“It is a world in which every person on Earth has access to all the knowledge accumulated by mankind. That's what we're trying to create. As a huge fan of Wikipedia, as well as one of its many editors, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to watch this film. It will be discussed in my fifth review.
Truth in Numbers is a documentary project that tells us about the largest encyclopedia in the history of mankind. But why Vicky? What distinguishes it from other, paper, the same "Britanniki" or "Great Soviet Encyclopedia"? The fact that she's the biggest is yes. But the most important thing is that it is not written by any particular group of experts, but by all of us, Internet users. It can be edited by anyone. In order to write an article on Vicki, you do not need to be a scientist with a huge reputation and world renown. If you understand the topic and know the rules of the site – go ahead and with the song.
However, in this strong side of Vicki lies her main weakness. Since it can be edited by anyone, you can write anything and pass some nonsense off as scientific fact. “Should you and I share human knowledge with everyone, or should we leave it to experts?” Paper encyclopedia editors, historians, and writers argue why Wikipedia loses to classical encyclopedias. Among them is John Saigenthaler, a journalist and writer who was accused of murdering John F. Kennedy in an article on Vicky. Wikipedia stands up for its direct founder Jimbo Wales, as well as the editors of wiki articles from around the world.
I will say right away that each side has its own very well-founded arguments. Which of them to listen to, decide only the viewer. But since the title of the film claims that the truth in the numbers, try to address them:
So, at the time of writing this review (14.08.2013), Wikipedia contained 28,585,525 articles in 286 languages, of which 1,034,758 are in Russian. Total number of edits 1,649,282,890. The number of active participants is 276,692 of all nationalities, ages and religions. In terms of the amount of information and thematic coverage of Wikipedia is unparalleled, and you can not argue with this. (at the end of the film, figures are also given, only for April 20, 2010).
As I said above, everyone decides on whose side they are on. I'll explain why I'm on Jimbo's side:
No matter how much the film criticizes Vicki for the inaccuracy of data, for the wars of editors, for the fact that it can be written by people who do not understand the topic, as well as for the high probability of vandalism, all this is a trifle, if you take for granted only one fact - people are completely free, without any benefit to themselves, spend their time searching for information and adding it to the article. It's pure altruism. All of the above weaknesses can be easily corrected, again due to the openness of Vicki. Any error, unlike the same book, can be corrected in seconds without reprinting. If the merits of this encyclopedia were much less than the disadvantages, this system would very quickly collapse. Wikipedia has been around for more than 10 years and is not closing.
As for the film itself, I liked the musical design, the beautiful shots and the city panoramas, the animation that shows us how articles change when new information comes in (there is a video series in which the article about the terrorist attack gradually increases). It was nice to see Jimbo himself, a simple IT specialist who changed the world. In the course of the film, you can learn a lot more than just Wikipedia. Despite the fact that a significant part of it consists of discussions, they do not seem boring. Anyone who knows Vicki will be interested. The only thing that confused was the absence of Russian-language Wikipedians in the film.
And I will conclude my review with the words of one of the critics, who at the very end of the film was given a wiki article about his beloved:
“Everything is normal”
8 out of 10
I myself wrote about 30 articles in the Russian segment. I don’t know that many have written thousands of them. But I'm proud of my work, I'm happy to work for a common idea and be part of something bigger. It is always a pleasure to share what you have with all of humanity. Trying for posterity. :