of human knowledge started in 2001, open to anyone with the interest to contribute. It’s the most successful example of the “wiki” concept — a simplified form of Web page construction, based on the idea that all the content is be easily edited by any person. And, in that is the spark of a revolution. Think of it as the largest public chalkboard in the world, where anyone (registration not required!) can come along and write or erase anything, for good or evil. It’s anarchy in practice, with one abiding cardinal rule: play nice.
Past revisions (and who made them) can always be seen, and every content page has its own discussion page to go along with it. The aim is to create balanced, unbiased articles with a “neutral point of view.” A laudable goal, even if most controversial topics, such as Israel are never going to be seen as “neutral.” (Who would have guessed?)
It’s is a grand experiment in collaborative research. But, the greatest danger to the Wikipedia’s success will be its success. Once the nerdy core of intelligent and generally well-meaning Wikians is outpopulated by the generally boorish, annoying or outright hostile Vandals of the Internet, its days will be numbered. How long before the spammers discover how to Wiki and start sneaking in links to their commercial sites? Or wacko conspiracy theorists or neo-nazis manage to slip in misinformation as fact, just to see if they can? Or before it turns into a site dominated by personal shout-outs and nonsense articles, like the formerly amusing “Urban Dictionary”?
So check it while you can… and drop a bit of knowledge.
Posted by Simon at February 12, 2004 06:16 AM
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