Commentary

A Few Thoughts On Trump, Wikipedia -- And The Perfect Pour

If you’re looking for a sign of the times, there might be none more representative than Donald Trump’s Wikipedia page. According to a recent article in Slate, it’s one of the most popular pages on the Internet. It’s also one of the most updated. The article states that the page has had more than 28,000 edits since its launch in 2004.

The trick -- of course -- is taking something, or someone, as polarizing as Trump and trying to adhere to Wikipedia’s mission to “to accurately convey reliable information in a dispassionate, neutral tone.”

Slate’s behind-the-scenes look at the ongoing editorial battle to come within spitting distance of this goal is fascinating reading. How do you stay accurate and reliable when trying to navigate through the real-time storm of bombast and hyperbole that typically surrounds the 45th president of the United States? How timely can you be? How timely should you be? One Wikipedia editor noted, ““This is an encyclopedia. We are not in competition with newspapers for readership, so there is no rush to print."

advertisement

advertisement

But we actually are in a rush. We expect online to equal real time. We have no patience for outdated information -- or outdated anything, for that matter. And that introduces a conundrum when we refer to the current POTUS. 

Say what you want about Trump, but he does generate a lot of froth. And froth needs time to settle. Just ask the brewers of Guinness.

Something called “The Settle” is step 4 of the perfect Guinness pour. According to the brewers, the precise time for The Settle is 119.53 seconds. I’m not sure what happens if you miscalculate and only allow, say, 119.47 seconds. I’m not aware of any grievous injuries caused by a mistimed settle. But I digress. The point is that The Settle is required to avoid drinking nothing but foam. See how I brought that around to my original point?

You may debate the veracity of The Settle when it comes to a glass of stout, but I believe the idea has merit when it comes to dealing with the deluge of information with which we’re bombarded daily. According to Guinness, the whole point of The Settle is to get the right balance of aromatic “head” and malty liquid when you actually take a drink. Balance is important in beer. It’s also important in information. We need less froth and more substance in our daily media diet.

Why is more time important in our consumption of information? It’s because it gives emotions time to dissipate. Emotions mixed in with information is like gas mixed in with beer. You want a little, but not a lot. You want emotions to color rational thought, not dominate it. And when information is digested too soon, the balance between emotions and logic is all out of whack.

Emotional thought has to be on a hair trigger. It’s how we’re built. Emotions get us out of sticky situations -- but they also tend to flood out ration and logic.

Emotions and logic live in two very different parts of the brain. In a complex age where we need to be more thoughtful, emotional reactions are counterproductive. Yet our current media environment is built to cater exclusively to our emotional side, with no time for The Settle. We jump from frothy sip to sip, without ever taking the time to get to the substance of the story.

Again, to use Trump’s Wikipedia example, after Trump’s 2018 Helsinki Summit with Vladimir Putin, there was plenty of media coverage generated that was trying to force its way into his entry. It ranged from his behavior being “a serious mistake” to "treasonous” and a “disgraceful performance.”

But with the benefit of a little time, one Wiki editor noted, “Let’s not play the ‘promote the most ridiculous comments’ game that the media appears to be playing. Approximately nothing new happened, but there are plenty of ‘former government officials’ willing to give hyperbolic quotes on Twitter.”

It's amazing what a little time can do for perspective. Let’s start with -- say -- 119.53 seconds.
Next story loading loading..