> > > > > I would suggest that the critique rests on a highly questionable > > assumption, namely that if Wikipedia were not there people would pay > > journalists to write the stuff that Wikipedia provides. >
The way I'd look at it is that we're making the sharing of knowledge easier, which is a huge advantage to anyone in the creative or cultural industries, and means professional writers can spend their time doing things that are more interesting and rewarding than the pointless, duplicative donkey-work of re-researching what's already in an encyclopedia article. It is always possible to argue that innovation shouldn't happen because someone will lose their job. Along the same lines, one could argue that no-one should publish anything online because every page published online hurts the printers, papermakers and lumberjacks who rely on print for a living. But why stop there? Why print things at all? How many scribes and copyist were made redundant by the invention of the printing press? Think how much work there would be for scribes they would be getting by writing out, by hand, every single Wikipedia article any time anyone wanted to read one... Chris
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