A list of the most visited pages on Wikipedia for August [seems to be down right now] elicits some snide comments from Nicholas Carr.

Actually what surprises me about that list is not that it is saturated with porniness, but that it is not all porn. Things like top query lists and most popular blog posts are typically all porn at the head of the distribution. Why should Wikipedia be any different? At least they keep their porn moderately chaste. The list is also an interesting cross-section of global pop culture. Though I am really wondering why Irukandji jellyfish made the list. Surely not because of this guy–not that many IDM fans out there. Is this Steve Irwin’s doing?

But I was impressed to see that Hurricane Katrina and Pluto made it so high. These are complicated events (not equally important, just both complicated) for which people looked to Wikipedia for understanding. I think Wikipedia could excel in this area–these events are too recent to be covered adequately in traditional references like encyclopedias, but too complex to be adequately covered by the news media.

Where Carr sees evidence of failure, I see hope for the future. I think because I am basically misanthropic, I am pleasantly surprised when people exceed my very low expectations of human behavior.

I am very interested to see how the Wikipedia develops more tools like this which surface patterns of usage, and how the patterns made visible affect the behavior of the Wikipedia editors. Will they become obsessed with formally defining (and then quickly hunting down with automated tools) “sub-standard” contributions?