The great Wikipedia debate

Nick Carr and Wikipedia man Jimmy Wales, along with a few other contributors, debate Nick's assertion that Wikipedia as the embodiment of the democratization of publishing is dead. Wales calls Nick's death pronouncement a "staggeringly bizarre argument."  Nick wrote that Wikipedia "died the way the pure products of idealism always do, slowly and quietly and largely in secret, through the corrosive process of compromise."

The reality is that civilizing Wikipedia includes constraints and compromises, just like right here in America, which is often referred to as a democracy...and it is clearly more so than other societies. Wikipedia, made by humans, is a reflection of a struggle to reach a largely unattainable ideal, but it's not a failed or doomed struggle. It is just an ongoing stuggle, an experiment in collective publishing. The fact that Wikipedia is accumulating more structure and policies, a civil policing, is the core group of pioneers trying to tame the wild frontier. The question is whether they are making good or decent compromises...

See also: Mitch Ratcliffe's treatise on the topic