Argument nexus

A while ago I read a little article on wired that described wikipedia articles as argument nexus. The article itself is not that insightful, but that single idea has always been somewhat interesting to me. It’s certainly not the case with every article (Boron), but with many pop-culture or internet culture topics it does have some truth.

I was recently reminded of it looking at the article on Ann Althouse. A friend of mine is a fan of her’s, so it’s on my watchlist, but I’m not otherwise that involved. It turns out she was recently the subject of a controversy of some magnitude in the political blogosphere. The result of this controversy for wikipedia is that the article about her is now roughly twice the size. Supporters and detractors are arguing and editing, balancing each other out, and in the process staying fairly neutral. It’s interesting to watch the accretion occur, and hopefully after a period of time, it will stabilize back into a neutral, useful article.