[MD] Wikipedia, Social Negotiation and Meaning

[Michael Poloukhine]

> For example, did you choose MW as your authority after you read it and
> determined it was in agreement with your views? Did I do the same? 
MP: In point of fact, *I* didn't choose MW, the wikipedia referenced footnote 
used it to explain why they used "deity" even where MW did not. That MW used 
the same definition I had been using from several other sources was just a 
bonus. :-)

Ultimately, there needs to be an authority that decrees a definition to be 
"accepted" (at least for the time being.) That authority *might* be achieved 
through an authority of consensus, but more often consensus cannot be 
reached. At which point an figurative authority (a person or a pre-selected 
group, with its own final personal authority) needs to step in and settle the 
discourse for this moment. The point of definitions is to have accepted meaning 
that behaves in a constant manner to allow for dialog to use that "brick" to build 
with. 

A place like wikipedia can't figure out if its dialog or authority. That's its real 
problem. One cannot be both.
MP
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"Don't believe everything you think."