In Praise of Knowledge Reworked
It’s impossible to discuss complex ideas without clarity, but don’t search for deeper meaning in Wikipedia or a dictionary. That was the message over at the Scatterplot blog last week. With a focus on academic submissions to a sociological journal it seems a valid point, but it also tells us something about hands-off commentary.
As passing quips, the posts on using Wikipedia for background information and appealing to dictionaries in defining complex ideas read very much like on-the-run, exasperated commentary. And they should be – journal editors have a responsibility to act as gatekeepers, screening out submissions not fully engaged in the world of ideas.
This isn’t as abstract as it might seem; a journal article is, or at least should be, a small contribution to how we understand the world, regardless of the discipline in which it was written. But look at the problem from a slightly different perspective. How can we ensure that cut-price sources become top-rate reference material?
Leaving dictionaries aside because they still involve a long process of submission, consideration and acceptance – not to mention the need for sometimes crippling brevity – what can we do about Wikipedia? From a blogger’s perspective, John Quiggin has provided a very simple answer.
Posted by Mike Poole 
