Wikipedia’s great experiment: Finding a definition of “happiness” we can all agree on
It’s not all juvenile, though. A sort of ideological war begins in Oct. 2007, between editors with different ideas about which school of thought should be considered most important on the subject of happiness. Within just three edits, the page starts out with the Greek concept of eudaimonia (usually translated as “flourishing”); then it changes to the Buddhist “eightfold path“; and finally, to biological measures of well-being. This is one of the earliest instances of further disagreements over how “scientific” the happiness page should be—whether it should emphasize philosophical and religious definitions or more quantitative ones.
AT LAST, some serious analysis of an article's messy edit history. Even academic papers about Wikipedia rarely do this.
Ohh, then an "expert editor" shows up and isn't banned. And actually improves the article. A miracle.
It is at points like these that Wikipedia’s model of ever-changing, Socratic definitions shows both its strengths and weaknesses. The new additions have made the definition worse. It is now confusing, unclear, and mostly serves to reject any definition at all. If the page had been written by a one intelligent person, it’s likely these additions wouldn’t have been included.
But because the definition is dynamic, no mistake is permanent. Progress finally comes from the user DoctorW, whose username, he says on his Wikipedia page, “references his PhD in developmental psychology.” DoctorW has made over 20 significant edits to the Happiness page. He deletes the throwaway sentence about “activities and objects one may enjoy,” and reduces the importance of the “synonymous” line by putting it parentheses. DoctorW also explains his actions by commenting on the change, “Removed statement which adds nothing.”
Lol:
And that is the definition as it stands today. The page continues to be dynamic, but the introduction has not changed in nearly a year. That is in no small part because the page was given “semi-protected” status in 2011, which makes it impossible for unregistered or unconfirmed users from changing it. (Socrates would probably have approved of that, as he only ever argued with fellow aristocrats, and in The Republic, Plato warns against the dangers of giving the masses too much power.)
