Wikipedia and the Collective Hive Mind?

devv_null asks: "This morning on my drive to work, I was listening to the latest podcast of the Philosophers Zone. The topic of the program was 'Is a free market in ideas a good idea?'. It featured author and speaker Jaron Lanier, who in May published an article Digital Maoism. He highlighted Wikipedia as an example of the one of the worst kinds of 'collective intelligence' and using the 'wisdom of the crowd' to average facts about the world and include them in a massive, lifeless document. Being a habitual Wikipedia user, I could only disagree with his take on the web enterprise. While it shouldn't be considered the ultimate source of knowledge on the web, I think it's ideal in many cases to use as a starting point. Apparently, Lanier thinks a Google search results page is better." So, what is your take on this issue?

Comments

Re:NPOV is a fallacy

[NosTROLLdamus]

Please direct us to the paragraph where Wikipedia policy states that the truth is democratic; because last time I checked WP policy reaffirmed that it is not.

I changed wikipedia policy to state that, but a large group of assholes kept changing it back.