Today is an important day: Wikipedia has decided to provide editorial review for selected entries---specifically, those having to do with living people. Democracy and pluralism---something of an information free-for-all---is being enhanced with a measure of centralized quality control.
Why is this important? Many of us have come to rely on Wikipedia, and other internet resources, as a quick source of information. For our kids it's the place to go for research. And articles in the magazines Nature and The Atlantic have found that Wikipedia goes head to head with the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica for accuracy.
So we should take note when the organizers of Wikipedia---let's call them what they are: publishers---decide that editors are important. It's something that all of us instinctively understand, (and try to teach our kids when they use the internet for research.) It's all about focus and about quality control.
Something we have come to take for granted in the print-based publishing world is editorial quality control. We associate certain newspapers (perhaps The New York Times, or the Chicago Tribune) with high reliability, while others traffic in celebrity gossip and sometimes reports of aliens landing in Hancock Park. Similarly, book publishers might be known for high-quality first novels, cutting edge science, or incisive political commentary. Or perhaps for right- or left-wing screeds.
They say that one doesn't want to know too much about how sausage is made. Aside from the trayfe nature of metaphor, it works for our information too. We need to be discerning users of information, of magazines, of digital media, and of books. And as educators we also need to be discerning on behalf of the children we teach. Who can we trust? How was the information developed? Who reviewed it for accuracy? Is it complete? That's what a good editor does. And, a good publisher hires a good editor.
In short, as Wikipedia is learning: who edited it?
