Not As Wiki As It Used To Be

jonney02 writes "The BBC NEWS is running a story about how Wikipedia plans to take back control due to the recent onslaught of malformed articles." It's always been a scary balance between allowing total anonymous participation in a web forum, and preventing yourself from being overrun. I don't envy the Wikipedia designers one bit.

Sources

Wiki is a nice, centered information solution. The biggest problem I see for articles that aren't instructional is a lack of references. Some writers to a good job, but it seems that articles of fact should cite where those facts come from. After all, it's not Slashdot...

Re:Let me demonstrate something for you

Good example, but vandalism is pretty well covered by the system already. It is easy to detect and easy to repair. The biggest danger to Wikipedia's quality are claims that aren't easy to verify, usually concerned with specialized fields that few people are familiar with. The best argument for account registration is not to keep out deliberate troublemakers, but to make it easier to trace factual statements to the one who made them and ask followup questions for references or credentials.

If a scientific article is amended with a certain statement, it would be useful to have a user name attached to that edit, so the user can be asked to clarify where the information is from and what credibility the source has. An IP address is not so easy to contact.

Re:The biggest threat?

I'm kind of wondering if this was meant as a troll or what. Yes, plenty of articles have grammatical flubs and/or factual errors, but it's simply not true that any fixes you make to these will be immediately reverted. It's not even kind of true. I think what I would call it is "completely false."

Not trolling. This reflects my actual experience

Let me suggest that before you write me off as a troll, you try it for yourself: Pick an article with an egregious grammar error, correct the mistake, and then come back in a week or ten days. Unless the article is completely obscure (i.e. no one ever sees your changes) chances are that the article will be back in the same sad shape within that time.

When I first discovered the Wikipedia, I thought that it was cool that I could help to "fix" broken articles (I'm a writer in my day job). So I spent a little free time correcting the grammar errors (and generally sloppy writing) in a number of articles, probably around 10. Within a week, all but one of them had either been reverted so that the original mistakes returned, or re-edited introducing the same or similar mistakes. When I saw that, it became clear to me that what Wiki-boosters claim as the main strength of Wikipedia is also a weakness. It also significantly cooled my interest in editing the poorly written articles I come across.

Basically, writing done by committee is always going to be inferior. Since that's the method that the Wikipedia currently uses, it's hard to see any significant improvement in the quality of the articles coming along. Further, I think that there's no real solution to this problem as long as every article is open to editing by anyone at any time. Someone suggested that there should be a static "live" article and then people would work on a dynamic "backend" article that would become the live article once it was edited and checked for accuracy. But I'm not sure even that would work, since it requires someone to take ownership of the article.

Perhaps there's a solution out there, but none of the proposals I've seen suggested looks like it would work.

Re:Not trolling. This reflects my actual experienc

Hang on -- are you out of your fucking mind? People are THANKED when they make grammatical corrections. What in the world would anybody revert a grammatical correction for? I DARE you to show me your accounts where you've done that and had it reverted soon after. Chances are if that happened you weren't just fixing grammar, you were inserting other garbage that didn't deserve to be there.

The nice thing about Wikis is that they keep track of each individual change. No vague or mysterious claims permitted; every edit is well documented. I hereby call you on your bullshit and ask you to produce the "diffs".

Re:Sources

If there's an article that obviously needs better sources, feel free to add {{unreferenced}} [wikipedia.org] to an article that has no sources whatsoever, or otherwise add {{fact}} [wikipedia.org] after a sentence that seems like it's badly in need of a source to back up the claim made.

Re:Sources

It is a prerequisite. It is always appropriate to ask other editors to produce their sources. The burden of evidence lies with the editor who has made the edit in question, and any unsourced material may be removed by any editor. [wikipedia.org]

It's not quite a prerequisite in that every single fact, no matter how obvious, has to have an academic journal backing it up (for instance, the claim that tires are usually found on cars should be obvious to most people). But Wikipedia:Verifiability [wikipedia.org] is definitely one of Wikipedia's most important core policies.

Re:Sources

Oh, that is very true. For myself, I've written a few articles and have tried to provide references. Sometimes two or three sources to the information. I've also contributed to a bunch of articles. Where I am uncertain on the data or the relevence, however mildly, I put the suggestion in the discussion page and not the master page.

Have the articles I've written been subject to vandalism? Sure. The logs also show that fairly substantial vandalism was completely eliminated within a matter of days. That's not bad going for pages on some truly obscure, regional information. We're not talking about stuff likely to get a hundred visits an hour, I'd be amazed if the articles got a hundred visits a month. For readers to spend the time to undo damage, refine the page (there have been numerous truly wonderful additions to the articles) and contribute some excellent material is (to me) proof that the Wikipedia system works fine even for stuff that is rarely visited. (Those who contribute to the less-popular pages can consider themselves thanked. General knowledge can be found anywhere, so the true power of a system like Wikipedia is felt when more obscure material that would normally be scattered and incoherent - if it existed on the Internet at all - is readily available.)

