On a more philosophical note, what source of information and knowledge does have ‘legitimacy’ and how would you define it? To me, wikipedia with it’s checks and balances (imperfect but functioning) is still closer to the way real knowledge emerges than the Encyclopedia Britannica or other top down system. That it is harder to digest and comprehend does not mean that it is not credible and legitimate.

Sometimes I think the whole issue of ‘legitimacy’ is a shortcut for those who do not want to use their own judgement and cry for an easy solution to learning …

Obviously, there is such a thing as authority and credibility but I’d rather have that emerge in a flexible context such as wikipedia than in a rigid, imposed system of ‘objective’ handed-down knowledge. Which doesn’t work anyway…

Adriana Cronin-Lukas points to a CNET piece about the recent Wikipedia incident. If we assume that the Wikipedia model isn’t going away, then we’re all going to have to assume a lot more personal, and active, responsibility for checking how