Defending Wikipedia

I want to defend Wikipedia from the New Yorker, which had an article in last week's issue about the site. The article made the same basic criticism that everyone who does not use the site makes: that Wikipedia supports a dangerous and disconnected definition of truth.

Disconnected from whom? It can't be disconnected from the contributors, who submit themselves to infinite peer review. And it can't be disconnected from standard sources, because it requires that all facts be independently documented and verifiable. Wikipedia is only disconnected from pedigree: it doesn't matter who gets the facts, so long as they are right.

The Wikipedia model won't work for a lot of things: in most situations, power structures and reputations are entirely necessary. But a project that requires vast breadth and little depth, concentrating the power of knowledge into a few sources is inefficient. Old media needs to stop worrying: Wikipedia won't take over the world. But it would be cool if it did.