I would like to see reference enforcement added to Wikipedia, but it is unclear how you'd go about doing that. You can check a link exists, but the book and paper references would be hard even to verify to that degree, and AI text analysis systems are not nearly advanced enough to tell if a reference has anything to do with the claims in the article, although it might be possible to eliminate some definitely invalid references. No automated validation of articles is possible at this time.

It might also be good if Wikipedia also provided a grammar checker. They are far from perfect, but it would be useful for catching some of the more basic errors. A spellchecker would be good too, for the same reason. Again, perfection isn't necessary, it merely has to reduce the number of uncaught errors to make it worthwhile. Requiring approval would catch very little outside of the specialist knowledge of the approver and the more general-knowledge stuff. (This is why journals use peer-review, where the reviewers are - by definition - peers in the same specialist field. It is also why newspapers - who tend to rely on sub-editors and editors who do not have specialist knowledge - are forever apologizing for article errors.

Wikipedia hasn't the resources to provide a full nth-degree cross-checking peer-review system. As such, changes to the submission process will really contribute little. Having validators for Wiki syntax, grammer and spelling would likely correct a far greater number of errors with far less effort. Validators would also add insignificant latency compared to full reviews. Yes, I understand that Wikipedia is in an unenviable position as a result of vandalism creating libellous content. However, Wikipedia has some grounds for claiming common carrier status at the moment, as it just carries the content and does nothing more. If it had a review process, it would lose any such defence, so any libel that DID slip through the cracks would be a far greater risk.

All in all, then, I think Wikipedia is reacting under intense pressure but is diving in entirely the wrong direction and may actually put itself more at risk with this idea.

Approved by administrators before publishing ?

So who will guarantee that the administrators will have a high culture rating and knowledge to discern truth from fiction ?

And who is going to guarantee that they will not prevent anything from publication if it does not fit administrators' political, religious views or outlook on life ?

Huh ?

Has dmoz been successful ?

NO.

Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ?

This goes back to "and who is policing the police?". If there is human involvement, then all things human will naturally be involved (emotions, agendas, etc..). There is nothing that you can do about it except to just trust that the system "works", at least most of the time.

Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ?

There is one thing that can be done; peer review. I am not talking about college proffesors in tweed jackets (but I am sure they would be welcome). The problem I see in Wikipedia is that the "rules" the comunity has developed seem more important to the registered users than presenting nutral, correct and well referenced content.

Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ?

And who is going to guarantee that they will not prevent anything from publication if it does not fit administrators' political, religious views or outlook on life ?

Noone's going to guarantee that. It's wikipedia, there are no guarantees.

The question is whether ngoing vandalism outweighs the potential for abuse by the administrators. German wikipedia appears to think it is. We shall see.

Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ?

How does Encyclopedia Britannica do it? Or the NYT? For one thing, Wiki'ers are supposed to cite their sources. If sources are cited or don't check out, edits don't get made. That's the way it ought to be. Statements of fact should always be allowed, and statements of opinion should be quotes from notable figures (such as a historian or something), and the person making the statement should be identified.

Just my $0.02.

Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ?

There is a however a common-sense limit to this.

Wikipedia (nor any other encyclopedia that I know of) doesn't give any sources for its claim that, for example, Norway borders on Sweden, that it has a "very elongated shape" or that it is "generally perceived as clean and modern".

Giving sources for *every* claim you make quickly degrades into nonsense. It should be sufficient to give sources for any claim that isn't patently obviously true. (to anyone with a knowledge of the field anyway) One could actually well argue that the last claim I mention, what Norway is "generally perceived as" doesn't really belong in an encyclopedia, it's very subjective anyway, certainly it's not an undisputable fact.

Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ?

How about I cite someone who may cite someone who cites a paper which cites a person who cited the original news article in which the treaty was cited?

Tom

Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ?

The standard in academia is, basically, a citation for any idea that is outside basic survey knowledge (and, of course, for quotes or paraphrases from a distinct source). So if I said "Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860," I wouldn't need a citation. But, if I said "Some historians have argued that Abraham Lincoln shared a proto-Dorian view of blacks with many Southerners" or "Abraham Lincoln wrote, in 1859, that..." a citation would be expected.

-Eric

Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ?

How does Encyclopedia Britannica do it? Or the NYT?

They FIRE people. People LOSE THEIR JOBS. If someone abuses or games or otherwise plays loose with the facts they risk MAKING LESS MONEY.

Money. You want capital 'T' Truth? Make it about the money.

The wikipedia "model" as it stands now is all reward (big ego boos, "Look Ma, I edited Luxembourg!") and very little risk (Dood1: "Yo, I just got banned from posting in wikipedia!" Dood2: "Like, D00d, you are so-o-o-- cool! That rawks, man! And screw them!"). The day a writer of a wikipedia article loses his source of income for doing a bad job is the day wikipedia begins to be credible.

You want "community"? Go to a parade or fireworks display. You want an encyclopedia of facts? Pay people.

Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ?

Sorry but that's not how it works at the Wikipedia, because at the Wiki, there is Facts, Opinions, NPOV, and endless battles over whose NPOV is more POV than N and so my NPOV IS REALLY THE ONLY NPOV and that other guy's NPOV IS POV POV POV POV!!!!!!

