Which places in China have Wikipedia been unblocked or partially unblocked?

At the end of 2004, WIKI News was launched. "Subversion of the way news is created" and "Everyone can become a reporter", surfers rushed to tell each other, and various words of praise were floating on the vast Internet. Larry Sanger, one of the early developers of WIKI, even declared: WIKI has ushered in a great era.

But just a month ago, Robert McHenry, the former editor-in-chief of Encyclopedia Britannica, used a harsh metaphor when talking about WIKI. He compared going to Wikipedia to check an entry and confirm a fact to going to a public toilet: “It may look dirty and make people have to be careful; it may also look clean. This makes people relax their vigilance, but people never seem to be able to figure out: Who just used the equipment here?"

There are some ill-informed arguments on the Internet about the reason why Robert used it so viciously. The metaphor is because the WIKI Encyclopedia competes with the Encyclopedia Britannica. Does this possibility exist? Numbers speak - the homepage of the English version of Wikipedia clearly states: Since 2001, 445,464 entries have been accumulated here. (The Chinese version started in October 2002, with only 17,936 entries, all statistics as of 1:46 a.m. on January 10, 2005.) The complete set of "Encyclopedia Britannica" was first published in 1768 and the 15th edition was launched in 1974* **32 volumes, its academic and authoritative nature have been recognized by the world. After its online version was officially released on the Internet in 1994, it was well received by all parties. Can there be competition between the two?

In other words, what Robert is jealous of is WIKI's new media concept of universal creation, allowing everyone to create and disseminate to everyone?

Only a ghost can believe it~~! The bricks came up to meet the attack. What Robert criticized was the outdated concept of WIKI!

Robert’s remarks triggered intense questioning of the WIKI concept in a small area. There are endless interesting metaphors:

“Using WIKI is like driving your car into a repair shop, but everyone inside and outside will come to repair it for you.”

< p>"One chef has one opinion, and a hundred chefs have a hundred opinions. When they quarrel, you will find that it doesn't matter whether you eat the food or not."

......< /p>

The issue of debate begins with the credibility of WIKI entries. Many people suggest that WIKI needs to have a clear content production process like traditional media. Entries need to be signed by the original author, and confirmed entries cannot be changed, etc. Defenders of the WIKI concept naturally sneered at this, believing that if WIKI did this, it would violate the grassroots nature of BLOG.

Starting from the grassroots discussion, some people suggested that WIKI needs a capable team of experts to ensure the accuracy of content entries. As a result, three branches of discussion were formed: the separation between grassroots and elites; the confrontation between democracy and dictatorship; and the confrontation between business and free.

Separation between grassroots and elites

The advancement of technology over the years has given everyone enough means to obtain information. Many people have long been disgusted to death with the right to speak and set the agenda that was previously only controlled by the elites of traditional media. It is not easy to find such a community that can bring together grassroots power. How can it be like the compilation of traditional encyclopedias? What about pushing elites in? The creed of the WIKI community is: "Collaborative creation should be the way for human survival and progress." and warmly invites everyone: Be Bold (dare to participate)! However, practical experience shows that it is really difficult for people without special training (that is, non-experts and scholars) to be competent in the compilation of encyclopedias.

Last year, cataloging expert Lubetzky passed away at the age of 105. Netizen Cat Wizard looked up his life on Wikipedia and saw this description of Lubetzky's contribution:

Lubetzky's theory of cataloging went far beyond the Dewey Decimal System. He divided a colorful yet tactful way of identifying but ordering books where even the most simple person could find it.

Cat wizard commented on this paragraph: "It is completely incomprehensible and obviously written by an amateur. At that time, I didn’t know what the sacredness of Wikipedia was, but I was surprised that the encyclopedia could be so casual.” Netizen Swimming Elephant also said: “People who really use Wikipedia as a tool need to have a certain degree of judgment. Power."

