Wikipedia Jazz

[jtx]

It appears that the Wikipedia article for "Jazz" has generated quite a bit of debate over the last several years. It also illustrates the complexity of having an online information resource that is editable by the public, not to mention by passionate partisans. And perhaps it also underscores the risks inherent in a single article being viewed as authoritative by many across the Internet, including news organizations.

Have a look at the discussion thread: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AJazz

The overview of topics is here:

1 Modern Jazz?
2 Problems with Lede
3 A Serious Proposal to Deal with Problems with the Lede
4 john altman - jazz musician
5 Jazz Fusion
6 Race
___6.1 On Race (responding to above discussion) -- and spirituality and politics in Black jazz
7 Major Omissions
8 Music and Society
9 please consider a jazz website to link to
10 Merger of List of jazz standards
11 Historical opposition to jazz by conservatives
12 Lester Young not a bebop musician
13 Incorporating a few of the Jazz sub genres listed as "Fusion genres" into the main article.
14 The "Etymology of Jazz" section seems cramed in.
___14.1 Screw it I changed it anyway
15 Recent history
16 Acid jazz, nu jazz & jazz rap
17 Arthur Taylor quotation
18 Edit to "Smooth Jazz"
19 M-Base
___19.1 Redux, March 2011
20 Recent changes to lede
21 Modern Creative
22 Placement of Art Blakey quote in lead section of the article
23 African Influence
24 Jazz is the African version of European music
25 Jazzbox
___25.1 Derivatives, Subgenres, Fusion genres...
___25.2 Replaced with Infobox music genre
26 Proposal to delete section "Modal jazz"
27 Usage of the word "genre"
28 jazz based on European music theory and techniques
29 Jazz Born Out of The African American Experience
30 Early recording example
31 Free jazz as latin fusion?
32 no WP article on Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians
33 Recent changes to cited content
34 Earl Hines documentary
35 Un-Encyclopedic content
36 Proposed merge with White jazz
37 Mandy Make Up Your Mind
38 Request pending changes protection?
39 Louis Armstrong's fingers have been changed into ape's ones?
40 Split off History section? (again)

Anyone interested in adding their take on "Jazz" to this article?

[bluenoter]

It also illustrates the complexity of having an online information resource that is editable by the public, not to mention by passionate partisans.

I was so disgusted by the bad behavior, in various forms, of many of the "Talkers" that I had to split without having attended to the past, present, or potential content of Wikipedia's Jazz article.