If there is a taboo, I break it all the time.  :-)

I think Wikipedia is an amazing experiment.  It's got flaws, obviously, but overall I consider it one of the most exciting developments in global knowledge-sharing that's ever taken place.  Up there with Gutenberg, surely.  I have an Android phone, which now understands spoken questions, and often answers them from Wikipedia.  It's completely amazing to have an encyclopedia in one's pocket.  And the whole model of globalized collaborative writing is extraordinary, and new.

I was at a lecture a couple of years ago when the speaker was criticizing something in one of the Wikpedia entries. I had a laptop, and before the lecture was even finished, I had updated the Wikipedia page to reflect the lecturer's corrections.  This kind of thing raises all sorts of interesting new questions about the nature of academic knowlege storage and transmission, what we trust, and how we manage our relationshop to our sources.  The history-tracking feature of Wikipedia is absolutely critical to its value.

There are fights in Wikipedia, of course, over contentious issues.  But the system and the m
​​
anagers address this issue of conflict, and surprisingly often,
​ things calm down after a while.
​would​
imagine there's quite a struggle going on right now at
​fr.​
Wikipedia.
​org​
about Devadatta (Dieudonné).
​ [I checked, and yes there is.]​


An indological case in point is the Wikipedia account of the California textbook controversy over Hindu history dispute that started in 2005.  If you click "View history" you'll see how much of a struggle there's been between factions.  It's been stable for quite a time now, and it's short, factual, and the emotional and aggressive language of the early versions has been purged and has stayed purged.  Numerous sockpuppets were active in the early years, but they were eventually blocked by the Wikipedia managers.  I would say that the CTCHH dispute is an example of the Wikipedia system working rather well.  It took several years to work, and the angry middle period was unpleasant.  One has to be patient in such cases, and take the long view.

Best,
Dominik


On 29 January 2014 17:41, Fabrice Duvinage <fabrice.duvinage@gmail.com> wrote:

Is there any taboo about contributing to Wikipedia? Though I guess many indologists are not against knowledge-sharing for free and improving the general knowledge about India, I am the only indologist/sanskritist in the fr.wikipedia and feel like hell about it  How is it in other wikis: en, de, etc,?

Sincerely yours,
Fabrice Duvinage
10, rue Alfred Mézières
54000 Nancy
0652825128
http://fabriceduvinage.voila.net/

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