Wikipedia to Restrict Creation of Articles

cine writes "News.com reports that starting Monday Wikipedia will restrict the creation of new articles to members. Anonymous users will only be able to edit existing articles. This move comes after a controversial week for the free online encyclopedia" From the article: "Wales said the Seigenthaler article not only escaped the notice of this corps of watchdogs, but it also became a kind of needle in a haystack: The page remained unchanged for so long because it wasn't linked to from any other Wikipedia articles, depriving it of traffic that might have led to closer scrutiny."

That's Okay

I was never the first to post an article anyway.

Is there a difference?

When it is so easy to create an account on wikipedia, how does this really affect anything? Banning anonymous article creation isn't suddenly going to make all articles interlinked, nor will it stop people from making pointless articles.

Re:Is there a difference?

"Anonymous" Wikipedia accounts are actually less anonymous than registered users. As an anonymous user, your IP is visible for tracking across the site and tracing to your physical location; but you have the ability to create as many username sockpuppets as you want.

As a formerly prolific contributor, I never really understood how registration was helpful for anything but tracking people who want to be tracked.

Not a problem.

But wasn't the Siegenthaler issue about an edit of his article, not creation?

In any case it's not that hard to register, and it's not hard to lie about your personal details. Nor is it hard to do this by proxy. So not quite a free-speech issue since prior to this your IP was published anyway. Thumbs up for a decent resolution.

Re:Who is Siegenthaler? Why is s/he important?

(Disclaimer: I'm a relatively active editor on Wikipedia, although under a different name than this.)

The article in question is right here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr [wikipedia.org].

And yes, the IP addresses of (anonymous) people doing page edits are logged and publicised; but that still doesn't mean that people can be held accountable. If all you know is that whoever wrote a particular sentence in an article that's considered libellous or something else is that they edited from an AOL IP three years ago... good luck finding that person.

The big difference that Jimbo points out and that makes sense is that articles written by other users are likely on someone's watchlist, so that person would see the edit and check it out - I know I do that with articles on my watchlist, especially if the edits are by anonymous contributors or people I don't know. A malevolent user could still sign up for an account, of course, and get around the restriction that way, but I'd think it's safe to say that at least some trolls are gonna be deterred by that (although it's probably the low-level trolls who write things like "XYZ is a dumbass" in new articles instead of the high-level ones that write articles that look reasonable but are wrong in subtle but important ways); and if the problem persists, the system could just as well be expanded to people who have just signed up five minutes ago or who have not edited any existing articles yet etc. (Of course, that's just an idea of my own, and I'm not speaking for Jimbo, Wikipedia editors in general, the Wikimedia Foundation or anyone here.)

In the end, the lesson is probably that freedom also always means that people will be able to do bad things.

But look at it like this - even though there's almost a million articles in the English Wikipedia already, and even though Wikipedia is among the top 40 most popular sites on the entire Internet, as determined by Alexa, these are about the only examples of real controversy surrounding Wikipedia yet. I'd say we've been pretty successful at showing that the Wiki model *does* work - if the naysayers had been right, the whole site would've collapsed a long, long time ago. But it hasn't, not at all.

So we must be doing something right.

Establish some standards

In the interest of accountability, shouldn't it have been this way in the first place? Then again, I'm a crazy person who thinks real sources (not just websites) need to be cited in a Wikipedia article for it to have real credibility.

Re:Establish some standards - exactly right

This is exactly right. In fact, I had an entire Wiki wiped out by someone who didn't "agree" with the thrust ofo my project. The project in question was a Wiki project that I had been using as a placeholder to show the potential power of distributed and open source publishing to state public education officials. It's a K-12 textbook project.

What I discovered one day - because i dodn't visit the Wiki every day - was that the whole thing had been co-opted by some anarchistic fool who simply thought that *his* take on my project was a better one. That person literally stole my Wiki URL, erased what I and many others had constructed, and started putting his content on it. That, instead of simply starting his own project under a different name. I had to find an intermediary to help me negotiate with this person, just to get him to cease and desist. In the interim, I lost the promise of help for the project that I had received from several people who could have made the project move along faster. they were afraid that their work could/would be wiped out.

The entire incident caused immeasureable harm to my project, and to the project's self-image. The project lost viable contributions from nearly 100 contributors that really cared about what I was doing.This has since been repaired. I had to reconstruct everything from scratch. This disaster happened simply because there was no proper control designed into the process. Thiings are noe getting better on Wikipedia

If you want to see the project- the California Open Source Textbook Project [COSTP] now almost fully back from near-decimation, go to http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/COSTP_World_History_P roject [wikibooks.org]

http://www.opensourcetext.org/ [opensourcetext.org]

Does this really solve the problem?

