possibly noteworthy wrote:
Simson Garfinkel, in Technology Review: An interesting thing happens when you try to understand Wikipedia: the deeper you go, the more convoluted it becomes. Unlike the laws of mathematics or science, wikitruth isn't based on principles such as consistency or observability. It's not even based on common sense or firsthand experience. Verifiability is really an appeal to authority--not the authority of truth, but the authority of other publications. Any other publication, really.
Recently: I was googling around and I learned that a reply I made to a blog post on Internet Music became an academic reference. Nice!
Thats an interesting juxtaposition however I don't think the reference is unreasonable. The article states that podcasters posting commercial music must pay a public performance royalty and then a footnote states that some people don't think this makes sense. I don't think it makes sense, and my post was merely referenced as an example of someone who doesn't think it makes sense... The very existence of my post establishes the fact asserted by the reference. My post was not referenced as an authoritative source, but as a direct example of the asserted fact. The reader is, of course, free to disagree with my opinion about this, but if you do so you must be comfortable with the notion that an MP3 file sent as an email attachment requires a royalty payment that a physical CD sent through regular mail does not. Regardless, this is not quite the same thing as relying on the authority of a reply to a blog post. |
