The Wiki experiment takes us back to the future

The Latin word 'vulgus' means the public, or more accurately rabble. From it sprang the variation vulgar, which in archaic English meant the thronging people; hence the phrase 'the vulgar masses'. The Greek word for the people is 'demos', whence the word democracy, rule by the people. Ergo, we can conclude that democracy is rule of the vulgar masses. QED.

This is obviously not a lesson in political science or classical languages, but it is always interesting to look at the etymology of words and understand where they came from and where they ended up.

It is impolitic today to suggest that democracy is nothing but mob rule or that the people at large are vulgar with neither taste nor intellect. Instead, soon after an election we have learned commentary on "the people in their collective wisdom" when, of course, we know that it is not necessarily true. There is another reason why ostensible respect for the masses is de rigueur. Not doing so can open one to the charge of elitism. At one time elitism signified discernment and high-mindedness, quality over quantity as it were. Today there is a nasty whiff about it.

Our political and chattering classes abhor elitism. Say anything against Mayawati and it is anti-Dalit. Talk about art and you are condemned as a snob. Politicians are constantly looking to level the playing field in education, not by raising the standards of all schools and colleges but to bring down the quality of the few elite institutions we have.

This is not limited to India; the world over there is a suspicion of the intellectual elite, which is accused of holding the keys to the doors of knowledge.

It was not until the internet became popular that the balance of power began shifting. The connectivity of millions of computers full of information and the ability to disseminate it was a revolution. Anyone could now freely express their views on the net and become an author and publisher. There was no need for intermediaries like editors or publishers.

Blogs sprang up by the millions, then Twitter came and the net was alive with a billion viewpoints. Didn't like a movie? Let the world know. Think politicians suck? Have your say. Feel a short story bubbling within? Self-publish it on the web. People thumbed their noses at MSM (mainstream media), the geek insult for the press and its 'elitist' attitudes.

The zenith of net-led democracy came with Wikipedia, the people's encyclopaedia which would allow all of us, nerds, geeks, and other ordinary folks included, to contribute to a huge database which would then become the ultimate info resource.

It was an inspired idea and thousands of wikigeeks sprang up overnight, writing about everything from the Second World War to astronomy to their favourite neighbourhood cafe which anyone could add to, subtract from, or just read for reference.

Lazy students and journalists used it for research and, in time, "I read it on Wikipedia" came to mean that the information was authentic, authoritative, and thus could not be contradicted. This was democracy at its finest — the levers of knowledge in the hands of the people instead of the scholars.

But this mayhem couldn't last. Last month a researcher found that editors to Wikipedia are decreasing. The editors are people who filter information and clear it for publication on the site. Somewhere along the way, someone discovered that often Wikipedia entries were false and, worse, contentious.

How can you write 'factually' about the Middle East problem or, for that matter, India and Pakistan? The anything-goes model had quietly been replaced by several stages of clearance before it was posted on the site and the whole process became bureaucratic and time-consuming.

Old-timers say that often contributors now spend hours researching arcane facts to ensure authenticity. Wikiwars have broken out; there are 'vandals' who ensure that only one point of view gets prominence. A commentator in the magazine National Review wrote how instead of giving a broad range of opinion on climate change, Wikipedia was overtaken by upholders of the "Gore-UN consensus, a consensus forged by censorship, intimidation, and deceit". In short, my way or the highway.

Now analysts are beginning to ask if this spells the eventual end of the social networking model. If there are going to be the same processes as those in the hated MSM (boring editors and fact-checkers), then what is the point? Whatever happened to the anarchic world of the net? Nothing; the real world caught up.

What we call elitism also means a separation of the knowledgeable from the rest. This is not anti-democratic; just a way to ensure that each and every opinion cannot have the same value. A Tower of Babel is not the way to have a reasoned debate.

Let a million Wiki entries bloom, but when you want authenticity or a considered, scholarly opinion, the musty old Encyclopaedia Britannica might be a better bet.