Nitpicking Wikipedia's Vulnerabilities

tiltowait writes "A lot of Wikipedia critics point to hypothetical situations when giving reasons for not valuing the site. Wikipedia even has a 'Replies to common objections' article set up to field these. I'd rather look at some real examples of applying the same level of scrutiny to materials often held up as the Platonic ideal of 'scholarship,' such as peer-reviewed journals, conference papers, established journalism sources, monographs, and print encyclopedias. Even these have disclaimers because they can be can be vandalized or have their reliability and accuracy questioned. As dangerous as it is to trust unverified information, it can be just as bad to make prior judgments discounting information because the source happens to be anonymous. The above examples illustrate that all materials existing along a continuum of valuable information formats. Wikipedia articles can be useful for quickly obtaining factual overviews or as a starting point to further research. But that's just one librarian's opinion. How do tech-savvy people view Wikipedia?"

It's not about the encyclopedia

[fishdan]

For me the best thing about wikipedia is the concept behind it. A collaboration of people, working to increase the sum of human knowledge, because the sum of accumulated knowledge is something that is greater than its parts. Everyone working together to maintain this knowledge for the betterment of all. Is that an idealistic view? Of course. But what's wrong with idealism and striving for it? Wikipedia is more that just an encyclopedia -- though it's very good at that. It's a hope that we actually can all work together on something -- something that embiggens [wikipedia.org] us all.

Wikipedia rocks, BUT...

[BandwidthHog]

I just had a similar discussion with my girlfriend this past weekend. She found some valuable information on Wikipedia for a paper she’s writing on Chinese culture. I told her she should use that as a springboard: that Wikipedia could provide her the facts and details she needs, and that she should then find independent citable sources for each individual facts. I told her that I was sure it couldn’t be cited because the information there is simply too fluid and couldn’t be counted on to remain unchanged over time. She checked with her professor who wasn’t terribly familiar with the details, but had at least heard of it. He looked into the matter and told her that it was perfectly acceptable as long as the citations were up to MLA standards. I told her that her professor would turn out to be wrong in the long run (yeah, modesty is part of my charm, why do you ask?).

So I guess I agree with the story submittor (askor?) that Wikipedia rocks, but that their model simply doesn’t lend itself the the level of credibility needed for that sort of use. It’s great, and in many ways a more valuable resource than Google, and one hell of a social experiment. But at the end of the day, you simply don’t know if any given fact was contributed by a Princeton research librarian or Karl Rove.

Wiki is great and all ...

[Anonymous Coward]

but how do you take a resource seriously when the article for Robocop [wikipedia.org] has more depth than an article for George Washington Carver [wikipedia.org]

Wikipedia is a great resource

[totallygeek]

Regarding the things of which I have intimate knowledge, I have seen as many errors per page in Wikipedia as Newsweek, Encyclopedia Brittanica, National Geographic, IMDB, textbooks, etc. Information is only as good as its source. A writer gathers information, an editor picks over it, it is passed before panel reviews, and is published as true. At least with Wikipedia the editing process can pass before more people, and any one of them can do something to affect the publishing. If the informed decision is based on misinformation or misunderstanding, the outcome is a compounded error, and now is stamped with more credibility than the original articles.

I use Wikipedia quite often, but I usually perform some secondary research.

like a regular encyclopedia...

[Chalex]

I view it as an excellent starting place to get some information. If I have a basic question, it'll probably be answered by the Wikipedia article. If it's a more advanced question, the article should point me to more in-depth references.

So remember, if you're adding information, try to cite a source!

Re:Wiki is great and all ...

[jericho4.0]

I didn't know who Carver was, although maybe a USian could be expected to. I certainly know who Robocop is, having seen the movie as a child, and countless spoofs, satires, and other cultural references to it over the years.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The Liberal Bias Remains

[Nova Express]

"Earlier on, we had a systemic bias toward liberal issues. However, as Wikipedia has grown, and become more mainstream, the liberal contingent has declined as a proportion of Wikipedia in general."

Notice that they don't say that the liberal bias has disappeared. In fact, it has become rather distinctly entrenched at the administrator level.

Notice how Accuracy in Media [wikipedia.org] is called a conservative organization (which it is) time and time again, but the analagous organization on thee left is described thusly: "Media Matters monitors for and refutes identified and materially substantiated conservative misinformation found in media news reports, public affairs and talk radio shows from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and others." [wikipedia.org]

So, in short your bias is "identified and materially substantiated misinformation," my bias is truth.

You can find about a hudnred other examples, for example the breaking up of the article on Communism [wikipedia.org] into theory and practice to avoid having to mention any of that nasty genocide in the main article.

Not knowledge

[NineNine]

It's tough to increase the sum of knowledge when you're building on questionable facts. There are many, many everyday scientific myths that are widespread. Wikipedia is controlled by quantity, not quality.
 
    What's to say that these myths don't become "facts" in Wikipedia due to sheer numbers? Is that increasing the sum of human knowledge? If anything, it's damaging it, because everybody who reads thsi "fact" will assume that it's true.
 
Wikipedia is the opposite of knowledge: it's based on majority rule. Wikipedia in 1805 would have described the "wonders of the African Ape-Man and his Ability to Pick Cotton." After all, the majority believed that it was true.

Re:Editorial control

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

nice speech, but the truth is not democratically accountable.

Except that...

