Confucius say person without guts to affix name to rantings should be not be permitted to publish same in alleged encyclopedia.

Thank you for that, Confucius.  You’re quite right as usual.  The recent news that Google plans to introduce a community-based virtual encyclopedia in which the truth or falsity of the entries can be weighed against the reputation and bias of the authors should be hailed by every writer in occasional need of some quick and dirty research to finish a job on deadline.

Wikipedia is, as everyone above the age of a second trimester fetus knows, the world’s largest, multicultural, free-for-all collection of true facts, false facts, misleading facts, semi-facts and out-of-context facts in the history of the world.

It contains, at last official count, more than nine million articles in 250 languages written, Wikipedia’s official propagandists claim, by “visitors (who) do not need specialised (sic) qualifications to contribute, since their primary role is to write articles that cover existing knowledge.”

Whoa, let’s stop there for a moment.  If Wiki’s primary role is to restate “existing knowledge” so common that it can be encyclopedically described by writers without “specialized knowledge,” what — exactly — is the point of the whole exercise?

If we already know this crap, why do we need an encyclopedia to tell us about it?  And if we don’t already know it, shouldn’t we best learn it from someone who has a least a little “specialized knowledge” beyond what one may “learn” about a topic on talk radio or Fox News?

And that, of course, is the pervasive rot at the heart of Wikipedia.  Readers have no way to check whether the author and commentators and editors really know something about the subject or whether they are as ignorant about it as the rest of us.

Perhaps worse, you have zero clues as to whether an inaccuracy is an innocent mistake or a deliberate misrepresentation by someone with a hidden agenda.

For donkeys’ years, as an example, Wikipedia reported that Hillary Clinton had earned the honor of being class valedictorian.  Which was a nice bit of puffery, but like most puffery simply not true.  Was it an innocent mistake or a deliberate lie added to Hill’s Wiki CV by one of her handlers?  Since whoever wrote it was able to do so with total anonymity how could anyone know — or even make an educated guess.

In the real (non-wiki-wacky) world you might expect a copy editor to catch the error in the Hillary article and correct it.  After all, copy editors, according to the Wikipedia article on the subject, “need broad general knowledge of the world in spotting factual errors, good critical-thinking skill (to recognize inconsistencies), diplomacy for dealing with writers, and a thick skin for when editorial diplomacy fails.  Also, they must establish priorities — balancing a striving for perfection and the necessity to follow deadlines.”

Take note of some of the qualities Wikipedia demands of every other publisher’s copy editors:  Broad general knowledge, good critical-thinking, a striving for perfection.

Compare that to the standards Wikipedia sets for its own copy editors:  With rare exceptions, articles can be edited by ANYONE WITH ACCESS TO THE INTERNET, simply by clicking the edit this page link.  Forget knowledge, critical-thinking, striving for perfection, if you haven’t bounced a check to your ISP you’re as qualified to edit Wiki articles as anyone else.

If it all sounds like nonsense, it’s because it is nonsense.  If Wikipedia sounds more like the world’s largest (and one of its most crotchety and contentious) social network than a repository of rock solid facts, it’s because there is a lot more of Oprah and talk radio than scholarly research about it.

Which would all be perfectly acceptable (sort of) if you the reader knew whether that article on fetal development was written and edited by experienced OBGYNs or the minister of propaganda for the Christian Coalition.

But you don’t.  You can’t.  Wiki has a religious fervor about preserving the anonymity of its contributors.  A religious fervor which is, very simply, evil.

Like mushrooms, ignorance, prejudice, and superstition fester and grow best in the dark.  By being anonymous, Wikipedia — even when it’s entries are correct — is one of the most pervasive contributors to the dumbing down of society and — to get a bit melodramatic — the decline of civilization, or at least internet civilization.

Think about it.  What is virtually certain to happen when people aren’t held to any standard of accountability for what they say or write?  What is the logical result of having so-called knowledge — encyclopedia articles — produced from behind the same opaque curtains hiding writers of $29 get-rich-quick secrets and mail-order cancer cures?

With Knol, Google promises to add real transparency to the realm of internet encyclopedias.  Authors and editors will be identified (allowing you to, pardon the expression, “Google” them to see if you care to trust what they say) and ads will be both accepted and clearly identified — as opposed to Wiki’s policy of allowing millions of product plugs to run as alleged non-commercial “articles,” many of which contain nothing but a few “buy-this” slogans labeled as stubs.

With the arguable exception of the 1918 edition of the Book of Knowledge, the gold standard — before and since — of print encyclopedias, there has never been a totally accurate, completely unbiased encyclopedia.  What is new and very disturbing about Wikipedia, particularly from a writer’s point of view, is that there is really no way to tell if the author is intellectually competent and politically unbiased enough to discuss the subject he or she has written about.

If Knol, and it’s a very big if, fixes that it may turn out to be Google’s major contribution to a better world … a far superior and more important alternative to what is currently available than Google search is to Yahoo and MSN.

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