So a hostile anonymous coward can no longer create an entry. Fine. But isn't the real mischief to be made by modifying a pre-existing entry anyway? The article itself talks about a blogging "pioneer" who deleted references to early bloggers from a Wikipedia story. He could still have done that despite this change.

Template:High-traffic

This article has recently been linked from a high-traffic Internet site. All prior and subsequent edits are noted in the page history.

This, to me, is the clearest sign yet of Wikipedia's untenability. Isn't the project predicated on the belief that more eyeballs make an article better, not worse?

Perhaps the problem is that high-traffic pages attract all the vandals and trolls. But even so, according to Wikipedian doctrine, any suspect edits on a high-traffic page should be discovered and corrected quickly enough to be of negligible impact. Why, then, the need for Template:High-traffic?

If anything, Wikipedia should include a Template:Low-traffic to warn that fewer eyeballs make an article less reliable. That there exists only Template:High-traffic as a minor concession to reality suggests myopia at best, and a willful doublethink at worst.

Re:Template:High-traffic

Isn't the project predicated on the belief that more eyeballs make an article better, not worse?

What we see is an example that this belief is nothing more then wishful thinking.

In the area of expert knowledge "elitism", (or, rather, professionalism) is a good thing. The fact is, there are less people who actually know about something, then those who think they know something.

Re:Template:High-traffic

Isn't the project predicated on the belief that more eyeballs make an article better, not worse?

No, it's predicated on the belief that an infinite number of trolls will eventually produce an objective authoritative reference work.

Re:Template:High-traffic

It's no the "high traffic" part that causes the problem, it's the "recent" part. i.e. if the page is being Slashdotted, that means that it's likely in a very dynamic/volatile state, and so when you view the page, there may be errors introduced into the page (e.g. within the last 5 seconds) that nobody has had time to correct yet.

After the page has had time to settle down, the extra eyeballs will (on average) have improved it. But if the page is still in the process of being edited fifty different ways by fifty different people, then it's not surprising that it may be inconsistent/incorrect. Hence the warning message.

Re:Template:High-traffic

The high traffic warning is to new eyes, and to old eyes, for different reasons. It lets experienced Wiki users know that things might have ben changed with malice, and it lets new people know that things can be changed.

It's not saying that more eyes are bad, it just means that more eyes means more vandals as well as fixers too.

Stop anonymous contributors adding external links

IMHO (as an anti-linkspam vigilante on one Wikipedia language version) it's high time anonymous users are prevented from edits which contain external links, as the chances are these will be to spammy sites.

Problem with efficiency...

Creating an account takes before creating an article adds about 5 seconds for a user. I can't see how this will help prevent this scenario again. However, I could imagine that this idea [wikimedia.org] ("Best approach?") would help a lot.

Creeping elitism

I do not mean to cricise the decision, merely point out that as projects become more popular and mature, the entrance criteria can and should be tightened. The value of an individual contribution is a much lower fraction of the total.

The real question is how to manage this tightening. To quick shuts off valuable contribution, too slowly risks splintering chaos.

Bad news

As an ex-vandal of Wikipedia, I see this is as bad news. First of all, it only takes a few minutes to create an account, so vandals can still create vandalism. Consider this, Wikipedia restricted page-moves from new users due to page moving vandals, but vandals just created accounts, left them to mature for a few weeks and still got through. It will stop idiots performing toolbar vandalism, but it won't stop the professionals.

To give an example, we had a user who created lots of new articles, then claimed he created lots of hoaxes. They banned him, but they still haven't repaired all the damage. There are over 12000 articles tagged for clean up [wikipedia.org], how many hoaxes are there? This list [wikipedia.org] for example has tonnes of hoaxes, and they have been kept there for over a year!

The Willy on Wheeels is no longer a threat to the Wiki, entropy and admin ignorance is!

Wikipedia's great amount of suckage + goodness =

Wikipedia, nice concept...a fairly large resource of information, but a good example somewhat of anarchy in action.

First, Wikipedia often fails to state it's purposes clearly. Is it an information source, an encyclopedia or an all encompassing well of knowledge?

Take for example issues regarding web comics. Wikipedia went on a purge of dozens of web comic entries. Eliminating vast amounts of effort put in by individuals. The premise, "noteworthiness"....a change in the meaning of that term eliminated large quantities of listings. Such a premise must be taken into account before entries begin. To decide to change the qualifications so as to eliminate 90% of entries is to deride the effort of user's works.

