[jameslk]

I recall a similar argument made about why encyclopedias written by paid academics and experts were better than some randos editing Wikipedia. They’re probably still right about that but Wikipedia won for reasons beyond purely being another encyclopedia. And it didn’t turn out too bad as an encyclopedia either

[xg15]

Yeah, but that act of "winning" was only possible because Wikipedia raised its own standard by a lot and reined in the randos - by insisting on citing reliable sources, no original research, setting up a whole system of moderators and governance to determine what even counts as a "reliable source" etc.