Check out the history of cyberstalking, for one. See how repeatedly it morphs into a completely bland and useless article that makes no mention of the use of an false accusation of cyberstalking as a means to suppress dissent.

Try adding mentioning, with citations, that people can be falsely accused of cyberstalking. Watch how that is reverted away. That has happened repeatedly on this article. On July 11th, a section containing the DOJ description of cyberstalking and how it compares to physical stalking was added, along with a section containing a link concerning the problem of false accusations, and the use of the accusation of cyberstalking itself as a means of well, stalking. Note how in the span of 15 days, Aine63 repeatedly attacks the article, until by July 21st, there is no indication that the DOJ itself say that cyberstalking has no universal definition but that stalking laws generally require a credible threat of violence. And also gone by July 21st is any mention of the problem of false accusations.

So who is the cyberstalker here? Is it Aine63 who stalks that article to keep out for his/her own reasons any discussion of false accusations? Or is it me because I a) used the compare feature to find out why a section was removed, b) noted Aine63's involvement, and here state that Aine63 is a Wikinazi, who has a definite POV and should be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

I wonder why Aine63 is so worried about false accusations as to remove their discussion from the wikipedia.... What a fucktard though.

If you read the talk page you find out that this has happened repeatedly. Someone puts in sections about false accusations and things like that, and it gets expunged by some sort of article stalker. In fact, the discussions of this behavior have themselves been removed from the talk page. Why is the wiki so worried about talking about false accusations? Well you might look at how the wiki itself has been used to promote false accusations against John Seigenthaler.

My sense is that the Wikipedia ultimately is doomed due to its insistence on Neutral Point of View articles and all of the fights that that causes. The traditional media is encountering the same thing with the bloggers. An open, but non neutral point of view is far superior in terms of presenting information AND context than a supposedly neutral, objective, point of view that can only fail to provide context and that hides a hidden agenda.

Because let's face, to claim that cyberstalking is not subject to false accusations is just bullshit, and definitely not a neutral point of view.

So what have we learned here? Wiki's NPOV is fatally flawed. Wikiality, truth based on majority rule is fatally flawed. Aine63 is fucktard that probably uses the false accusation of cyberstalking as a tool in his/her life.

I don't know how their new editing rules will prevent Aine63's malicious attacks, we shall see.

Corruption

Power corrupts, some being more susceptible than others - give everyone the power to make changes, and you can guarantee they will not all be entirely scrupulous or responsible.

So you need some form of regulation to curb corruption. You introduce editors, moderators, whatever.

And then you have to ask: who watches the watchmen (quis custodiet custard or summat)

(Cue the usual /. Wikipedia flame-war)

Beavers

You mean to say that Beavers don't REALLY explosively attack people with their menacing teeth? Damn...

FOSS approach probably better

I like the idea of there being "gatekeepers" who keep the "canonical" article, pulling from various "dev branches", a la Linux development. I think Wikipedia could use this more mature approach now. In the beginning, of course, it benefited greatly from its openness, but now it's time for editors to start provided more focused guidance.

Ya dance with who brung ya

Wikipedia is making a mistake. The wiki model brought Wikipedia to the dance, and Wikipedia is now running off with another guy. This usually ends in gun play.

Everyone loves an analogy!

I see what you're saying.

But if we modify the analogy so that wiki IS the dance and that all the people meet at the dance and pair off and settle down, they don't need to go to the dance anymore.

What I'm saying is that after the initial wiki process is over for a given article you could say that - as long as people agree that it's a complete and up to date article - the wiki process could be closed since there is no more to be added at the present time.

I'm not saying that this would work but I can see on both sides of the line.

subuse level 2

subuse.net/level2 [subuse.net] is completely free of any rules. Unlike most wiki's it doesn't even have a purpose. Wikipedia wants to be a wiki-encyclopedia, so when people stray from entering encyclopedic worthy entries, the wiki model fails.

But when a forum is completely anonymous, and completely without an intent on what the content should be, you have something that never needs "control taken back".

Besides, anarchy can be fun! :)

Who watches the watchers?

Under the new approach, page edits will no longer be immediately applied to pages but will instead have to be approved by an administrator before they become visible. Vandalism or changes which are not approved will not appear.

This is a major shift, from a "publish and fix" policy to one of prior restraint, where a cadre of privileged users will supervise what appears.

It is still only a proposal, so it is not yet clear if the new checks would be applied to every page, but this is obviously being considered seriously by Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales, and the site's Wikimedia Foundation.

And who decides who will be part of the cadre? Jimmy? I think we can see from his past actions, that he may not be the best judge of who would make the best administrator. I think they need to take a vote within the ranks, and let the editing community decide, then give Jimmy a limited number of vetoes to remove people he doesn't want.

Re:Who watches the watchers?

And who decides who will be part of the cadre?

Hey, I've got an idea. Let's do something based on the Hindu concept of rewards for good deeds. We could call it "Karma". Like if someone had done a bunch of editing that nobody disapproved of they could accumulate points and after they get a certain number of points they earn the right to approve changes... we could call that "moderating."

