From Shout Blog
Mediocre Top Ten List
I was reading an interesting bit in Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail about how top 10 lists of things that are spread thinly across multiple categories tend to be banal. His primary example is that of top 10 lists of artists from all genres. ... such a list–it’s simply a jumble of popular artists....
... I was reminded of a top 10 contest two my friends and I played ... in college. We had decided to create a list of the best songs of all time. We would each come up with 10 songs that we felt would make the list, and we would go down the line and eliminate songs from each others’ lists until we only had 10 left–presumably, the 10 best.
We were really excited, as if the final list would be a miracle list straight from the heavens.
We quickly went to the task of whittling down the 3 lists. One person would exclaim, “No way that song would ever be on my list. That’s out!” And thus, this went on ....
But, as the number of songs dwindled, we began to notice something. .... It started to look like a Billboard music chart.
We were horrified. .... Our tastes are eclectic and niche. The last thing we wanted was a final list that mirrored the pop charts.
The real problem underlying it all was that our tastes were different enough to cause a “graying” of the final list. Combining our tastes into one list resulted in a bland popular songs list, without any artists that delved deeply into a genre...."
I think this can be related to what Alexis De Tocqueville referred to as "The tyranny of the majority." In chpts. 15 and 16 "Democracy in America
." This rule would also come into effect in Wikipedia where the majority opinion as opposed to objective research must ultimately rule. However, eventually it became the tyranny of the unemployed and teenagers with a lot of time on their hands, who could follow entries and change them immediately after someone made a correction. One of the founders Sanders describes things this way. "It's a relatively few, difficult to deal with people that cause the problems, and once a quorum of such people were at work on the Wikipedia system," . In chpt. 16 De Tocqueville states "When the central government which represents that majority has issued a decree, it must entrust the execution of its will to agents over whom it frequently has no control and whom it cannot perpetually direct. The townships, municipal bodies, and counties form so many concealed breakwaters, which check or part the tide of popular determination." Unfortunately in Wikipedia these checks come in the form of uninformed individuals, special interest groups, or incompetents. Sanders comments on the poor writing exhibited in some of the articles. "It's really that the skills to marshal an argument, and represent the facts correctly are all skills encouraged by a solid liberal arts education. It's a problem associated more with a lack of training in the liberal arts."
In an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education Jimmy Wales "founder" of Wikipedia warned students not to refer to Wikipedia, he goes on to say "For God sake, you're in college; don't cite the encyclopedia,"
Ultimately web sites reflect the organization or entity that builds them. Wikipedia represents a wide swath of western democracy or the current western civilization's "hive mind" clearly and effectively. As such it is more a symptom of our culture especially the United States for the ages 14 - 44, than a simple problem of a few people writing some inaccurate information. That is why the debate is so heated. An indictment on Wikipedia is ultimately an indictment of "We the People" and an indictment on the entire Web 2.0 concept and the "hive mind". Unfortunately the "People" that choose to participate in Wikipedia appear to often be ill informed, biased and able to shout louder (post more often) than the more informed and moderate voices in our society, or in the Wikipedia project.
R Philip Reynolds
