Wikipedia

MWCS

Joined 27 March 2018

"He who knows best, knows how little he knows”

- Thomas Jefferson
MWCS
Married with children & dogs
— Wikipedian ♂ —
Born1975
HeightAverage
Personality typeiNTp
Education and employment
OccupationDigital content creator & editor, Web designer, Visual Comms, Digital Ecosystem Architect
EducationBA
Interests

Sustainability, Design, Art, Music, Urban Planning, Blockchain technology, DePin, Internet of things, Democratic process, Sociology

Where I've been

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Why we're here

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You might be here because you're a huge fan of my contributions... but more likely to gauge my level of experience and authenticity. Hopefully not to stalk me. I can be bit contrarian, and am concerned about online safety and privacy, so writing a user page whilst staying anonymous is tricky. Let me start with why I like facts and fiction.

What interests and inspires me

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Encyclopaedia Britannica (1974 edition). CC BY-SA 1.0

Many years ago, a door-to-door salesmen somehow managed to convince my parents to buy a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica... well maybe just the Micropædia set (my parents were working class).

The set was so vast and expensive that my sister and I felt compelled to spend hours flipping through the massive books, learning random facts, or researching homework. There were so many volumes, they couldn't fit on our bookshelf and were instead stored in my parent's cupboard, which had to be re-reinforced to hold the weight.

We made our own trivia game and learned to use the index to find the answers. We were desperate to beat our dad at Trivial Pursuit... but he always got all the cheeses. The encyclopaedia had the power to settle any family dispute or playground argument. It was in - our young minds at least - ‘absolute, cold hard facts, end of discussion!’.

We lived in a country full of division, prejudice and violence; facing international sanctions, and strict censorship. Our encyclopaedia collection really opened my eyes to the wider world and inspired me to travel. I wondered about the research and editorial process, and who got to decide what was 'objective fact'.

Print Wikipedia

Many years later, when I heard about Wikipedia, it blew my mind... and still does! In 2015, artist Michael Mandiberg created the art project Print Wikipedia, a “visualization of the largest accumulation of human knowledge and a poetic gesture towards the inhuman scale of big data”. At the time it represented 7,600 volumes, and once it's printed… it’s already out of date.

That’s one of the things I love about Wikipedia. It’s constantly in flux, open to change, and inching closer towards a truly global compendium on all branches of knowledge.

Of course, there’s still a long way to go and, in our fractious world, it can feel like an impossible task to find completely neutral and verifiable facts. I am a bit obsessed with objectivity, and balance, and I often see links between subjects that others might miss. I like connecting the dots - when there is a genuine connection to be made. Conspiracy theories can be fun (well debunking them is), but in our social media age of 'alternative facts', confirmation bias, and doublethink, I believe the lunatics are very much in danger of taking over the asylum.

“The Internet: all the knowledge is there, but where is the wisdom?”

- Henry Kissinger (paraphrased)

Wikipedia can be a welcome, safe space away from the sheer of volume of hype, hyperbole, and... 'enshitification' in our modern online world. I say sometimes... I’ll admit the editing process, behind-the scenes debating, and strict policies can be frustrating at times! I've had to remind myself what Wikipedia is not several times.

There is still a big gender gap (I'm not helping because I'm also male), and Wikipedia is also still quite North-American and Euro-centric. I grew up in Africa (two former British colonies), so I like to think I'm helping to re-dress the balance there, but I live in Western Europe now, and with every day that passes, I'm a bit paler, and a bit staler, and very male (sorry). But I have kids that keep me young, and a loving wife, who has a passing resemblance with Tatiana Maslany, and Norah Jones... so I'm pretty happy.

 
by Nicolas P. Rougier

What worries me

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Some say Wikipedia killed Encyclopaedia Brittanica, and AI will kill Wikipedia? (I hope not). The way I access and process information has radically changed in my lifetime. I make use of Wikipedia all the time, but hardly ever visit the site. Instead, I see aggregated snippets in LLMs and search result summaries. I see the way my kids take this immediate answer as the gospel truth (just like I did all those years ago). This disconnect between the 'fact' and the 'source' is a potential cause for concern, and all the more reason for Wikipedians to continue our 'selfish altruism', and strive for accuracy, neutrality, and civility.

We are what we consume, and I'm very aware of the sometimes imperceptible but profound influence of media - both good, and bad.

Some media that got me thinking

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"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

- George Santayana

Documentaries & Filmmakers

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Sometimes fiction does a better job of helping us understand our world. Having said that, I think we've all become a bit too obsessed with the dystopian genre. We need to re-focus on the best of human nature instead of expecting the worst.

"We really did have everything, didn't we?"

- Dr. Randall Mindy, Don't Look Up

Films

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“Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world, the disarray. I choose to see the beauty”

- Dolores Abernathy, Westworld

TV Series

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Advice for all Wikipedians

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“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves”

- Confucius





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