[Estanislao Martínez]

All you have to do to fix this problem is take the problem to the discussion page, or the talk page of the user who keeps reverting you. Simple enough. If they persist, get an administrator to help. Except that you have to do it forever, for a neverending sequence of random clueless lusers.

Encyclopedia != Community

[cribcage]

Wikipedia isn't an encyclopedia. It's a community. Don't confuse the two.

Your contributions were probably questioned for two reasons. First, because Wikipedia is governed by a policy called NPOV, or Neutral Point Of View, which is interpreted to mean that an encyclopedia must reflect all perspectives on any subject. There can be no "absolute right" or "absolute wrong." According to NPOV, your opinion just that. Expertise does not exist. All sides must be represented, no matter how loony.

Second, you probably weren't taken seriously because you didn't contribute hundreds of edits over the course of a week. Wikipedia is dominated, literally, by those users who spend the most time editing. This, ultimately, is Wikipedia's greatest flaw: Its users are more interested in participating in a community than in building an encyclopedia. They call themselves "Wikipedians," and they stage meet-ups. Their reasons for participating are primarily social.

The result is a project governed by losers. Sorry, but it's the truth: The people with the most free time to dedicate to an online encyclopedia will always be the people least-qualified to contribute, because those who are qualified spend their time earning and practicing those qualifications in the real world. If the project were coordinated somehow, maybe shared between several universities with each department contributing according to its own specialization...maybe it could work. But Wikipedia is doomed to mediocrity, simply because it's populated by nutjobs with no social skills who drive away qualified contributors who threaten their pretend authority.

Knowledge is not democratic -- and expertise necessarily erodes equality. You cannot build a worthwhile encyclopedia based on the premise that everyone's contributions will be valuable.

Re:Editorial control

[nine-times]

The only thing is, who certifies? Who decides who's smart enough to be an authority, and who isn't? I've known professors who should have their work overwritten by college freshmen. Do we want those professors censoring smart people because they disagree?

I do rather like the idea of having some sort of editorial process to the wikipedia. Whenever this issue of "trustworthiness" has come up, I've always had the same hesitating suggestion: branch the wikipedia so that there's something like a "stable branch". Keep the wikipedia as it is, but it'd be nice if there were some kind of designated "editors" that could integrate the changes better, make sure the work is coherent, correct, etc. and put out the edited version as the "stable" version which would lag a bit behind from the "unstable".

Of course, such a thing would be a logistical nightmare, and it's damn near impossible. However, I think it would be appreciated by a lot of people if some editorial process could be worked in somehow.

Liberal bias on Wikipedia

[Dr Kool, PhD]

Wikipedia is the top hit on google for a lot of common searches, and I do agree that it is an okay source of information if you need info in a hurry. However I have noticed a clear liberal bias among many articles. Here are three examples I remember off the top of my head from searches in the last week --

Little Saigon, CA [wikipedia.org] -- the article gives a good overview of the landscape of Westminister and Garden Grove, but then out of nowhere he drops "The event also raised some controversial issues about constitutional free speech in the United States". No sir, the event didn't raise controversial issues. I suppose if you were a socialist then yes, maybe the issues would be controversial. But to 99.99% of America, someone flying the VC flag on American soil is a disgrace to those who gave their lives in Vietnam. The guy broke the law by selling pirated movies and he was arrested, end of story.

Newt Gingrich [wikipedia.org] -- In the TRIVIA section: "Candace Gingrich, his sister, works for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest gay and lesbian organization. In years past she has headed up HRC's "National Coming Out Day" campaign." Gee, thanks for that "trivia". The author couldn't reasonably fit that line in an article on Newt himself, so he sneaks it into the "trivia" section. Clear liberal bias here.

Ronald Reagan [wikipedia.org] -- "It is frequently reported that Secret Service agents had to inform Reagan every morning that he was once the president". Really sir, since it's so "frequently" reported I guess you wouldn't mind providing a link? What business does this phrase have in an encyclopedia entry of Ronald Reagan other than to undermine his legacy??

Re:Encyclopedia != Community

[John Nowak]

This is just bullshit.

First off, not all sides must be represented. The page on Earth doesn't talk about the "Is it flat?" controversy. Loony opinions are absolutely NOT represented on Wikipedia. That issue has come and gone many times. No one talks about Pat Robertson's side of the story on Wikipedia.

Secondly, a lot of the edits on wikipedia are done by students and faculty of academic institutions. I don't consider these people "losers" because they're contributing to our base of information. I consider them an important asset to society.

Good for casual use; not for serious research

[Selanit]

I teach freshman composition at the U of Texas in Austin. My students are about to begin their second paper, which will involve a substantial research component, and Wikipedia was one of the first things I covered in discussing acceptable sources. I do not accept citations of Wikipedia articles, for two reasons:

1) The articles are not stable. They change on a regular basis. If my students cite something, I need it to be static so that I can verify their citations easily. I am well aware that Wikipedia has a robust versioning system, but that is irrelevant to my purposes. If a student cites something and I cannot immediately locate it, I simply do not have the time to sort through the recent edits to find a version of the article that matches what my student quoted. This is particularly true of popular and frequently updated articles, where there can be dozens of recent edits to sort through. There just aren't enough hours in the day for that.

