Re: [tlug] You are Not a Gadget, by Jaron Lanier

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Charles Muller writes:

 > My central project during the past fifteen years has been that of
 > the creation of an online (TEI-based) reference work, the Digital
 > Dictionary of Buddhism. This is a scholarly collaborative project,
 > wherein all users must contribute some way or another, and all
 > entry nodes are fully accredited with <sense resp="author's name">.

 > Unfortunately, since the development of Wikipedia, we continually
 > find content from our work being anonymously aggregated into
 > Wikipedia without citation, and thus a continual battle of
 > vigilance must be waged

All TEI stuff is published under a free or nearly free license, no?
That's what free licenses are for.  If you don't want the masses to
use it, use a restrictive license.  And no, you *don't* get any
respect for the fine distinctions in your nearly-free license; "I
don't think we're in Eden anymore, Eve."  *shrug*

This is not Wikipedia's fault.  It's inevitable when you give the
peasantry cheap communications, just like Shizuka Kamei is the
inevitable result of giving them the vote.  I don't know how to
improve the system, though; God forbid even the thought that *I* could
do a better job!  (Not to mention that I've been known to bring
doroashi into clean rooms etc....)

 > --plus the fact that the anonymous--and thus difficult-to-trace and
 > unassailable Wikipedia entry always comes to the top of the page in
 > the web search.

Er, no.  "Anonymous" and "difficult-to-trace" == "self-sapping"[1].
Sad it always comes to the top, but hey.


Footnotes: 
[1]  If you don't know what a "sapper" is, ask any nearby SCA member
how to assail a castle.