The Blog of Record

Is Wikipedia’s remarkable success in Google search rankings evidence of a fundamental failure of the Web as an information-delivery service?

Three things have happened, in a blink of history’s eye: (1) a single medium, the Web, has come to dominate the storage and supply of information, (2) a single search engine, Google, has come to dominate the navigation of that medium, and (3) a single information source, Wikipedia, has come to dominate the results served up by that search engine. Even if you adore the Web, Google, and Wikipedia – and I admit there’s much to adore – you have to wonder if the transformation of the Net from a radically heterogeneous information source to a radically homogeneous one is a good thing. Is culture best served by an information triumvirate?

But of course Encyclopedia Britannica would say that, right?

A scientific journal is requiring any authors that submit a paper to prepare an additional document for peer review: a Wikipedia page summarizing the paper.

It’s because Google thinks you want to see the Wikipedia entry near the top of the search page whatever it is you’re looking for. The journal is taking advantage of this hard fact of life.

A Wikipedia page explaining why basically everything you believe is wrong.

I like this one: “Thomas Crapper did not invent the flush toilet“.

(Via DRB.)

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s views on illegal immigration, according to Wikipedia:

[he opposes] discrimination on the basis of immigration status for providing state services, including such things as public housing, in-state tuition for public universities, and drivers’ licenses.

Simply brilliant.

I have just watched Monster’s Ball, a 2001 movie for which Halle Berry got her Oscar. The woman she plays falls in love with a white man who was her husband’s jailer on death row when he was executed for murder. I liked it and went to look what Wikipedia had on it. Here’s what I found in the “Criticism” section of the film’s entry:

Despite numerous positive reviews of the film, some black activists urged a boycott, notably Miles Willis of the “Milestones” jazz program on Pacifica Radio’s KPFT. His statement, championed by syndicated film columnist Esther Iverem, included the following: “Imagine the seething indignation that a Jewish man might feel while watching a story in which the widow of a Nazi concentration camp victim has an intimate relationship with the SS officer that shoved her husband into one of those ovens at Auschwitz!”

I think I can come up with a better statement. Here:

“Imagine the seething indignation that a Jewish man might feel while reading a story in which Nazi death camp victims are equated with convicted murderers!”

Or:

“Imagine the seething indignation that a corrections officer might feel while reading a story in which his colleagues are equated with SS officers from Auschwitz!”

Or how about this one:

“Imagine the seething indignation that a black man might feel while reading about a white activist urging a boycott of a film in which a white woman has an intimate relationship with a half-black man!”

I also propose a new definition of a “black activist” (whatever the present one is): “Someone who sees a half-black woman having an intimate relationship with a white man in a movie and feels a seething indignation at the woman’s betrayal of her race.”

If you are a boy on Cyprus who’s reached the grand ripe age of 13, and can find a willing woman, you can partake in what seems to be a popular local pastime, if Wikipedia is to be believed:

The age of consent for “carnal knowledge”/”fornication” (penetration) in Cyprus is 17 for both heterosexual and homosexual acts. […] The Age of Consent for Woman/Boy anal intercourse is 13 years. No age limit for other contacts.

This “Woman/Boy anal intercourse” thing must be quite popular over there.