There is a far greater and more insidious threat to Wikipedia than simple character assassination or falsehood. It can broadly be labelled “infomercial content” (i.e. content that purports to be informative but has a commercial bias). A good example is the entry on Barcelona (Spain). The whole article reads like a tourist brochure and any reference to the city’s pollution problems is swiftly removed by an army of self-appointed censors. There are strong indications that the Barcelona Tourist Board (or its army of acolytes) has effectively hijacked the site. This kind of thing is going to become more prevalent as Wikipedia becomes better known. Basically, there is nothing that can be done to stop this corporate take-over of Wikipedia without editorial control yet such control runs counter to the whole Wiki ethos.

The idea that “a community of users” is going to apply some common sense criteria regarding content is a mistaken one. In the case of the Barcelona entry, the influence of Catalan/Spanish speakers on both content and style is all too evident. The locals seem eager to “sell” their city to the wider world and to show off their appalling English. Wikipedia not only lacks the control mechanisms to stop them, it also wilfully fails to recognize it has a serious problem.

I simply meant to convey that a man who asks for accuracy and truth shouldn’t make inaccurate and “less than the whole truth” statements using words like never and any.

You say Wikipedia cannot be trusted. Your argument suggests it cannot be trusted “implicitly.” No argument. But I see value in the product.

“Wikipedia.. can NEVER be trusted for any kind of reference” ??

That’s not accurate and that’s not truth. I just looked up Max Plank and found some references I am pretty sure are trustworthy. One example is all it takes to prove a “never” and “any” statement inaccurate.

Lauren, I agree with the statement that Wikipedia con not be trusted, and here’s why:

1) The article you looked up was a topic that you cared to know about and verify its correct nature.

2)Assuming that you nothing about this topic, what if you went, say, the Ohio Wesleyan University (Delaware, Ohio) article. Is it correct? Or is it what an alumnus wants people to think of the college he attended? What about the primary source material added to the article but was erased bacuse the article protector stated “This isn’t included on the OWU web site, so its something that OWU doesn’t feel is important.” What then? What happens when a wikipedian is attacked by sockpuppets for trying to stand up for what is truth over what is propaganda

3) Wikiepdia is like a shell game. Under one of the shells is an article that contains true information. The only way that you can know which article is true (for the moment) is unveil the ball However the perception is that the true information could be under any of the shells, but the majority of people won’t get that ball on the first shot because the odds are aginst them.

4) If one article incorrect at a point in time, could there be fifty more? 1,000? 12,000? Does even Wikipedia have any idea how many articles are correct or incorrect at a given time?

5) What if the article did contain correct information, but it had been replaced by a variety of editors with information that appears plausible. If you know nothing about it, how would you know to scan all the edits?

6) Wikipedia has rules - lots and lots of them. But while it says there is a code of conduct, its actually rather anarchist environment, with Admins get involved when they feel its needed.

What makes Wikipedia unreliable is that it can not be controlled. There are too many points at which correct material can be adjusted, edited, purged, spun, etc. In theory, its a great idea, in practice there is simply no way to guarentee its accuracy unless you’re willing to play Wikipedia-roulette. Wikipedia is simply the ubber-dysfunctional Vanity page on the http://WWW.

laurence haughton Says:

December 4th, 2005 at 5:59 pm
“Wikipedia.. can NEVER be trusted for any kind of reference” ??

That’s not accurate and that’s not truth. I just looked up Max Plank and found some references I am pretty sure are trustworthy. One example is all it takes to prove a “never” and “any” statement inaccurate.

Lauren, I agree with the statement that Wikipedia con not be trusted, and here’s why:
1) The article you looked up was a topic that you cared to know about and verify its correct nature.

2)Assuming that you nothing about this topic, what if you went, say, the Ohio Weslyan University (Delaware, Ohio) article. Is it correct? Or is it what an alumnus wants people to think of the college he attended? What about the primary source material added to the article but was erased bacuse the article protector stated “This isn’t included on the OWU web site, so its something that OWU doesn’t feel is important.” What then?

3) Wikiepdia is like a shell game. Under one of the shells is an article that contains true information. The only way that you can know which article is true (for the moment) is unveil the ball However the perception is that the true information could be under any of the shells, but the majority of people won’t get that ball on the first shot because the odds are aginst them.

4) If one article incorrect at a point in time, could there be fifty more? 1,000? 12,000? Does even Wikipedia have any idea how many articles are correct or incorrect at a given time?

5) What if the article did contain correct information, but it had been replaced by a variety of editors with information that appears plausible. If you know nothing about it, how would you know to scan all the edits?

What makes Wikipedia unreliable is that there are too many points at which sorrect material can be adjusted, edited, purged, spun, etc. In theory, its a great idea, in practice there is simply no way to guarentee its accuracy unless you’re willing to play Wikipedia-roulette. Wikipedia is simply the ubber-dysfunctional Vanity page on the http://WWW.

http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=174900789

Call the first part, say, “the official entry”, posted by the editors/admin-personnel at Wikipedia, and subject to modification upon the discovery of errors.

Call the second part, say, “contributions by readers”, with each contributor allowed a space (and only one space, to avoid duplicate entries) to make contributions.

This way, folks can contribute what they like, and have their contributions seen by the public, but their contributions will be seen as unofficial until Wikipedia’s admininstrators/editors have a chance to vet the contributions and compose or modify an official entry.

My two cents’ worth…..