The confrontation between democracy and dictatorship

As a technology, WIKI has always been regarded as a tool for freedom and democracy on the Internet. It is true that everyone can have their own unique understanding of every thing - for example, some people think black is calm, some think black is violent; some people think Xi Shi is the most beautiful, and some think his wife is the most beautiful. But as an application, WIKI encyclopedia cannot tolerate doing whatever you want and speaking freely. This is the underlying reason for the phenomenon of Trolls (which can be translated as "troubling") that is most criticized on WIKI. Wikiers believe in the old saying that "an unlocked door is the door least likely to be broken into", and as a result, the house is often turned into a mess. I once used such a case in an article: The explanation of "director" in "Chinese Encyclopedia·Film Volume" is: the main artist who puts literary scripts on the screen and becomes the film's main artist. But when you put the explanation of this entry on the WIKI, and a few days later you find that the content has been changed to "Directors are all gangsters", then you must be like a bad person, and you will laugh at it.

In addition, there are many Chinese WIKI entries with postmodern spoof characteristics, the most famous one being "rice". In terms of login, many programmers have no time to write FAQs for the software, so they have to build a WIKI system to allow users and others to help write help documents after trying the software. I can’t remember which software it was, but the Russian author praised it: Unexpectedly, using WIKI, the English document that used to give him a headache was completed in less than a week!

Translators can make good use of WIKI (if it is Chinese-English translation, remember to find a WIKI system with better Chinese support); there are many manual workers in the Chinese book publishing industry who collect books collectively. Too. There are also rumors that large companies such as GOOGLE, Microsoft, and Motorola have set up internal WIKI systems for employees to communicate and collaborate.

But who asked them to use this system as an encyclopedia and use a set of gorgeous dream-like sentences to describe its brilliant utopian prospects?

Encyclopedias, generally speaking, are a collection and summary of previously established knowledge. They are static and passive, and ordinary people cannot often question them. Children who like encyclopedias are destined to be promising children. Just like Gates, he has loved reading encyclopedias since he was a child. After Microsoft took over, Gates wanted to expand the company's home product line, and the first product that came to mind was electronic encyclopedias. When he approached Encyclopedia Britannica, they declined. Microsoft turned to another obscure encyclopedia publisher and launched Microsoft Encarta in 1993, the first multimedia encyclopedia designed specifically for computers. It was a huge success and directly led to the Encyclopedia Britannica. 》The situation is weak in the information age.

After Encarta, there are many large publishers involved in electronic encyclopedias, such as the "World Book" owned by the wealthy Warren Buffett.

Moreover, almost all established encyclopedia publishers are considering transitioning to the Internet - the aforementioned online version of Encyclopedia Britannica, and Encarta integrated into MSN, etc., the amount of information is by no means compared to the existing Wikipedia A heavyweight system and system that adds new knowledge with good and strong commercial implications. There are countless certified experts who are paid to contribute their intelligence and wisdom to these things.

Also GOOGLE. This giant search engine, intended to index five thousand years of human knowledge, has almost become synonymous with encyclopedias. (As mentioned above, they have also launched a dedicated encyclopedia service, Google Encyclopedia, based on the existing search technology system.) To find the answer to a question, you only need to type a keyword in the GOOGLE input box and hit return Car, flip the screen, you will never come home disappointed. All these things, do we really need an encyclopedia like WIKI that is written jointly by everyone?

In addition, we have to admit that the existing Wiki systems have serious technical flaws. Not to mention multimedia due to network transmission speed, simple WIKI syntax cannot even draw a slightly more complex chart; the search function can only be the simplest to find results, statistics, sorting, calculation, etc. I dare not mention the functions. Perhaps, perhaps this should also be included: the program execution efficiency is extremely slow, even on this machine, even if the content in the database is so small that it can be ignored, it is still slow.

According to the current content update speed, if Wikipedia is to reach the level of Encyclopedia Britannica and Microsoft Encarta in terms of authoritativeness, practicality, and searchability of its content, even God will cry bitterly: I'm afraid I won't be able to wait until that time...

So, this is a fact that no one can ignore: using WIKI to make an encyclopedia is too ambitious; and the editing method cannot guarantee its accuracy at this stage. quality. This is a typical failed application case of WIKI technology, and its development process in the past three years has fully verified that the "law of wine and sewage" is still unbreakable in the virtual community: pour a spoonful of wine into a bucket of sewage, and what you get is A bucket of sewage; if you pour a spoonful of sewage into a barrel of wine, you still get a bucket of sewage. Perhaps it can also prove a friend's joke: among a hundred people online, there will always be one or two with ulterior motives.

So, do we need to say any words of comfort for this trembling utopia?

I just went up, this is it, right?