Society Was Never Improved…by knowing the color of Paris Hilton’s Rolls Royce…

Last summer the Wikipedians met in Egypt (metaphorical?).One seemingly positive result from so much interest, use, and traffic at Wikipedia is that the repository has cut down on the incidence of controversial content and wars between differing opinions. This reduction of controversy to civility, censorship, and bland entries is precisely why Wikipedia might never become a world-changing service. For now, it is simply a repository of facts.

Don’t misunderstand me, Wikipedia is a great repository of facts. Old school traditionalists in my field, higher education, love to bash Wikipedia and normally fail to grasp the new way that people access, combine, and collaborate to make knowledge. But the elimination of controversy and disagreement essentially reduces Wikipedia to a fact checker. Which is my point, mankind was never furthered (or impeded, for that matter), by the color choice for a celebrity’s car or the accepted birthdate of jazz. New and good things come from controversy. Controversy makes people evaluate their position, thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Controversial opinions, products, and people make us uncomfortable but leave an impact, even if it is a stronger resolve for what we already believe.

I don’t know the answer to how Wikipedia can store and even foster the controversies that occur in our societies. I don’t know how Wikipedia can take a controversy like the Israel/Palestine disagreement and portray it so that society understands the complexities, difficulties, and history. I suspect, having been a writer all my life, that we need narratives, opinions, and long detailed pieces. We need good journalism, photographs, and people from both sides of the conflict weighing in with content. All of this content will cause different people have different opinions. This breadth of opinion is what ultimately spurs people to action and furthers society. A Wikipedia entry with the timeline of the history behind the Israeli/Palestine conflict is not going to change the world. It will never come close to chronicling the issue for future generations. Until Wikipedia stirs someone to action…it is just a bunch of facts.