2) The sources are all too frequently anonymous. Some Wikipedia articles contain excellently documented source information, it is true; but many others do not. There is no reliable way to separate solid, documentable information from personal crank theories. Sometimes they're obvious; sometimes they're not. Some will invoke the magic of "many eyeballs make shallow bugs" at this point, pointing out that errors tend to get corrected or reverted fairly rapidly. But once again, that is irrelevant. If my student cites an unfixed "bug" to support an argument, that's just as damaging to the student's paper as it would be if the bug never got fixed.

So what I tell my students is this: Wikipedia is great for fast, informal definitions of unfamiliar material, but not for formal papers submitted for credit. You can use it as a starting point for further research -- I have used it as such a starting point myself. But every piece of information from the Wikipedia article needs to be verified against a static, identifiable source before it can be used in a paper, and then you need to cite the verifying source rather than Wikipedia.

If it makes the Wikipedia people feel better, I also refuse to accept citations of the Encyclopedia Britannica -- or any encyclopedia, for that matter. Encyclopedias provide useful overviews; but I want my students to grapple with primary sources, not secondary summaries.

Amusing read

[Sir_Sri]

While I find wikipedia interesting to read and not a bad starting place, because its anonymous its impossible to trace back (and sometimes correct) errors.

With real science there are all sorts of peer reviewed papers that don't lead to anything meaningful, or have errors etc... after all the peer review process doesn't necessarily include verification of results. The problem with wikipedia is that if researchers believe person x died in 2793 BC at the age of 18, and I do oodles of research and conclude in fact that he died at age 19, and then change the wikipedia article to reflect that, and then the previous author who isn't yet familiar goes and changes it back, there's no way to argue this point away really (esspecially if it is a relatively trivial part of otherwise longwinded articles), unless you create a dispute page. Which isn't always worth the effort, nor will it necessarily attract the correct attention. I would be inclined to include a changelog in wikipedia, or 'past versions' that sort of thing so you can see at the bottom of the page what is being changed and perhaps a justification where warranted, granted tools like that are non trivial to write.

Re:Nailing theses to the library door

[jokestress]

This is a great summary of how I see this project as well. As long as there are more people improving Wikipedia than disrupting it or diluting it, Wikipedia will, given enough time, get more and more accurate, in-depth, and reliable. The only question is the rate at which that will happen. Its current iteration is far from perfect, but have you ever seen the first edition of Encyclopedia Britannica? Talk about biased and full of gaps. Thus sayeth a Wikipedia True Believer.

Re:Encyclopedia != Community

[Anonymous Coward]

because those who are qualified spend their time earning and practicing those qualifications in the real world. If the project were coordinated somehow, maybe shared between several universities with each department contributing according to its own specialization...

You pretend, ridiculously, that these people do not have ridiculous conflicts of interests to producing an accurate free source of information are somehow best qualified. Your so-called "losers" are those most positioned to be free of the conflicts which would prevent them from misleading the public. Money does, in fact, get you something. What you want to hear. Not the truth.

You're arguing in favor of the opposite of what you want to see.

If money were the aphrodisiac to insure the appearance of policies matching reality in any country, the wealthy in any political system would be able to insure success. But that, as out limited human history has shown over many, many centuries, is not the case.

You are wrong.

Re:Editorial control

[pbhj]

Is that post-post-modernity - "democratic truth"?

Glad there's at least one person that realises the truth is static and not determined by our whims and fancies.

I disagree.

[Estanislao Martínez]

Its not the curiosity of a six year old thats the problem. Its the twelve year old that decides to write 'penis' in the middle of the article for no reason.

That's nowhere nearly as bad as the 20 year old college student who vastly overestimates his understanding of a topic, and the value of what he has to contribute.

It's easy to notice the handiwork of the twelve-year old and revert it, and there's countless people who can do it. There's relatively few people who can understand why the 20-year old's contribution is very wrong; it takes them considerable effort to demonstrate the guy's errors to a layperson audience; and they're very much outnumbered by the 20 year olds.

And nothing is worse than a mob of said 20 year olds, independently making small edits to a coherent, cohesive article in order to make small, local "improvements" (without any concern for the overall organization and narrative flow of the article), and thereby rendering the article into an unreadable random shopping list of distorted half-truths.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

sex bias

[Anonymous Coward]

I was just searching images of 50's shoes for my wife, and at some point went to Wikipedia's article on the 1950s. There was nothing about fashion, and she noted there were only "men things".

As there are more males among people that actually edit content, that sort of bias happens, even if unintentionally.

Re:Editorial control

[sdedeo]

I wonder which article this was. I've never had this problem at all, and I've contributed to dozens of articles, both in science (I'm a Ph.D. in astrophysics), and in politics (where I have worked on "hot button" topics like the ACLU.) I have certaintly had occasional issues with people, but it's actually quite rare. In general, contentious but well-sourced material that belongs in an article, stays in an article, and people who try to remove it are considered vandals by the community and dealt with accordingly.

Reading between the lines of your post, it seems entirely possible that your edits, even if they were sourced by peer-reviewed journals, were inappropriate for the articles you edited. Wikipedia is not meant to be a series of technical review articles. The information you added may well have been considered at an inappropriately high level, it may have just been "too much" (articles are not supposed to grow without bounds) or, indeed, you may have added too much information about only one side of a contentious topic -- in the third case, people are likely to worry that you are subverting NPOV. (Adding detail to one side of an issue but not the other is probably the most tricky aspect of wikipedia -- I personally think it's OK, but it does, reasonably, set off people's NPOV alarms.)