Second, a complete lack of check and balances for edits allow for great risk of destructive behaviors. Were Wikipedia to simply implement a small concept common in Roget's rules of order and most others rules of order there would be much less inclination toward destruction. And that is to require a member to "second" any edits. Sure, it still poses risk. But to do so would enable a bit more order. Perhaps large and substantial edits or deletions of content would require 2 or more "seconds" before said change would be implemented.

Changes should go thru some sort of review process and affirmation.

*shrug*

Until such processes are implemented little will impede the anarchy that is Wikipedia.

Jimbo Wales & Seigenthaler on CNN

Jimbo Wales and John Seigenthaler Sr. were on CNN to debate this issue. There's a partial transcript [wikipedia.org] being worked on now.

Wikipedia and the coming article crunch

Although it hasn't happened yet, and arguably isn't likely to happen for months or perhaps years, there will be a point at which every even slightly encyclopedic topic will have a Wikipedia article. Think about it: an average week goes by... there's maybe two or three major news stories, a handful of books, movies, and records get released, maybe a new product or two comes to market, and occasionally there will be some sort of scientific discovery. Even by very loose standards, that would be maybe 50-200 new encyclopedic topics per week. Wikipedia has thousands of editors, and currently several new articles every minute.

Since I don't think the flow of new articles will cease once the encyclopedic topics are covered, this means we'll reach a point when "bad" new articles will far outnumber the "good" new articles. Any action on Wikipedia's part to help stem the tide is a good thing. Wikipedia's openness is both its greatest asset and its curse. The challenge it must face is to strike that perfect balance between freedom and control. All the openness in the world will do it no good if nobody takes it seriously as even a causal information source.

The real problem

Here's the real problem with this episode:

1. Some jackass complains about something

2. People listen and decide they care.

3. Wikipedia is changed to suit the needs of the complainer.

The mistake was #2.

A more correct action:

2. Fix the article.

3. Issue an insincere apology.

4. Ignore subsequent whining by irrelevant jackasses.

5. Continue as before.

Wikipedia is not black/white...

A lot of stories of this ilk about Wikipedia seem to imply that Wikipedia is sort of a black or white thing - it's either authoritative or not, it's either correct or not, it's either a good resource or it's not.

In reality, it's (of course) some of all these things. Sure, it may be less correct on average than some other source, or it may be less authoritative, but that doesn't make it any less useful (especially on topics that are new, esoteric, or emerging - where else could you find well-written, generally correct information about Leeroy Jenkins or the GNAA?)

Honestly, I think having something where a slightly greater burden lies on readers to evaluate the quality of information is probably a good thing - we should really be doing that more with all "authoritative" information sources anyway.

Shame

I used to be a big Wikipedia proponent. I have well over 3,000 edits there. Now however I think the site has gone to hell. I do think that it remains a nice reference site when trying to find general information about a common subject, but its usefulness stops there. Trying to get involved in the process any further is an exercise in futility. The site is run by people with huge egos, and any change you do will most likely get changed back regardless what it is. The time of big contributions of factual information is over, and it's mainly revert wars, arguing and vandalism that are most of the current edits.

Crap

If I wanted just articles on what the people in charge thought was worth having them on I've got Encarta for that. I go to Wikipedia for the article on a small-time foreign singer whose one obsessive fan was able to write a great bio via his public library's net connection. I *want* there to be articles on everything. What makes wikipedia so great is the anonymous stuff. Has anyone actually counted how much of the good contributions come from anonymous people? I know I never went to the trouble of making an account. There are three pretty good articles (they were barely more than stubs when I started them, but the internet has worked its magic and they're pretty darn good now) that wouldn't be there if this policy had been effect in the past.

Re:Great!

Wikipedia's success has come from people joining together and creating new articles, not just editing them. We need to be able to post new facts, new ideas, and new discoveries that are going on in the world. New users are the primary source of these articles.

Perhaps you didn't read the summary.

"Wikipedia will restrict the creation of new articles to members. Anonymous users will only be able to edit existing articles."

Members. Not admins, or moderators, or privileged people. Just members. All you have to do to create an article is sign up. Becoming a member is free.

Most people on Slashdot moderate/modify Anonymous Cowards into oblivion. If someone takes the time to register their name, there's a greater likelihood that what they have to say is relevent, from a purely statistical point of view (trolls obviously also register their name). I don't see how Wikipedia should be any different in its regard of anonymous postings.