Backlog

Under the new approach, page edits will no longer be immediately applied to pages but will instead have to be approved by an administrator before they become visible. Vandalism or changes which are not approved will not appear.

With the thousands of edits that happen on wikipedia per second, I don't see how this change will do anything but create an impossible backlog.

-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]

Re:Backlog

I agree with you, but Wikipedia doesn't have thousands of edits per second. Not even per minute. Check this out [wikimedia.org]. 3.6 million edits in June means 120000 per day, or 5000 per hour.

I Appreciate Them

I don't envy the Wikipedia designers one bit.

Well, consider what they've done. They created something in which anyone can store any information about anything. And it seems to work to some extent. Yes, there are drawbacks but ... well ... a lot of times my research into something I don't know about starts at Wikipedia. Especially if it's something obscure because the links at the bottom of the articles are the most pertinant.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I envy and appreciate the designers of Wikipedia.

Now, I know you're going to post some examples in response to this of just crazy outlandish things (see GW's page if it isn't on lock down) but all and all, I appreciate what they've done for me.

To illustrate the shortcomings, however, enjoy this Onion Article [theonion.com].

The implosion begins

I like Wikipedia, but it's based on a fundamentally flawed premise which is that it allows every bozo to contribute. That's what the blogosphere is for, but that's not what an encyclopedia is supposed to be based on. Do you really want people without credentials to be contributing?

Now here's my suggestion on how to fix it. They need to hire a few full time staffers with their donations and have them handle written applications to contribute to Wikipedia. Let anyone with sound credentials contribute, but require that they prove that they have some idea of what they are talking about. Then, allow anyone to sign up for an account that allows them to post thoughtful critiques if they have some informal knowledge and have good reason to believe than an "authoritative source" may be inaccurate. If they just troll, block them after a few warnings or something.

Re:The implosion begins

The problem is that credentials are rarely relevant to the broad array of information Wikipedia covers. For instance, I wrote the article about the headbolt heater [wikipedia.org], which is the device that causes people from warmer climates to ask people from colder climates if their cars are electric (as its 3-prong 110-volt plug typically dangles a few inches out of the vehicle's grill), but I have no qualifications in the field of headbolt heaters outside the fact that I happened to know about them and find some good information about them. In another example, I am a law student and found an article or two that was written by a practicing attorney but needed some clarification.

In a purely credentials based system, I would likely not have been allowed to edit the work of a more experienced person in my own field. To allow otherwise would be to defeat the entire purpose of the credentials system, as an amateur hobbyist in any field would have to be allowed to edit the work of a seasoned professional, and that's essentially what already exists.

Re:The implosion begins

Now here's my suggestion on how to fix it. They need to hire a few full time staffers with their donations and have them handle written applications to contribute to Wikipedia. Let anyone with sound credentials contribute, but require that they prove that they have some idea of what they are talking about.

Dear Sir:

I hereby submit my application, attached, to become a contributor to Wikipedia. Specifically, that section of Wikipedia that deals with the 1970's. Specifically, 1970's American television. More specifically, 1970's American television commercials. Specifically, the 1979 American television commercial for Planters Peanuts depicting a man being chased for his delicious nuts. Although many of the people who worked on this commercial are dead, dying, ill, or on vacation in Belgium, I was part of the janitorial staff at the editing house where this particular commercial was cut, and during my very long breaks, I observed with a keen and jaundiced eye the cutting of this animated gem. I am also neither dead, dying, ill, nor on vacation in Belgium.

I look forward to your quick acceptance of my editorship. I have some very interesting revelatory facts about Mr. Peanut that I would like to add to the article.

Yours,

(name redacted)

Experiment in human nature

Wikipedia could be called an experiment in human nature: assuming that everybody does their best (and no evil) is just like one of the principles of communism (everybody should do their best at work, despite their motivation, salary, etc). I did never believe it could possible work as well as it did.

I did not research this but I assume that in the beginning mostly more educated people used it and they tend not to abuse it too much. As it became widely adopted and used, everybody started to use it, meaning a higher percentage of people who would like to abuse it.

Unfortunately I don't believe that a [global] experiment in human nature can survive... Check out Winterbottom's movie, "24 hour party people [imdb.com]".

How awful

This is damning of our society. A central, organised resource where people are free to contribute should be the pinacle of the internet - but it isn't - its a place where politicians, corporations and zealots spread their lies under a banner of truth.

But I guess this is art imitating life. Wikipedia was a democracy - and this proves that not all people are equal and that power is a much greater force for bad than knowledge and freedom is for good.

Re:Society?

only half believe that. While it is impossible to deny that our species is polluted with short-sighted agressors I believe that they are the minority. Most of the people I know are loving and caring who would go out of their way to avoid deceiving or hurting people for personal gain.

And yet, the history of all societies is driven by such people.

It's banal to remark that even monsters love their children - banal, but true. I'm pretty sure the people who trash wikipedia wouldn't treat their own homes or families that way.

Keep it as it is!!