Dev and Stable

[Agarax]

I've always had the same hesitating suggestion: branch the wikipedia so that there's something like a "stable branch".

Of course, such a thing would be a logistical nightmare, and it's damn near impossible. However, I think it would be appreciated by a lot of people if some editorial process could be worked in somehow.

This is actually a very good idea.

A stub could start out as a beta, where it gets many edits. After a certain ammount of time/edits the entry could be forked into a RC and dev page. The RC could be locked and the dev maintained on a seperate tab (like the discussion or talk links are now). You could then put up a voting system where you can give a thumbs up or down.

If it gets a number of yes votes it could then be called a stable page (1.0) More edits would still be made on the dev page until it reaches the limit where it goes up for a up/down vote again, and a snapshot of the dev would go up for review. If it passes you could then have a 1.1 version of the page and continue adnausium.

This would provide a signifigant ammount of quality control on the page.

Say what?

[ta bu shi da yu]

What on earth are you on about? Some Wikipedia editors are more interested in the "community", however when it becomes clear that they aren't really contributing to articles they do tend to be ignored by the same community. And at the end of the day, the community is geared towards writing factual and neutral encyclopedia articles. Those who participate in the featured article candidates process are definitely the most constructive ones. I'd say the same for those who participate in WikiProjects.

It kind of sounds like you are bitter about the site. It's either that, or your really don't know what you are talking about.

How could anyone possibly deface wikipedia?

[floamy]

"Who cares if it's easy to deface, it's got great moderation!"

Swift (and not so swift) moderation doesn't do very much good. A friend added me to a list of famous erotic authors. It was removed.. a few weeks later. Get what? I (Aaron Gyes) am still, months later, all over the damn internet.

http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-authors-of-er otic-works [answers.com]
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/l/li /list_of_authors_of_erotic_works.htm [absoluteastronomy.com]
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/List%20o f%20authors%20of%20erotic%20works [thefreedictionary.com]
http://www.biologydaily.com/biology/List_of_erotic _authors [biologydaily.com]
http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/List_of_erotic_au thors [psychcentral.com]
http://web.linix.ca/pedia/index.php/List_of_erotic _authors [linix.ca]
http://www.europe.com/index.php/List_of_authors_of _erotic_works [europe.com]
http://www.medicalrace.com/dictionary/List_of_erot ic_authors [medicalrace.com]
http://www.dictionaryofeverything.com/explore/112/ List_of_authors_of_erotic_works.html [dictionary...ything.com]
http://list-of-authors-of-erotic-works.iqnaut.net/ [iqnaut.net]
http://www.omnipelagos.com/entry?n=list_of_authors _of_erotic_works [omnipelagos.com]
http://www.gardeningdaily.com/flowers-and-plants/L ist_of_erotic_authors [gardeningdaily.com]
http://www.braindex.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Lis t_of_erotic_authors [braindex.com]
http://en.efactory.pl/List_of_erotic_authors [efactory.pl]
http://www.art-fresh.net/DisplayArticleFull314102. html [art-fresh.net]
http://www.thefreeencyclopedia.com/definition/word .aspx?w=List_of_erotic_authors [thefreeencyclopedia.com]
http://bigpedia.com/encyclopedia/List_of_authors_o f_erotic_works [bigpedia.com]
http://www.dogluvers.com/dog_breeds/List_of_erotic _authors [dogluvers.com]

Re:I disagree.

[iocat]

Bingo. Wikipedia trends towards -- it isn't always -- but it trends towards the conventional net wisdom on subjects, and on subjects on which I am expert, I have seen it frequently misstate facts, include folklore as truth, etc. (I am too tired right now to site a lot of examples, so you'll either have to trust me or not)(but ok, for instance, in its entry on the ABC [wikipedia.org] it is the garden variety UoI story on how John Atanasoff's computer was the first digital computer, blah blah blah, without at all referencing the fact that what we call a "computer" is typically a multipurpose, reprogrammable device, which the ABC wasn't, so while it was a digital device, it was a modern computer in the sense of the ENIAC, which thus has a much better claim to being the first digital computer. Blah blah blah boring boring nerd nerd argue argue.) Look my point is, and you UoI people can stop modding me down now, is that it's a really nuanced debate and issue, and on Wikipedia you not only fail to find the nuances, you don't even learn that the nuances exist. (By the way, for a fantastic and authoritative book on the subject, check out this [amazon.com]. In this way maybe its similar to other encyclopaedias, which tend to be very broad and undetailed.

Yes, I could edit these things, but a) the truth is less good in these instances than the folklore, so I expect it will just get changed back (in the specific instance I cited, ABC fans people probably troll that entry daily to protect their primacy...)and b) I don't have the six-year-old skills in place to be motivated. I like wikipedia as a general overview, but the love of Wiki-fans for "free" as in speech solutions somestimes can't make up for a good fact-checker.

Note: I am on a flaky connect and posting this w/o previewing so apologies if the links are broken.

Re:Encyclopedia != Community

[cokane2]

LOL THEY'RE LOSERS WITH NO LIVES ROFL that's basically the gist of your argument. It's simply not true though, undergraduate and graduate students along with professors, doctors, engineers and other regularly contribute to wikipedia. It seems to me you have your own issues to resolve. You attack people for spending their free time contributing to an information source as 'losers'? Then you further criticize them for socializing--which we could rephrase as conferencing or working together... I just don't understand your stance at all. I think wikipedia contribution is a great use of one's free time, it's better than watching television for instance.

