I just today learned about an organization called SourceWatch–they have an article on the tobacco connections of the well-known sociologist Peter Berger. Beyond the inherent interest of the topic, I was fascinated by the way that the Sourcewatch webpage mimicked Wikipedia:
This is a smart move, I think: for better or worse, Wikipedia is generally considered to be authoritative.
But then I was thinking . . . is this the beginning of the end for Wikipedia. I don’t know anything about Sourcewatch, if they’re good guys or bad guys or whatever–but if they can mimic Wikipedia, I’m sure lots of other organizations could do so too. And, when they do it, all of a sudden there will be a lot of authoritative-looking Wikipedia-like pages floating around, a sort of counterfeit money devaluing the “real” ‘pedia, which will then have to respond by branding itself–“100% real Wikipedia, accept no imitations”–and so on. Not a bad thing, perhaps, but not what we have now.