Christian Cantrell

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April 3, 2005

Wikipedia and Pope John Paul II

Look up Pope John Paul II on Wikipedia, and you'll find the following paragraph in the introduction:

Pope John Paul II died after a long fight against Parkinson's disease, among other illnesses, at the age of 84 on April 2, 2005, at 21:37 (GMT +2). His final hours were marked by an overwhelming number of younger people who kept vigil outside his Vatican apartments. In his last message, specifically to the youth of the world, he said: "I came for you, now it's you who have come to me. I thank you."

Look up the same entry in MSN Encarta and you will find no mention of the Pope's death, much less any details.

Of course, the logistics of thousands of people updating the same resource, especially around a historic event, can get complicated. Before any mention of the Pope's death was allowed to stand by the Wikipedia community, several mentions were removed with log messages like "Removed date of death, due to the fact that he is alive." Then there was plenty of editorial debate over exact time, formatting, and how his death should be expressed. The end result, however, is an extremely thorough and remarkably current account of Pope John Paul's life and work.

This is not to say that Encarta, World Book, and Encyclopedia Britannica are not valuable resources. They obviously are. And this is not to say that Wikipedia is more valuable than more traditional encyclopedias (I can't believe I'm already referring to Encarta as a "traditional" encyclopedia). Wikipedia is simply a very different kind of resource -- one which I think makes an immense amount of sense in a world where rapid change has become the norm.

Posted by cantrell at April 3, 2005 2:12 PM

Comments

Posted by: tony weeg at April 3, 2005 11:37 PM

Posted by: wil at April 4, 2005 9:53 AM

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