December 2, 2005

All Things Search: The Death of Wikis?

I am a fan of Wikis and Search in general but This Article has forced us to recognize a glaring fault with allowing people to post anonymously.

I like this quote from Senator Seigenthalers response.

"And so we live in a universe of new media with phenomenal opportunities for worldwide communications and research — but populated by volunteer vandals with poison-pen intellects. Congress has enabled them and protects them".

"When I was a child, my mother lectured me on the evils of "gossip." She held a feather pillow and said, "If I tear this open, the feathers will fly to the four winds, and I could never get them back in the pillow. That's how it is when you spread mean things about people."

For me, that pillow is a metaphor for Wikipedia.

Mark.