In addition to engaging description and smart history, Lih tries to tackle a larger story: what makes Wikipedia work? Here, unfortunately, he is much less successful.
Wikipedia owes its existence to the nerdy culture of the first online discussion systems, such as Usenet; the unlikely success of moderated social sites, such as Slashdot, which was so influential in Wikipedia’s early days that the project was briefly known as “the Encyclopedia That Slashdot Built”; and the emergence of a tight community around WikiWikiWeb, the first application to use the wiki style of editing. The dotcom recession also helped by freeing a supply of superbly talented technologists from the burdens of paid employment.
Wikipedia’s editing philosophy is about simplicity, and two of the cofounders, Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales, get much of the credit for it. From the earliest days, the community relied on three core rules:
1. Neutrality: entries cannot be partisan and should reflect fact rather than opinion (this “neutral point of view” principle is the site’s only nonnegotiable policy).
2. Verifiability: entries should quote facts that can easily be checked.
3. No Original Research: entries should not contain original and unpublished thought.
At first, decisions were made quickly, and every mention of Wikipedia in the media was met with extensive (and often self-congratulatory) discussion on Wikipedia’s mailing lists. Lih feels nostalgic for those heady days of experimental fluidity, which turned Wikipedia into a magnet for geeks who wanted to test their own tools and approaches, and improve the site in the process. “If there was ever a project that had unhammered nails, thousands and thousands of them, it was Wikipedia,” Lih writes. “And best of all, Wikipedia welcomed anyone with Internet access to start hammering.” The old guard did not object much; “don’t bite the [newcomers]” quickly became an influential policy.
Why do Wikipedians spend countless hours improving the site, often doing mundane, repetitive tasks they would never do for money?