Re:Not knowledge

[lawpoop]

"Wikipedia is the opposite of knowledge: it's based on majority rule. Wikipedia in 1805 would have described the "wonders of the African Ape-Man and his Ability to Pick Cotton." After all, the majority believed that it was true."

Well, then we're screwed as far as knowledge. Even scientific knowledge of 1805 was incredibly racist and sexist by today's standards (not to mention out-and-out wrong about a lot of other things, including physics). So, your criticism of Wikipedia is just as apt for other knowledge ventures of the human race, even to this day. Hopefully, like science, Wikipedia will develop functional correction mechanisms, if they aren't in place already.

Re:The Liberal Bias Remains

[sdedeo]

I seem to be running interference for wikipedia today against touchy conservatives when I should be working.

Both AIM and MM are referred to respectively as conservative and liberal organizations. Actually, to be fair, MM is described in the first paragraph as a group that attacks "conservative" information, and is referred to as a "progressive" organization; the word "liberal" is not used until the second paragraph, where MM's sources of funding as described as "wealthy liberals".

Meanwhile, yes, indeed, AIM is referred to as a conservative organization. I'm not sure I understand: should wikipedia not refer to it as conservative? It's certaintly true that AIM likes to spin things, and doesn't describe itself as conservative, but everybody (and that means everybody, on the left and right) recognizes it as such.

I agree with you that the MM intro has a slight NPOV problem, however. I've rephrased it: "Media Matters monitors for and criticizes what it identifies as materially substantiated conservative misinformation found in media news reports, public affairs and talk radio shows from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and others."

As for the Communism articles, I don't get it? Wikipedia is probably the most comprehensive web source on the evils of various Communist states around the world. You don't dispute that. What you do dispute is that because there is so much information on Communism, the pages have been split up so that some of them deal with the theory of Communism, while others deal with its implementation in practice. Presumably, you would want big warning labels on the theory article declaring "warning: following the descriptions in this article in your own country may lead to famine and genocide?"

That's what cracks me up the most about most allegations of "liberal bias": conservatives who alledge it seem to have a very, very low opinion of the average person's intelligence. Something that's well reflected in FOX news I might add.

Ah, slashdot. Where "no personal attacks" and "assume good faith" don't apply.

Re:Editorial control

[Raul654]

That's the stupidest statement I've ever seen here on slashdot, and that's saying something. Al Fraken said it best in his book - people complain that news sources are biased towards the left or the right, and that's really missing the point. Yes, the NY Times might have a very, very slight left bias; the Wall Street Journal might have a teensy bit of a right-wing view on it; however, these institutions do their best to make their stories accurate and neutral. Their job is to inform the reader.

Then, you have the news that comes from other organizations like Fox News and the Washington Times. These are organizations which are so utterly, appallingly biased that it's clear their primary mission is to persuade. MediaWatch [mediawatch.com], a non-partisan media watchdog, actually found Fox viewers were MORE IGNORANT (that is, more likely to get current events questions wrong) than people WHO DID NOT WATCH THE NEWS. You actually become less informed by watching Fox!

Re:Encyclopedia != Community

[interiot]

You're right. This whole religious thing you guys have about Wikipedia is bullshit. No one is allowed to point out it's flaws without fanatics like you spouting off dogma.

Wikipedia zealots are like Linux zealots. Both communities believe that it's possible to take a large group of well-meaning contributors, combined with policies that ensure that the overall quality of the projects will improve over time, and the results will eventually be something that no one will be able to ignore.

Wikipedia has been around for four years, and has many friendly and not-so-friendly people editing it. Outsiders may see potential problems that are already being effectively dealt with. In these cases, it's absolutely appropriate to point out that there is a known, practical solution for the hypothetical problem that was stated.

Re:Editorial control

[neitzsche]

While it is true that this happens on a regular basis, admins and regular contributors revert such edits very quickly on average. I know I spend a lot more time these days watching [[Special:Recentchanges]] than I do reading slashdot. I'd almost forgotten I had an account here.

Enter Adam Smith....

[Quadraginta]

The only thing is, who certifies?

It's only top-down designers who face this perennial conundrum, you know. If you free yourself from the narrow confines of socialist thinking this problem is easy to solve: let a free market assign the appropriate value of Wikipedia information, just as it successfully assigns the appropriate value of bazillions of commodities from 1/8" copper tubing to expertise in brain surgery.

How could that work? Simple, if Wikipedia could figure out a way to let users bid to pay for information, and let experts (or random wannabes) bid to sell information, and connect them up. The ol' invisible hand would rapidly solve the problem of assigning an appropriate value to every article and every author in the Wikipedia.

Users for whom information is mission-critical, e.g. who will be testing the truth of that information most severely, would end up offering the highest price for it. So, information that consistently proves reliable and accurate in actual use (and not just in some academical opinion) would fetch the highest price. Similarly, experts who really are expert, who can easily provide the high quality information, are going to end up commanding the highest fees, fees which will encourage them to provide more of those tasty nuggets. Lonely groupies who merely browse and argue without actually using the information in the real world won't be paying high prices, so they will have little effect on the nature of the supply. Flamers who supply plausible-sounding but useless or misleading garbage will quickly find the price of their product falling to peanuts.

