Wikipedia and beyond.

• Author: Rosenschein, Bob
• Position: Letters - Letter to the editor

Initially I was irritated by the statement in "Wikipedia and Beyond" (June) that "Answers.com is composed almost entirely of Wikipedia content reposted with ads." After all, we've licensed and integrated 179 other dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias, and almanacs besides Wikipedia. More than 2.5 million non-Wikipedia entries. Why the unfair stereotype and put-down?

But I figured it out! In his landmark Structure @Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn wrote how every scientific revolution naturally starts with revolutionary ideologues--fanatics, if you will. They are required to negate established wisdom in order to make their point.

So it is with user-generated content, wikis, and maybe open source in general. Its proponents must knock professionally developed editorial content. That's the point. Journalists are human and thrive on this polemic. When the dust and pendulum settle, the...