Vicipeadia

There's something about Latin. It has, to me, a distancing effect. There's not a joke on the page on the Iraq War, but I can't help laughing. Latin is so distant and dead, but here it is pretending it is contemporary. It's hysterical!

You know, I suppose this may seem like a good time to write about the wiki concept. The contrast between the dynamic modern idea of a wiki seems to contrast the old language. The fact is that the Library of Alexandria was smaller and held more errors, but we are allowed to celebrate it. Some people find it astonishing that there exist imperfect sources of information - it would be more rational to remember that there occasionally exist good sources of information. If Wikipedia is less reliable that, say, Encyclopedia Brittanica it must be remembered that the wiki dwarfs the print work. The Wikimedia community is an enormous source of information, and not just encyclopedia articles. Paintings, pictures of animals, court documents, plays, recorded music, and much more. If used in a mature way, Wikipedia is even better than good, it is useful.

It is pleasant to live in a world where there is such access to information that we can afford to be snobbish about sources. Could you imagine the reaction of Diderot to the French Wikipedia?