I say keep wikipedia as it currently is, you can add a disclaimer to the top of every page saying that the information is freely edited and may be false, but if I wanted an encyclopedia that was completely written by a bunch of elitist self-important ivy-league PhDs, then I would just dust off my encyclopedia brittanica books.

They have my sympathy.

I had tried to create a user id for myself on wikipedia, in order to update an article I was reading, and was immediately banned, along with my IP. I was quite angry because there was no warning - and I complained. A response came quite quickly, politely informing me that the name I chose violated some pattern matcher for inappropriate names. I was still annoyed, but after they released the IP block I created an appropriate account and put a "watch" on the article I had wanted to update.

Over the following weeks, this relatively low-profile article was vandalized several times; each time it was corrected but also represented a vulnerability to people reading the page. One attack, in particular, deliberately reversed the sense of several health and safety tips, making cautions into recommendations and recommendations into cautions.

Amazing?

It's somewhat amazing how, at a major university, I still sea at least 50% of my fellow students handing in midterm papers with blue underlined links crediting Wikipedia as a source on their Works Cited page. Unreal.

Nope

You don't cite encyclopedias, because you don't use them as sources in scholarly works. Encyclopedias are starting points. You use them to get an overview of the information you want, and references to more primary sources. You then go to those sources read and use them. This is even true in sources themselves. If you are reading a paper by Dr. A, and he talks about the results of Dr. B's experiment, you don't quote him on that, you go get Dr. B's paper and quote that instead.

So even when you are talking about Britanica, it's improper form to cite a reference book. When you are talking Wikipedia, it's downright stupid. Especially since it's changeable. I mean the student can always change it to say what they want. It'll get revered, of course, but they can just claim "That's what it said when I looked at the page, so I figured it was right."

You always want to go to the most primary source available. Don't read a paper about a paper about an experiment, read the paper about the experiment by the experimenters themselves. Don't read a newspaper article about a speech, read the transcript of the actual speech. While all the sources that are more levels removed can be useful starting points, and have useful commentary and analysis for you to think about, they aren't what you should cite. Don't believe their version of things, get the original and check for yourself.

George W Bush says...

Don't let the (trolls?/terrorists?) win!

Wikipedia needs a way to recognize professionals.

It needs a ranking system that seperates hobbyists and dabblers and amateurs from specialists, doctors, and professionals, and gives them voting power on articles in their field accordingly.

Why Digg will never surpass Slashdot

I have seen arguments [wired.com] that Digg will take over slashdot. But when a site grows, it always faces these types of issues, and editorial oversight is the only defense.

Meta-moderation of wikipedia

I think a better decision would be setting up something akin to the meta-moderation system here on slashdot. Instead of designating users to do the reviewing, why not let all users (or at least those that had an account for a while) review random edits from wikipedia. You could then assign higher weights to edits of users whose edits are often marked as incorrect/vandalizing in the moderation system, and make them come up more frequently on the not-so-random list of edits to review. That way, you'd keep control in hands of the contributors, and vandalizing edits of obscure pages would have better chances of being caught. Of course, such a system would not be perfect, but on the other hand, peer-review by a smaller group of people that you trust wouldn't be that perfect either.

Probably a good move

.. but how will they staff it?

I think the Wiki concept is perfect for a niche application, such as documenting a software process, or a software project, or some other specific topic that has a focus. I use a number of corporate Wikis and hobby related wikis for these exact types of topics. However.. in Wikipedia's case, it is a whole different ballgame.

The problem with Wikipedia is that the folks that *now* are most inclined to contribute to Wikipedia are the ones that stand to benefit from their contribution, either by pushing an agenda, or disparaging another source. Granted, there are a number of contributors that are active with good intentions, but I suspect as Wikipeda continues down the path of letting *anyone* contribute immediately, that subsequent contributions will be more skewed towards revert wars and subtle edits to existing content vs. new content and contribtions.

The reality is, all the editing of existing content will become more of a platform to introduce opinnions and agendas vs usable content. Not to say that there aren't contributors that will continue to give good content, but what might have been 5% of agenda pushing 2 years ago is going to be 40% now with the critical mass of information.

Wikipedia is making a good move and the social dynamics will be interesting (i.e. Managing and Staffing this new model)

More than one way to find information

Now, not everyone is going to remeber Usenet in its heyday, but having a good faq maintained by a moderator or long-time contributors posted once a month, plus discussions worked well. Once dejanews (the archive Google ended up with) came along, it made it even easier to search. Nice combination of reference and discussion. Just as many crazies, but kill filters took care of those for you. And it's far easier to make sure you avoid seeing nothing but amazon front stores, price comparison sites, etc. when doing a search through Usenet than on the web in general.

Is it a reference? Not exactly. But it grew over time, changed, etc. Wikipedia will as well, but it launched as something grandiose, with a certain "Pay attention to me!" tone. Wikis are great - but need some sort of focus.

Speaking truthiness to wikiality

I wrote the BBC piece, and it's generated a lot of discussion on the WikiEN-l [wikipedia.org] mailing list, as well as some correspondence between me and senior wikipedians around the question of whether the German proposal amounts to making the Wikipedia *more* or *less* wikilike. My blog posting [thebillblog.com] goes into more detail. At the moment Jimbo and I have agreed a truce- we disagree over the implications, and I accept that he sees what's happening as an improvement not a restriction.