In other words, I think the essential flaw in Wikipedia is that it is free, because in the real world things that are free usually end up being worth the price (i.e. nothing), because there is, indeed, as you point out, no clearly reliable way to ensure that noise and froth do not swamp what's actually valuable.

That being said, it's hard to know how Wikipedia could change this. Aside from its philosophical blinders, which probably prevent it from understanding the nature of its dilemma and the solution, it is difficult to make appropriate micropayments. No Wikipedia article is worth, say, $2 for a look, or $50/year for a subscription. But would I pay a nickel for a look, if I could pay instantly with just a single mouse click? I might indeed. Especially if I knew that the price was set by market demand from people who had to put up their own money to get the information, which goes far to guarantee that the information has proven worth the price when actually used.

Vandalism

[HooliganIntellectual]

Yes, Wikipedia is vulnerable to vandalism. But from my experience, Wikipedia also has a growing problem with hardcore zealots who patrol pages and prevent factual information from being added by newer people or casual users. In other words, some of the anti-vandal users are actually vandalizing content because they are more interested in playing Wikipedia cops instead of being Wikipedia writers, editors, and cybrarians.

Get rid of the "watch this page" feature (except for admins). This feature gives the zealots the idea that they "own" certain pages.

Re:Editorial control

[goofballs]

I've known professors who should have their work overwritten by college freshmen.

How exactly have you "known" this? I'm sorry, but frankly, I've met one too many college kid who thinks they know far more than what they actually do.

not the og poster, but i've known this after going to work in industry (aerospace). it was very obvious after a very short amount of time that many of the professors had never worked in industry, had no ideas how things really work, and couldn't design their way out of a paper bag if their life depended on it.

Depends on the type of article

[bm_luethke]

In my experience it depends greatly on the type of article - the less "concrete" the worse it is (in the sense of mathematics being very concrete and "is this author good" being not very concrete). Politically charged - not even remotely useful - not even as a starting point.

But then, I would say that is to be expected. In a lot of areas the "pro" people care enough to police it and pretty much control it. The "anti" people don't really think about it much but may from time to time edit on it (and sometimes in a destructive way), but it's not common. Especially given some subjects are very soft, or subjective, and the people feel VERY strongly about thier subject this can lead to a HUGE skew that peer reviewed papers are usually weed out. Technical stuff tends to be correct or wrong - whether I'm a gun nut, don't care one way or another, or think all guns are evil it doesn't change when a quicksort is better than a bubble sort - yet that would really color my views on firearms.

Take the some of the vegan entries, some of the stuff said in there has been, well, idiotic. It may stay for a while, be edited out and back in many times, but rarely is some of the more idiotic things left out for long. Essentially those that care enough to look at it much are mostly vegan, usually not just "vegan" but politically so also (I mean to differentiate between people who are simply vegan and ones who wish to push it on others regardles of any facts). I read it from time to time just for laughs - things like vegans never get sick, cures asthma, diabetes, heart disease, live for well over a hundred years, make you dog/cat a vegan, etc etc. But then, if you read it over time it's obvious which ones because they change quite frequently - one day it may be full of nutso and a few hours later actually a good take on veganism.

But then, you need to do that filtering on any source too - just that you are more likely to be burned on the wikipedia than a full peer reviewd academic article.

Re:Enter Adam Smith....

[Jules Bean]

In other words, I think the essential flaw in Wikipedia is that it is free, because in the real world things that are free usually end up being worth the price (i.e. nothing), because there is, indeed, as you point out, no clearly reliable way to ensure that noise and froth do not swamp what's actually valuable.

Really? Ignoring the most obvious example to slashdot readers of something that is free but not worthless, I can also think of: google, public parks, church services, free music recitals, usenet... I'm sure other people can think of more. I think the suggestion that what is free must be worthless is a truly depressing point of view! Having said that, I do think the micropayment scheme is interesting. But I don't think you present compelling evidence that wikipedia needs or wants it.

Re:Editorial control

[slashdotnickname]

MediaWatch, a non-partisan media watchdog

You're wrong. MediaWatch, and its group of volunteers, actively pubish opinion pieces, hold protests, and launch letter campaigns... usually related to women/minority issues, and always from a liberal perspective. Ann Simonton, MediaWatch's founder, frequently takes jab at the current federal administration. Though it shouldn't diminish the merit of their causes, they clearly have an active political agenda and it's wrong to label them as non-biased.

Sme about Linux and other OSS projects?

[Henriok]

"The people with the most free time to dedicate to an online encyclopedia will always be the people least-qualified to contribute, because those who are qualified spend their time earning and practicing those qualifications in the real world."

Couldn't this be said for almost all OSs projects, including Linux?

What I'm trying to say is that your statement here is wrong and really ingotant of who and why people contribute to non profit stuff in their free time.

Re:Aye, a bit...

[dwandy]

When I was younger I thought all the world's problems could be fixed by applying economic (monetary) pressures, and I still feel that there is some very string merit to this approach.
Unfortunately there are some real probems with pure capitalism, and that reflects in a number of ares:
-The UN puts Norway, Sweden, Australia and Canada as the top 4 (2004) in United Nation's Quality of Life survey. All these countries have strong social policies (i.e. far less capitalistic than the US)
-Companies don't necessarily make what's best for the consumer: products are now more and more often made to be disposable. (how do I make more money: sell the best product once, or some minimum-standard product 1000x. Engineered Obsolesence is a capitalist phrase)
-Capitalism doesn't take hidden costs into account (like social problems, environmental problems) but looks only at the costs/profits for the next quarter.

