I just spent some time cruising around Wikipedia and Flu Wiki. While I tend to get very cynical when I read the political stuff, I'm feeling a little verklempt about the wiki stuff. It's seems like a world motivated by mostly "pure" intentions. When I consider the time and energy it takes to maintain a site like that, and to think that people do it for no other reason than a desire to pass along info...well, I am moved.
Look at Flu Wiki. From what I can see, its purpose is to inform and motivate. While motivating is "political" in some sense, the whole import of the wiki sites is different than other sites (are these blogs??), especially when they are contrasted with the Salon-type stuff.
I'm going to challenge myself, however, to suspend my cynicism and disbelief as I look through Salon and the other blogs this week. (Per Brett, is Salon not a blog? There does seem to be some bloggin' goin' on). Maybe my prejudices are preventing me from seeing how useful blogs can be. After all, they are everywhere, so they must be accomplishing something more than the dissemination of gossip and the creation of interest for interest's sake, right?
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I agree that wikis do seem like a utopia, but my only problem is that a utopia needs to have every citizen accepting it. My fear is that wikis will become very proprietary, kind of like electronic bulletin boards in the nineties.
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