*sigh*

From relatively early in its existence it has been possible to ensure only administrators edit a page, but recent changes make it harder for ordinary users to create and update pages on the site.

For reference, this is supposed to be about the semi-protection. Which just happens to involve registering an user account and showing, just for a few passing moments, that you are capable of appropriate conduct.

That is, if you want to edit the couple of popular articles that happen to be semi-protected at the time.

There's 196 semi-portected articles at the moment in English Wikipedia. There's 1,355,706 articles. There's 70 articles at the moment that are full-protected, as well as handful of articles that show up in article count but are actually protected against recreation.

It still leaves you (...calculations, calculations, I'm a bit bad at math...) over 1.3 million articles for you to completely vandalise if you don't bother to spend a whole two minutes registering an user account.

You don't even need to confirm your email address.

And the separation of approved / unreviewed edits has not yet, as far as I know, even been implemented in MediaWiki.

Sorry if I sound a bit tired. I just find it a little bit vexing that people get stuck on small things like "hey, it says 'anyone can edit', and I get this error message that says that I can't". This is what happens when someone realises that you need some control. Regrettably, utopias where everyone can do anything don't work - human nature being what it is, you need some control. It's almost like saying "Oh, sure, everyone can come in our country!... except for people who don't have a passport and visa... and people who try to cross the border at a funny place... and armed, hostile soldiers of another country... obviously... But apart of that, everyone can come!"

So read "a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" just like you would read "a city where everyone can perform on the streets." (don't be surprised if, in such city, the police asks you to get the hell away from the way of the traffic and move to the sidewalk like everyone else.)

Secondly, what the heck is wrong with the concept of reviewed versions? It doesn't prevent anyone from editing the stuff or even seeing the unreviewed edits, it just prevents people from seeing stuff we don't know to be good. It's a quality control measure, not a barrier to contributing.

Too many Interest groups are ruining it.

Damn freaks won't stay on their hate filled message boards and have to use public areas to stir up trouble and sow FUD.

I have caught some of the crap that occurs and most of it is from one side. Still both sides engage in it and its just nuts. Best are the pieces on foreign people who are controversial and alive.

Frankly they don't have a choice. Wiki was fine until everyone who had a chip on their shoulder and the anonyminity of the internet to hide behind found it.

Hell verification at the level of banking would probably be required to keep it civil. The selfishness of these prima donnas is such that they would ruin such a great resource for the rest of us.

Don't let this happen!

How can you people not see this?!?!?!

It's the liberal media trying to destroy our TRUTHINESS!

Accurcy

I've been reading Slash Dot for a few weeks now and have noticed that most of the articles posted aren't based on any kind of verifiable fact, just some raving fan boy journalists opinion. So what chance does Wikipedia have?

Global Classification

When it comes down to it, we collectively agree on what "truth" is. Wikipedia is struggling with how to be an encyclopedia of our knowledge, when we don't collectively agree on what our knowledge is or what the facts are in the first place.

One way or other, the editors at Wikipedia are in the position of being arbiters. They can either be "benevolent arbiters of fact", essentially deciding for us what truth is, or they can be referees making sure the rules Wikipedia establishes are followed but taking a strictly neutral stance on content itself.

They are mostly taking the latter approach, which I think is the best path to stick to. I think they should more conscientiously pursue this path and communicate clearly that they are not an arbiter of fact.

Wiki Truthiness

Wiki is a wonderful example of people shaping information to reflect what they want it to represent instead of what it actually represents. It's really a self referential reference to the internet in general. Things mean what you want them to mean, fact is whatever you're willing to assert loud enough and people are experts if they say they are.

Establish a baseline version

IMHO the WikiPedia team needs to establish a procedure for flagging a version of a document as 'verified' and make it a special edition of the document which is uneditable for a period of time. This would act as a sort of checkpoint for the data. This would require a periodic audit of articles by an objective team who's job it would be to verify the current state of the article, lookup references and facts, etc.

This need not stop the ability of people to add new data.... in fact they could continue adding to the article while it was being audited.... but at the end of the audit the team would have compiled a 'verified' version which would then be the standard baseline version that could be used as a 'reference'.

Additionally a diff routine performed against the latest live copy and the reference version could send out a notice to WikiPedia editors that a substantial change had occurred which could mean that the article is due for another audit...

Principled vs. Useful

Much as I would like to see Wikipedia hew to its original idea of "anyone can edit anything", experience seems to demonstrate that if Wikipedia is to remain a USEFUL reference, as opposed to a merely entertaining/misleading one, some sort of restriction is necessary to rein in the 5% of the contributors who are asses and trying to promote a personal agenda vs. the 95% who want to enlighten and inform.

I frankly vote for the useful model. There are plenty of useless websites out there already. I'm glad they are experimenting with the right balance between user contribution and editorial control, because there is NOT an obvious answer, and the most practical choice may only be determined by experiment.

Hope they can figure it out.

