All the Knowledge in the World
The Extraordinary History of the Encyclopedia
Simon Garfield
First annotation on . Last on .
11 quotes
Chapter 23
- Wikipedia is the most valuable single site online, and the most eloquent and enduring representative of the Internet as a force for good. It has indeed completely changed how templates work. It strives for democracy in its performance and neutrality in its effect. It is ad-free, pop-up free, cookie-free and free. It confounds human venality and appeals to our better nature.Aug 30 2023 5:19PM
- “I don’t think Wikipedia represents truth,” she began. “I think it represents what we know or can agree on at any point in time. This doesn’t mean that it’s inaccurate, it just means that the concept of truth has sort of a different resonance. When I think about what knowledge is . . . what Wikipedia offers is context. And that’s what differentiates it from similar data or original research, not that that isn’t vital to us.”Oct 5 2023 9:01AM
- Even Boris Johnson seemed to grasp the difficulty. In June 2020, referring to the destruction of statues of dishonored men, he columnized thus: “If we start purging the record and removing the images of all but those whose attitudes conform to our own, we are engaged in a great lie, a distortion of our history, like some public figure furtively trying to make themselves look better by editing their own Wikipedia entry.”Oct 5 2023 9:03AM
- What distinguished Wikipedia was—as sappy as it sounds—a belief in humanity and the triumph of good behavior over badOct 5 2023 9:03AM
- The wub receives no payment for his edits. In 2011, a survey into what motivates its users to contribute found that the key reasons were: people enjoyed giving their time to share and improve available information; they believed information should be freely available; they enjoyed sharing their areas of expertise; it was fun; they appreciated Wikipedia’s policy of openness; they enjoyed finding and correcting mistakes—it was a quest, a challenge and a puzzle; they wanted to gain a reputation as an accurate and productive editor. But they didn’t like: being patronized by more experienced editors; having their edits deleted or reverted without explanation; heated arguments with other editors on discussion pages; seeing articles they were working on being spoiled by inaccurate or offensive information.Feb 13 2024 12:46PM
- The number of the wub’s edits, while impressive, is not enough to get him into the Top 500 list of the most prolific Wikipedians. His 85,788 edits only puts him at number 880, just behind Tony Sidaway, Animalparty, Anythingyouwant, Rsrikanth and RogDel. Those who have made more than 90,000 edits include SuperJew, SNAAAAKE!!, Bryan Derksen, Summer PhD and Edward. Edward must have got in really early to snag a username like that.Feb 13 2024 12:46PM
- The key is to correct or dispute the edits, not the editor. This advice is accompanied by a clever illusion, a drawing that sometimes looks like a duck and sometimes like a rabbit. It recalls the aphorism “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.” But ducks don’t know they are ducks. “A humane way to communicate with an anatid that you believe to be a duck would be to calmly inform it of its duck-like behaviour. Shouting ‘IT’S A DUCK’ is likely to excite the duck, and it may quack at you, and when you’re in a shouting match with a duck, no one really wins.” This note to editors contained underlined hypertext links for both “anatid” and “quack.” Clicking on “quack” takes you directly to the Wikipedia article entitled Anger.Feb 13 2024 12:49PM
- Wikipedia is a very live thing. That is its beauty and occasional failing; it is humanity in all its forms.Feb 13 2024 12:52PM
Chapter 24
- Baggini continued. “Most families who signed up to the ‘book a month payment plan’ were really buying a promise of a better life for their children.” This was often advertised as The Britannica Advantage, a position of privilege available to those already advantaged, and of course that advantage had long since been eroded by the Internet. “Encyclopedias belong to a time when knowledge was owned by a handful of established authorities, who decided not only what was true but what deserved to be ennobled by its inclusion. Their feel of leather-bound permanence encouraged us to forget the dynamic nature of scientific knowledge.”Feb 13 2024 12:55PM
Chapter 25
- Known Unknowns: All the things you know you don’t know Unknown Unknowns: All the things you don’t know you don’t know Errors: All the things you think you know but don’t Unknown Knowns: All the things you don’t know you know Taboos: Dangerous, polluting or forbidden knowledge Denials: All the things too painful to know, so you don’tFeb 13 2024 12:57PM
- The Germans have a nice name for the study of the cultures of ignorance: NichtwissenskulturenFeb 13 2024 12:57PM