I'm not sure I would find this acceptable for something like information. If I'm asking for an answer to some question, and I'm told the answer is '12', how can I verify this?
I guess what I'm also questioning is the feedback loop...and compensation (in capitalism) is a big part of the feedback loop. I'm intrigued by the idea of hiding bits of information, and perhaps over time one could determine whether or not someone was an expert or not.
I guess the real problems for me is that if I'm shopping for a car, I can look at each one before I buy - compare and contrast: why is the bimmer $65,000 and the hyundai only $10,000 ?
What exactly is it about the one bit of information/expertise that makes it worth spending 6x as much to learn it? Unlike physical goods, information can't be previewed, since it can't be 'unlearned'.
Since by definition I don't know the answer, it may be difficult to decide based purely on asking price which one I want or need to buy.

To answer the original question: I use wikipedia as a "xyz for dummies" reference. I don't expect to walk away an expert, but I do expect to have an idea of what the word/phrase is all about. Really, phd's arguing over minor symantics that only another phd would care about means nothing to me. If someone needs that kind of detail they are at the wrong resource... Once you view wikipedia in that context, it becomes a very valuable resource, and ain't broke, so it don't need no fixin'.

One last point that a previous poster aluded to: OSS is 100% free to me. I am 100% convinced that it not only has value today, but will have value to the human race into the forseable future and see no immediate threat to the current price model (free as beer and speach...) If that's not your vision of OSS you might be on the wrong forum ;)

Re:Encyclopedia != Community

[Idarubicin]

Loony opinions are absolutely NOT represented on Wikipedia.

Ever seen the Remote Viewing article?

On the other hand, that's the point of an encyclopedia--Wikipedia should report on all significant topics, even if those areas have been discredited. Wikipedia has an article on phrenology [wikipedia.org] not because phrenology was good science but because it was an idea that had significant impact in its day. 'Loony opinions' should be reported when they are or have been held by a large number of loonies.

The remote viewing article isn't in the best of shape. It is, however, growing into a balanced article that discusses the concept of remote viewing, its experimental history, and criticisms of the technique.

Creating a Wikipedia article is often an iterative process. Frequently, an article will be created by a strong proponent or opponent of a person or idea; people tend to write about things they know and things they feel strongly about. It takes a certain amount of time for other editors to find the article and round it out.

Re:The Liberal Bias Remains

[ragnar]

This sounds like an opportunity for you to become an editor and to contribute something, but while you go about doing so, be sure to document the horrors of capitalism as well. Or at the very least, don't be surprised if the light of truth shines both ways.

(additionally, most leftists will take issue with the notion that they are sympathetic with communism)

Re:Editorial control

[nine-times]

ummmm, the Wikipedia authors and monitors. It's perfectly possible to verify people know what they're talking about some way or another....

It's not that easy to know who knows what they're talking about unless you know what they're talking about. In other words, if I don't know anything about quantum physics, how do I test you to find out if you know anything about quantum physics? You'd have to end up, probably, just allowing people who have degrees in these subjects and, like I said, I've known professors who don't really know their own subjects. They might know more than your average college freshmen, but many are heavily biased and even ignorant.

...and even if they don't and slip through the system, there will be other "certified" users who can overwrite/edit their mistakes just like 6 year olds can right now.

That's assuming you can attract enough qualified experts to each page, and verifying the expertise of lots of experts is going to be time consuming. Even so, let's imagine we've gotten tons of "experts" to look at a given page. What if the experts have their own disagreements (which experts do) and get into their own little Wiki-war? What if some ignorant expert keeps changing to page to something wrong?

You haven't really eliminated the problem, you've just tightened access in the hopes that a smaller group will be more cohesive. Even assuming you could get all those experts, I'm not sure it's worth de-democratising the wikipedia when you can't eliminate the problem.

College Degrees as stamps of authority

[DesScorp]

I've known professors who should have their work overwritten by college freshmen.

Yup. While a degree should give weight to an opinion, it shouldn't be the final criteria used to judge someone's expertise in a place like Wikipedia, because frankly, there are so many whackjob professors out there right now. In an ideal world, all professors would be wise, honest experts. Unfortunately, the academy has these leading lights to contend with these days:

Ward Churchill - got a full professorship without a PhD because he's an American Indian. Oh wait...

Leonard Jeffries - The guy at CCNY that claimed melatonin made blacks a superior race. I'm surprised they found the courage to sack this jackoff.

Martin Bernal - His book Black Athena claims Greece was a black civilization.

All of these guys are or were professors at schools with good reputations (CU, CCNY, Cornell). Though they've been discredited, lots of their ilk remain in the academy, yet to be exposed. Only professors in the maths and hard sciences should get the kind of near-automatic legitimacy being discussed for Wikipedia. And keep in mind, even science has it's dogmas. The fact that it took twenty years for the truth of the real cause of ulcers (bactieria) to gain mainstraim scientific acceptance should give us pause; the scientific method may be perfect, but humans practicing the scientific method are not.

One more note of caution; many people with advanced degrees are given automatic credibility even when speaking on a non-related subject, and this also should give us pause. Noam Chomsky is a good example. His field of expertise is linguistics, but he's most noted for his political writings and opinions. Should Chomsky be given automatic credibility when speaking on matters other than language? He and others often are, being lumped into the general category of "intellectuals". For something like wikipedia, "expert" status on something should be limited to actual expertise in the given field.