The BBC story is completely wrong

I don't really know what else to say about it.

We are introducing some changes, yes. The changes are specifically designed to make us MORE of a wiki than before.

We used to have to protect articles. We didn't like that, so we moved to what we call semi-protection. We still don't like that, so we are moving to non-vandalized-version flagging.

Each of these steps was specifically designed to make Wikipedia MORE of a wiki.

Sheesh.

--Jimbo

Suggested Alternative Names

Given the imminent new nature of the beast, I'd like to suggest some new names for the project (since we're diminishing the wiki part of Wikipedia).

- Webcyclopedia
- Nixipedia
- Wikipedian't
- Quasiwikipedia
- Wonkipedia
- Analpedia
- AllYourBaseAreBelongToPedia
- Alternapedia
- Hippipedia
- GrainOfSaltipedia
- 'Pedia
- Wikipedia II: The Electric Bugaloo
- Stickipedia
- Nazipedia
- Pedia Pedia
- The Resource Formerly Known As Wikipedia
- Disney's Mickipedia

Why dont they have an auto moderation system?

I never understood why they allowed anonymous edits first place . - It would not deter absolute majority serious about contributing .In fact I think many people like to have list of their contributions easily tracked from personal page.

  Now they imho should also have a moderation system(similar to slashdot) -where random people would get chance to moderate articles/specific edits .People with low edit-karma should have their edits placed in "cesspool" and not let in unlet review by respected member of the community. And unlike slashdot on wikipedia you can actually give more power to truly competent people ( like more moderation powers, give them moren rights in domain the have proven to be competent, etc. ) encyclopedia is not about every Dick, Joe and Jane opinion, it is about facts and correct information. If some dick is unhappy he cannot smear perfectly good articles with his incompetent crap -good riddance ,its not slashdot or digg.

Vague pondering.

If the Wikipedia is going to require administrative approval of edits, why not offer something to help the admins out? Say the user ability to "vote" on accuracy, giving that article a higher rating in the queue. Giving the user a sort of score would allow the power of their vote to fluctuate -- raising with each article that they voted on that is approved, and dropping for each that is rejected, et cetra. Certainly not perfect, but it would help the more popular/useful articles get through quickly, rather than all articles being weighed equally.

Wasn't this rejected?

This to me, looks like a description of the proposal (marked as rejected) of Wikipedia:Stable versions now [wikipedia.org].

In some ways, that proposal would make it very like the linux kernel. The public face which most people see would be the stable branch, with the "unstable branch" still open to edits, and once stabilised, becomes the new stable version.

The BBC got the story wrong.

From the original BBC article, "Under the new approach, page edits will no longer be immediately applied to pages but will instead have to be approved by an administrator before they become visible." This is flatly false. I have been involved in discussion about the German experiment and what English wikipedia will do, and the above statement is exactly what will not happen and what no one wants, not the foundation, not administrators, not the writers. It strikes me as FUD at its worst.

Notice this correction was made, "There's no decision yet as to who will be able to "approve" a page, and of course the English-language Wikipedia is simply watching what happens in Germany and seeing how it works, so there will be no change for those of us who use the English version." Now this is accurate. English is watching the German wikipedia to see what works for them with full knowledge that what works for German is not what works for English.

Childish stupidity.

Yeah, especially the Wikipedia moderators. I don't envy them one bit the huge job they have to do all the time. Look at this [wikipedia.org] page, for example. Why does it say:

"Because of recent vandalism, editing of this article by anonymous or newly registered users is disabled. Such users may discuss changes, request unprotection, or create an account."

No, I don't mean that it says that because one of the Wikipedia moderators put it there. I mean, it says that because people are stupid and can't be objective about anything, and they'll ruin it for the rest of us. Here's an encyclopedia that anybody can improve, but instead, people are putting trash on many its articles, because they disagree with something. That particular article is about the State of Israel. People are blinded by hate speech.

Here's another example of a page with such protection activated: George W. Bush. [wikipedia.org] Again, even if someone doesn't agree with his policies, why vandalize the page? That's childish and stupid.

Democracy Anarchy

Why not formulate some voting/moderation system to keep malicious content at bay?

Anyone is allowed to add anything. If the section they add is modded down enough, they wont be able to mod as much for the next month.

Changing/removing existing sections should be more difficult. The more modded-up a section, the harder it is to change.

"Approved" versions on Wikipedia FAQ

From Wikimedia Meta-Wiki [wikimedia.org]:

What is changing?

We want to open up editing without damaging the reader's experience.

We want to be more wiki and let editors edit freely, which is where all the good things come from. At present a small percentage of articles (a few hundred out of 1.5 million on the English language Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/ [wikipedia.org]) are locked or partially locked from editing. We want to open these up. But Wikipedia is a top 20 website (Alexa ratings, no. 17 on 3 month average; no. 15 on 30 August 2006 -- http://www.alexa.com/ [alexa.com]), so we must keep it good for the readers.

The new feature will mean that edits from new or anonymous editors will be delayed before being shown to readers - they will see a 'flagged OK' version by default, with a link to the live version. The idea is to enhance the reading experience, and free us to enhance the editing experience. If vandalism can't be seen by the general public, there will be less motivation to vandalise.

