people are in my experience pretty well innoculised against the appeal to authority trap that Wikipedia creates
I am afraid that many people, for example journalists, are not. In my experience, they quote Wikipedia and each other without hesitation.
This is how citogenesis happens: First David Gerard writes something on RationalWiki. Then a random journalist finds it and writes about it in an article. Then another journalist finds it in RationalWiki and the article, and writes about it in another article. Then more journalists join. Then David Gerard makes sure all these articles are linked from the Wikipedia page as “reliable sources”, and that all other non-essential information about LessWrong is removed. Then more journalists find it in Wikipedia and other articles, etc.
And then, I am afraid that even people who generally take Wikipedia with a grain of salt will go: “Come on, Wikipedia says X, RationalWiki says X, Newspaper1 says X, Newspaper2 says X, Newspaper3 says X-… Newspaper99 says X—now either this is a huge world-wide conspiracy against Less Wrong, or Less Wrong really is an evil cult of neoreactionary basilisk worshippers… and I don’t really believe in worldwide conspiracies against a website no one really cares about”.
Unfortunately, PR works, and we have some dedicated anti-PR volunteers. Maybe just two of them, but at least one of them knows how to start an avalanche, and is working on this for years. (Yeah, some people should get a life. Unfortunately, this is not my decision to make.)
I am afraid that many people, for example journalists, are not. In my experience, they quote Wikipedia and each other without hesitation.
This is how citogenesis happens: First David Gerard writes something on RationalWiki. Then a random journalist finds it and writes about it in an article. Then another journalist finds it in RationalWiki and the article, and writes about it in another article. Then more journalists join. Then David Gerard makes sure all these articles are linked from the Wikipedia page as “reliable sources”, and that all other non-essential information about LessWrong is removed. Then more journalists find it in Wikipedia and other articles, etc.
And then, I am afraid that even people who generally take Wikipedia with a grain of salt will go: “Come on, Wikipedia says X, RationalWiki says X, Newspaper1 says X, Newspaper2 says X, Newspaper3 says X-… Newspaper99 says X—now either this is a huge world-wide conspiracy against Less Wrong, or Less Wrong really is an evil cult of neoreactionary basilisk worshippers… and I don’t really believe in worldwide conspiracies against a website no one really cares about”.
Unfortunately, PR works, and we have some dedicated anti-PR volunteers. Maybe just two of them, but at least one of them knows how to start an avalanche, and is working on this for years. (Yeah, some people should get a life. Unfortunately, this is not my decision to make.)