Re:The Future

[rileyjt]

You have to keep in mind too that Wikipedia is very young. As its popularity has exploded recently, a lot of new content is being added to the site. While its easy to add content to the site, it takes a lot of time to refine that amount of information. NO Reference works are created overnight. The quality of the information on Wikipedia is improving, but it is a gradual process.

I don't think anyone is arguing that you should take every word you read on the site as fact without a credible source, but isn't that the beauty of the site? It basically forces you to challenge and evaluate every piece of information you read and then gives you the opportunity to do something about it. Most people are not used to thinking this way, and when you bring together millions of people that are going through this information evaluation excercise... what are you going to end up with down the road?

Where will the site be 10 years down the road? It will probably be the most scrutinized website in existance... talk about trial by fire. After 10 years of nitpicking about every word and punctuation mark on the site, the question will soon become how any other source of information can possibly be more credible than wikipedia.

not quite what I meant

[Quadraginta]

Of course not. But you have mistaken the argument, which goes like this:

A handsome young cardiologist has convinced all other cardiologists that they ought to provide help to men who scream, clutch their chests, et cetera, free and without charge. After all, they will be "paid" in respect and attention from the community, as well as the ardent thanks of the wives, some of whom are still young and good-looking, har de har har... "Medical skill wants to be be free!" they chant enthusiastically as they fan out, compressing chests, injecting ephinephrine, doing good deeds. Wives in crowded theaters all over the land huzzah lustily...

But then, alas, the cardiologists' mortgages come due, and the kids need braces. Unfortunately the theater work doesn't pay except in self-respect and the occasional "tip" from the wives (wink wink), so they need to take on other jobs, e.g. transplanting hearts for big bux at St. Evil Exploiter of the Masses Enormously Expensive Hospital and Whorehouse. Leaves them less time to patrol the theaters. But that's OK, because other people step in, people who have fewer opportunities to earn the big bux doing heart transplants at St. EEMEEH and W, and wouldn't mind at all the warm feeling of being the heroic "doctor in the house" and the ardent thank-you. First, it's nurses and EMTs who fill the cardiologists' shoes.

Crucial point: surely the wives would prefer a cardiologist to an EMT. But how can they enforce that preference? They have no incentive to offer the cardiologist, to induce him back to the theater.

Not surprisingly, more men clutching their chests don't make it, since the skill of the responder is less. Not surprisingly, the providers are seen less often as heros, and the thanks of the wives becomes, well, cooler.

By and by, even the nurses and EMTs find they have bills to pay and the cooling thanks and diminished heroic stature are not enough even for them. But that's OK, because random strangers with no skill at cardiology at all are perfectly happy to step in, because even the reduced stature of playing a doctor in the theater and the lukewarm thanks of the wives (or more often widows) are better than what they get stuffing envelopes and walking dogs.

And, again, there is no way the wives can enforce their preference for a higher level of skill. Not paying for labor gives them zero leverage over the kind of labor they get.

Eventually, the heroic stature goes entirely away, because it's rare that when a man clutches his chest, et cetera, and his wife cries out for a "doctor" in the house that they get a real doctor, and not some charlatan pretending to be one. No one can expect warm thanks from wives. And the only people still jumping up when wives cry out for a doctor in the house are wretches for whom the modest attention and rare thanks from addled wives who don't realize when they're being scammed are better than what they can get spamming millions from Mom's basement with Enhance Your Manhood ads. That is, the labor the wives can get has fallen in value to exactly what they were willing to pay for it: zero.

That's my point. The fundamental capitalist rule is simple: Only when you insist on paying for what you get, will you routinely get what you pay for.

just wait, then

[Quadraginta]

Well, EB has been making money for three and a half centuries. Wikipedia has yet to prove it can sustain itself over a single decade, and the fate of other freely shared commodities -- think "Tragedy of the Commons" -- is not especially encouraging.

If I were a Wikipediast enthusiast I would be thinking about this carefully. Do I have a sustainable model, or are we going to be a merely marvelously fun flash in the pan?

My impression is that people are worrying already about the weaknesses in their model for incentive and reward, when they regret the flames and trolls and general unruliness. There seems no way to easily and reliably sort out value from trash, reward the former and punish the latter. There are worries that the quality may be diluted by noise, and that, once that happens, the incentive to contribute quality will diminish.

You're absolutely right that money is not the only unit of reciprocation -- otherwise marriages and families would never work out. But, alas, in a large community of relative strangers no one has yet found a workable substitute. Perhaps the Wiki wookies will prove that one exists. I hope they do. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Re:Editorial control

[Blanger]

Wikipedia is somewhat similar to Slashdot in my opinion, because it serves the function of gathering views from a variety of sources -- not just certified ones. For instance, when someone is making an argument, another person may add a counterpoint to that argument. The former will compensate with the new point and revise his argument. Thus the compromise makes the validity of the argument stronger (at least to the two persons involved). Therefore when I consider Slashdot and Wikipedia, I think of it as an open argument that gets further and further revised in order to find the truth that everyone can agree on. Wikipedia should not be viewed as a fact-by-fact explanation of events or objects. It focuses more on the ideas and opinions that surround the entry much like the comments posted by Slashdot users. The continuous revising/editing of the entries on Wikipedia moves us closer to an ideal truth.