Anonymous or new-editor edits will need to be approved by a logged-in editor. Of the thousands of editors on the large Wikipedias, many concentrate on checking revisions and dealing with odd changes and vandalism -- this will assist their work and we do not expect new delays.

We are also considering a related feature to flag particular versions of articles as being of high quality. This is to a different end: a high-quality finished product. This will likely be tested first on the German language Wikipedia (http://de.wikipedia.org/), which has already had three stable editions released on CD and DVD, which have sold quite well. If the feature works there, it may be used on other language Wikipedias.

These features are not finished, so we don't have a lot of fine detail as to how it will all work as yet. But we hope this change will allow us to do things such as open up the George W. Bush article or even the front page itself to full unrestricted editing.

When was this proposed?

Jimmy Wales asked for a time-delay feature for casual readers in late 2004; after very fast editing on the Indian Ocean tsunami produced a very high-quality article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_ea rthquake) very quickly, but with some highly visible vandalism; we've hotly discussed how to achieve stable high-quality editions of Wikipedia since almost the start of the project, in 2001.

It's the Tragedy of the Commons

This problem isn't new. Human nature is a bitch.

I think that a democracy with appropriate checks and balances is the best solution. Because we can't trust each other, it works best when everyone is watching everyone else.

Oh, and the people who think that the solution is for "professionals" or licensed practitioners (doctors, lawyers, etc.), or university professors or whatever "qualified" people to be the gatekeepers - I suggest that this would basically be setting up a "priesthood" that controls/directs the views represented in Wikipedia. A Bad Thing IMHO.

Just because someone is paid money for or holds a license (basically just passing a test) for a particular field doesn't guarantee that they have any better understanding of a topic than anyone else. Einstein wasn't the chair of a physics department at a major university when he came up with his theory of relativity, and Philo T. Farnsworth wasn't a licensed Electrical Engineer.

The first rule of Wiki...

Don't believe anything on Wiki.

Open Edit vs. Professional

Wikipedia is still, by-in-large, a respectable and reliable source of information when compared to professionally produced encyclopedias. For example, in a study [nature.com] where experts evaluated 42 entries between Wikipedia and Britannica's online version, the experts found an equal amount of *serious* errors (four each) along with 123 factual errors in the Britannica and 162 in Wikipedia. So, that means the professionally-produced encyclopedia had three errors for every four in an amateur and openly edited one. Not too shabby for free.

I agree with their decision

I think they have done a wise thing by doing that, since people make mistakes I think the larger the wiki gets the more complicated it will get to maintain its info.

Spelling in Slashdot comments

Even if Slashdot had a spelling check, it wouldn't help a lot of these folks. It seems that even after using the Preview button (assuming they used it) they still can't see their errors.
A grammar checker would simply be overwhelmed here.
Sometimes the pain induced by reading some of these comments is just too painful and distracting, yet, like Wikipedia, the good outweighs the bad so I keep coming back.

At least the Wiki participants aren't being paid.

This article http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/fun.games/08/30/g ameboy.ap/index.html/ [cnn.com] was done by someone who is paid to report facts on their subject. If you read the whole article it states that the Game Boy is still having games developed for it. The games at the bottom of the report that they claim are original games are Advance games. Another mistake is that the DS Lite might be the only system after 17 years to replace it. Wrong, the Advance replaced the GB Color which replaced the original. Let's not forget the part that says the GB Micro is a slimmed down version that replaces the original. It along with the DS will not play original or GB color games.

Btw, I got my information from articles on Wikipedia that had the facts straight. What is to become of Wikipedia if no participation from anonymous is involved? I'm sure that no staff could maintain the Wiki unless it was large. Also, what happens to the material that they already have from users? Do they claim it as their own, which is morally wrong? There's no way they can start from scratch so the conclusion is that they will have to retain all that has been input thus far.

I for one have no problem with the Wikipedia as it is and applaud those who contribute.

ObPenny Arcade

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2004/20040319h. jpg [penny-arcade.com]

Here's an idea how

Okay, every registered user gets 1 vote on each wikipedia page version. If they like a particular version, they 'vote' for it. If they like an update, they move their vote to the new version (if they care).

That way, when a page is defaced, new users just don't update their vote, and the new page isn't seen.

Only people who care will ever vote, so the page versions will be voted for by people who love and care for the topic. Unpopular edits will simply never be seen.

-BM

Re:4 months...

"The wikipedia page about Luxembourgish language has been containing libelous statements about the former Luxembourgish Minister of Pubs^H^H^H^HEconsomy since January..."

Here's an idea: maybe you could, like, remove it?

Re:4 months...

I'm sorry but I can't find anything libelous on that page. Yes, I checked a version from a few days ago, so it's not the case that someone reading slashdot fixed it.

Re:4 months...

Can't find it - not even its removal in the edit history of the last month or so. ...or do I need to give my sarcasm-meter another kick?

Re:Elephants are making a comeback

Uhm.. read. If you read and learn, you'll find out the vandalism is not the problem.