BuzzMachine

In 2005, I suggested that an old-style publisher’s response to the crowdsourced publishing of Wikipedia should be to create a vetted version of it, to add value and publish the thing. Fred Wilson called it the Red Hat Wikipedia. I called it the Ãœberpedia.

Well, that’s just what is happening to the German Wikipedia thanks to Bertelsmann.

The idea is to use Wikipedia to capture the zeitgeist by selecting the most popular entries, Beate Varnhorn, the editor in charge of Bertelsmann’s reference works, said in an interview by telephone. “We think of it as an encyclopedic yearbook,” Dr. Varnhorn said, leaving open the possibility of new editions if the 2008 version is successful. . . .

Yet Bertelsmann says the project should not be judged as a re-creation in book form of what appears online, but rather as an attempt to harness the collective wisdom of Wikipedia’s users. “Most of the key words are related to current discussions,” Dr. Varnhorn said, whether the subject is the French first lady, Carla Sarkozy, “or a German best seller, a successful TV show or new electronic products — all key words you normally don’t find in a traditional encyclopedia.” . . .

Bertelsmann had a staff of 10 condense and verify the material found online, particularly the “most risky articles,” though Dr. Varnhorn spoke with respect of the amateur writers and editors on the site. “You find errors in the German Wikipedia, but they really try to keep errors as far away as possible.”

The material on the Wikipedia site can be used free under the terms of a license that, among other things, requires crediting Wikipedia as the source. Bertelsmann agreed to pay one euro per copy sold for use of the Wikipedia name, which will help support the site’s operation, according to Mr. Klempert.

But he added: “It is not about the money. It is a very good example of the power of free knowledge, so anyone is free to use the content and do interesting things with it. It’s a nice experiment to see if the Wikipedia content is good enough to sell books.”

Steve Rubel takes a list of the top 100 advertisers and then sees where Wikipedia articles about them come up in Google search results. Not surprisingly — once you think about it — these open articles come up high, in many cases in the first page of Google results. That is to say that these advertisers, who spend billions on their brands, are subject to the open judgments of the public. Of course, they have always been subject to the views of their customers — what is a brand but that? — only the internet and Wikipedia allow them to come together and share those views without commercial filters.

Steve cautions companies to be aware of what these articles say but not to try to manipulate them. Amen.

Someone just told me about a company that was planning to write a Wikipedia article about its ad slogan. I won’t say which company in hopes that they listened to the friendly and firm advice I gave to the person who told me about this: It is evil and stupid.

Life is spam.

: By the way, I note that my tag page for Dell comes up 11th on the Google search, on the second page. I’m glad it’s the tag page, versus just one post, for it includes the more positive things I have said about Dell lately; it is a fuller and more balanced view. This is a benefit of tag pages ending up as permalinks for topics. More tag magic.

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, and Dale Hoiberg, editor-in-chief of Encyclopedia Britannica, engage in an entertaining smackdown over at the Wall Street Journal. I give the match to Wales. Let’s go to the videotape:

Mr. Hoiberg: No, we don’t publish rough drafts. We want our articles to be correct before they are published. We stand behind our process, based on trained editors and fact-checkers, more than 4,000 experts, and sound writing. Our model works well. Wikipedia is very different, but nothing in their model suggests we should change what we do.

Mr. Wales: Fitting words for an epitaph…

But it’s a shame we’re not past this us-v-them narrative in the worlds of Wikipedia, encyclopedias, and shared knowledge. Newspapers are finally starting — just starting — to figure out how to work together. How should the publishers and the people in this world work together?

Sometime ago, I suggested that if I were a publisher, I’d piggyback onto Wikipedia and put effort into vetting articles there in what Fred Wilson called the Redhat version of Wikipedia.

If I were a reference publisher, a library association, a university, a media company, or a foundation, I’d take Wikipedia as raw material and vet entries, perhaps even charging for the service: On demand or on the basis of traffic and links, I’d go in and vet already-written pieces and bless that version of it. Then maybe I’d publish a book from it. Subsequent changes would be unvetted until and unless I chose to or the audience asked me to review them.

So that’s what I would do starting from Wikipedia. Britannica could use the work of Wikipedia and its experts to create the world’s largest vetted encyclopedia. If only it opened itself up to the possibilities.

And starting from Britannica? Well, they could put up the encyclopedia as a wiki and invite people to correct it, add to it, to propose articles that aren’t there but ought to be. They could turn it into something the community cares about, instead of merely buys.

Or they could just keep being pissy.

(Link fixed now)

Jimmy Wales says Wikipedia may accept advertising. I think it’s a good idea. Some will have a kneejerk response against filthy lucre. But I say the right question is: What could those resources buy? The full Times of London interview with Jimbo here.

Dana Boyd has a wonderful post bringing perspective and sanity to the recent discussion about wikipedia… and about judging the fruits of interactivity in context.

A few weeks ago, I suggested that publishers, associations, experts and others should vet articles in Wikipedia and in essence create blessed versions of the open-source wealth of knowledge there. At the time, Fred Wilson called it the Red Hat Wikipedia. Now David Weinberger and Wikipedian SJ Klein sing the refrain:

Anyone could certify particular versions of particular articles as reliable. I could, you could, the American Association of Pediatrics could, because this doesn’t have to happen on the Wikipedia site. Dozens (hundreds?) of other sites already take Wikipedia’s content as their own, under Wikipedia’s Creative Commons license. So, why not encourage various authorities (personal or institutional) to create their own seals of Good Wiki Keeping, publishing a virtual slice through Wikipedia….

Not to mention that it would be a perfect example for my book about how knowledge is becoming miscellanized, and reclustered using different organizational principles.

There’s regularly wringing of hands over something wrong — or worse, poisoned — at Wikipedia. Where some see a problem, I see an opportunity:

If I were a reference publisher, a library association, a university, a media company, or a foundation, I’d take Wikipedia as raw material and vet entries, perhaps even charging for the service: On demand or on the basis of traffic and links, I’d go in and vet already-written pieces and bless that version of it. Then maybe I’d publish a book from it. Subsequent changes would be unvetted until and unless I chose to or the audience asked me to review them. If a piece just simply isn’t up to snuff, I’d put it on a gray list, which I’d also make available not only as a warning (that’s seeing the problem again) but as a challenge to Wikipedians to improve the piece and make the grade (that’s the opportunity). And if the public sees a piece that is haunted by inaccuracy or, worse, is manipulated for someone’s agenda, then they can post a public warning as well. And, of course, I don’t have to do all this just with staff. I can also vet Wikipedians or others so that when they review a piece and bless it, so we can consider it blessed. And if there’s any money in this, I share it with them. In short, I’d create a superstructure of known, proven editors and researchers not to replace a single thing about Wikipedia today but to add value on top of it.

I agree with Dave Winer that “we need to determine what authority means in the age of Internet scholarship.” And I agree with Rex that Wikipedia itself must remain as open as it is today and that we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater when one error or one Wikipedian in need of meds is found. The vast — and dynamic — resource that Wikipedia has become is invaluable and the vast majority of what is in there is quite useful. What we need is mostly a pressure-relief valve for these complaints and reputed scandals that inevitably emerge.

Now that I think of it, this might have been a nice business model for the shrinking Britannica. It might still be.

: UPDATE: Fred Wilson calls this the Redhat version of Wikipedia.