[Arisbe] prestige and anonymity

[Jon Awbrey]

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TG = Tom Gollier

TG: Watching the news on General Electric (aka NBC) last night, they were bashing
    Wikipedia as well.  They were quoting a professor or two who were arguing that
    Wikipedia might be used for background information but that it was not realiable
    as a "primary source".

TG: But it seems I've have seen this melodrama before. We, on our side, criticize
    something for claiming to be open but not measuring up to that claim, while the
    real authoritarians pick up those criticisms, or at least claim we are on their
    side too, in order  to thwart any threat, as  paltry as it  might be, to own their
    monopoly on information, knowledge, and thus, to some extent, on thought itself.

Hi Tom,

Long time no talk -- hope you are having a nice Spring.
We are still waiting for ours here, but it's starting
to look up, the goldfinches are just beginning to get
their gold back a little ... "signs" of warmer days.

Now, you know that I have no lack of criticism for any old "establishment" ways
of doing things, and it is partly for that very reason that Wikipedia and now
Citizendium, too, have turned out to be such major disappointments for me.

They all say a lot of good stuff, the sorts of things that marginals like me
really want to believe, and so it takes a while for the dis-illusionment to hit.

The reality of things is that Wikipedia is not so much anti-elitist or non-elitist
as yet another organization being run by yet another elite, and this time it's one
where being in the club -- the "cabal" -- and carrying the club does not depend on
much of anything but the readiness to defend it, right or wrong.  And the likes of
that we've all seen before.

Jon

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