No, no, no, absolutely not. Jeff’s idea isn’t to improve wikipedia (that is, onsite wikipedia, the original wikipedia) — it’s to have outside organizations cherrypick only a few articles, vet them, and publish them elsewhere (perhaps the original article could gain a notice pointing to the version that was blessed, but this isn’t a part of the idea).

To put it another way, the idea isn’t for the outside world to improve wikipedia; it’s for wikipedia to improve the outside world (by providing a free base to build off of).

As you describe, wikipedia by nature is a free-for-all that generally exemplifies the goodness of people. I’d have given you an a+!

By nature of the wikipedia non-structure, ocassionally someone will come in and spraypaint their intitals — or in your case, one will tangle with a co-author until one person gives way.

On the flip side, as you say, people are not generally aware they can fix thing if they see something wrong! If more people knew they could change wiki stuff, you’d probably even find more graffiti! So, I’m not 100% sure I agree that as more people understand the non-structure, the more good articles there will be. I think that “graffiti” would also increase. Certianly there will be a proportional increase in “good” articles.

Perhaps it is inherent in the wikipedia-non-structure that the content will only be able to come up to a certian level of coolness before a critical mass occurs between the goodness people and the grafitti people .

It’s fascinating actually.

I am totally not smart enough to help unfortunately. Maybe what you need is a game theory guy to figure it out!

( ex:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium )

Best,
-janice

My example: I was working for some weeks on an biographical article in Wiki. I didn’t do much else except some editing of wording or misspelling. The subject of the article is a guy that had his time of fame some years ago, but isn’t really in the public focus anymore. Turned out that there were only two people really working on that article, me and another guy who had a totally different point of view. We were fighting for every single detail, I wanted to add more background on the professional history of the subject, he objected. He wanted to insert more quotes from a website specialized on the topic, I was against it because it was a one sided source. What started as an enthusiastic adventure in creating wiki content soon became hard, frustrating work. Eventually I pulled out because I needed a break.

What I want to say is: What do you think what rating I would have got for my work? This other guy seemed to be involved in some other topics, too, so he may have got some positive reviews from others, but I was participating only at this article and who else really could have evaluated my efforts? Imho it would be very difficult to create a rating system that would be objective and not be unfair against new members.

Actually, it is very surprising how many informative articles are in wikipedia. And there would be even less bad articles in it if more people would understand how it works and tried to participate. Just take that story about the journalist who was smeared as involved in the JFK assasination.

As far as I remember, the manipulation was first noticed in spring, then the top brass of Wiki was notified, they responded that users would change that soon, and yet it took several months until something happened. Sure, this doesn’t look good for surfers unfamilar with Wiki. But why, oh why, hasn’t the journalist himself or some of the several people who told him about the smearpiece immediately deleted or edited the article? You know, that’s what Wiki is about, you see an error, you correct it. If the whole article is a piece of s***, you can delete every single line. You don’t have to log in, you don’t need any special software, you click ‘edit’ and do it!

What happened to the american spirit of ‘can do’ if people can’t even afford one minute anymore to do the right thing! Instead this bad joke of an article lingered in Wiki for several months and people started complaining about the Wiki creators. Great idea, really, if an american today sees a piece of paper with his picture and an unfriendly remark at a lamppost on the street, I guess he won’t just tear it down any more, he will go complaining to the mayor. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want to blame the victim here, but this is an outstanding example that many internet users don’t understand Wiki, not even the most basic procedures.

So imho the democratic system of Wiki could work, but there are more honest users needed to counter the bunch of vandalists. I think this is the only way for Wiki to work, not adding a complex bureaucratic system in top of it. Pls check it out for yourself before you offer any ’simple’ solutions!

A live “rate the authors” system. A contributor rating system.
People can vote for you. Hit a certian level and you’re a god, or –hit a certian level and your a toad.

Or a community content rating: Was this helpful? Did this answer your question?

caveat: I have no idea how author management works or if there is any. If there isn’t - there is no way to manage authors, which is maybe why you guys are talking content rating?!

WIKIPINION! heh.
-j

What are facts — and what are meanings? I think PJ Media needs more editors, too. But good editing will prolly cost some money — though using cheap PhD candidates (like so many academic Profs do) is a wise move, too.

Executing the right creative is critical in blog advertising because traditional ads simply do not work. This was discussed last week when I sat on an Ad:Tech panel. I’ve been meaning to discuss blog advertising for some time, and this provides the op…

Btw, Wiki tries to raise revenue (for the servers) not only by fundraising but by selling CDs (books are so 19th century) and other stuff. There are editors (Admins) and users that care for a special article. There are several kind of ‘gray’ (Freud? ggg) lists in the form of ‘Stubs’ (new entries that still need some work), disputed NPOVs (neutral point of view), articles under discussion (readonly) and articles on the deletion list and maybe some more that I don’t know.

There are problems, but a solution isn’t as easy as you seem to think. Did you ever participate in working at an article? I did, though I only scratched the surface of Wiki. To propose changes that would really improve Wikipedia you need to know a lot more about the philosophy and procedures.

Jorge: But, you see, you say that but you yourself give no evidence to back up what you’re saying and don’t give your own name. Could be a double negative, eh?

Wikipedia is not one monolithic thing. It is the collection of the work of many people. Some are better than others, more accurate than others, fairer than others; some need meds, as is always the case online… and in life. Wikipedia has its Jayson Blairs but then, so did the New York Times.

That’s not accurate and that’s not truth. I just looked up Max Plank and found some references I am pretty sure are trustworthy. One example is all it takes to prove a “never” and “any” statement inaccurate.