Wikipedia Founder Sees Serious Quality Problems 459
Juha-Matti Laurio writes "The Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has acknowledged there are real quality problems with the online project. From the article: 'Meanwhile, criticism from outside the Wikipedia camp has been rebuffed with a ferocious blend of irrationality and vigor that's almost unprecedented in our experience: if you thought Apple, Amiga, Mozilla or OS/2 fans were er, ... passionate, you haven't met a wiki-fiddler.'"
i'll second that. (Score:5, Interesting)
In a perfect world wikipedia would work, but people aren't perfect, and people have agendas... that is why it will never be taken seriously with anyone outside the community.
Re:Perhaps they need a team of paid editors (Score:4, Interesting)
Lately I'm finding more "missing" articles than problem ones. Topics that should be there but aren't. Maybe they could have some sort of bounty system to get people to write these missing articles. Of course, that would require paid editors to approve the entires before a payment can be made.
Of course there's a lack of quality (Score:2, Interesting)
Step 1: Create an account
Step 2: Do whatever the hell you want to the whole place
Maybe a level system ought to be put in place. Create enough new entries and then you can edit other users' work. It's not a perfect solution, but it would cut down on some of the nonsense.
Wikipedia generally works (Score:4, Interesting)
I think we've talked about this before. (Score:5, Interesting)
'wikki-fiddler'? (Score:3, Interesting)
Regarding Wikipedia itself, I find it to be pretty useful as a repository of widely-known information (dates, names etc), very useful on computer-related information, and perhaps not so useful or reliable on other things. But that's still a net positive. Why the hostility?
Commercial opportunity? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:i'll second that. (Score:3, Interesting)
That was precisely one of the arguments mentioned in TFA.
That just because other encyclopedias had some errors, the wikipedia shouldn't be criticized. And here lies the problem: Instead of correcting errors, the wikipedia editors indulge them.
And that's very dangerous for an encyclopedia. Because it lets the errors accumulate. Yes, it's a wiki, but that's no excuse for making a defective reference work.
The big difference in my mind is that those traditional media typically have fewer people involved, and therefore fewer agendas...
Bingo. But according to (my interpretation of) the article, wikipedia suffers from a greater evil: A collective mindset (think slashdot regarding certain issues, like censorship). And that mindset is not simple like an agenda, it's worse, because it's about criticism to the wikipedia itself.
Traditionally, encyclopedias are peer-reviewed. But the wikipedia does not guarantee that an article will be peer-reviewed by PEOPLE WITH DIFFERENT IDEAS AND KNOWLEDGE. At most, it'll be reviewed by other users. So?
The bias in wikipedia is dangerous because it's not accidental. It's inherent to its social infrastructure.
In other words, the problem with the wikipedia is the wiki.
Re:Of course there's a lack of quality (Score:5, Interesting)
Wikipedia is far from a thousand monkeys pounding on typewriters. Yes, some contributors are not the most experienced, but if many contributors, even those ignorant about a particular aspect of knowledge, try to self edit and get the details right, over time the result will be so positive that conductive breakdown will occur and lightning will happen.
Consider this. When Hardy saw Ramanujan's [wikipedia.org] for the first time, he figured that "a single look at them is enough to show that they could only be written down by a mathematician of the highest class. They must be true, for if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them". Similarly, Wikipedia info is no joke - there are so many serious articles that people put enormous effort into. This should encourage anyone who really cares about any shortcoming to put some work into making the marginal improvements that ultimately benefit us all.
A message to people who have poor communications skills - just express yourself. Do not give in to embarrassment. Put in your knowledge and take a look at other articles. Even copying someone else's style will enable you to enhance your input. If someone edits your work, that's supposed to be a good thing, as long as you maintain the attitude of writing with higher and higher quality.
Self-filtering trust (Score:2, Interesting)
What Wikipedia is, however, is what you'd get when you asked everyone what they *believe to be true* based on whatever basis that they tend to trust in. I don't want that to seem like a put down, or a weakness, however. Most people have a firm basis for what they believe to be true, particularly if it comes from their personal, first hand experience. Therefore, Wikipedia will have tons of good information, and it does. However, when it comes to places where people start reaching farther than they can grasp, it starts to break down. And when those people are obnoxious or stridently unaware of their own limitations, you start getting problems.
What that system needs is a filtering system that lets you have the opportunity to screen out the contributions of people who fit a profile that you feel is suspect. The data should all remain in the wiki, but depending on what you, yourself want to see, you should be able to personalize the editing to match what you can accept. If you feel someone is a wacko (it doesn't mean they are), and they make an addition, you may wish to ignore their contributions in certain topic areas and instead accept the article as it exists without their input.
The worst part of this idea is that people who don't want to see what they don't understand, may find themselves hearing the choir singing to them. However, I don't think you can force people to learn things. It has to be their decision. The best you can do is accept their view point in their submission and then let their deeds speak for themselves and have people choose to ignore them. There should be a peer reviewed filter in Wikipedia that doesn't remove non-expert content, but rather, doesn't let the content of experts be overwritten if there is an agenda involved and that view of the article is viewable if you select the appropriate filter.
I do think, however, it would end the wars where the Wiki is compromised by billions of astroturfers and crackpots under different names. Under this system, what they post never gets overwritten, so they have no reason to go covert. At least, they have no motivation to keep up a running list of fake names and constant counter-editting. There will probably always be the people who post the same things under a billion different names to see if they can get to the most "trusted" filters, but if you are careful, they should never be able to sneak on to your lists.
Obviously, this system would have to be automatic, designed well, and probably require a huge amount of storage space to hold everyone's submissions. But I think it would be best suited to the actual aims and spirit of the Wiki, if it could be done.
Re:Would you have your average fifth grade class.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What's scary is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Whats truly scary is the number of people defending the use of the Wikipedia as a de facto source of information.
Re:Perhaps they need a team of paid editors (Score:5, Interesting)
General problems with Wikipedia (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that a lot of the obscure stuff that *is* there is in areas where geek (or rather nerd) types have interests, and it's not always that well-written. In fact, I think this is arguably at the top of the (otherwised unordered) list of problems with Wikipedia:-
(1) The anal-retentive "fact"-adding tendency. Those who'll add obscure/unused abbrevs to a *disambiguation* page. They don't get that some facts are more important than others, or that simply adding information to an article doesn't necessarily make it more helpful. They'll create lots of small stub articles, when they'd be better combined in a single article (placing them in context). If there's one thing I've learned as I get older, it's that leaving stuff out is *hard* but very important. You can't include everything. And you have to order that information well. The self-indulgent factoid geeks don't know or care about this.
(2) Change for change's sake. I'd be interested to see the amount of "churn" that goes on in some articles simply caused by people changing stuff for the sake of it. It's not necessarily a bad thing; it's just pointlessly wasted effort over a minor issue.
(3) *Potential* subversion by those with an agenda, including professionals. I've seen at least one instance of what appeared to be a PR person editing anonymously. This is dangerous, because most zealots with an agenda are transparent; PR and the like are professionals, and more likely to slip under the radar.
(4) Vandalism; annoying, but usually pretty obvious
(5) Lack of citation. This is very rare, and whilst normal encyclopedias don't normally include citations, Wikipedia's credibility would be much enhanced with more of them.
There are probably more, but my brain is full; that's enough to be going on with...
I've noticed a disturbing trend recently (Score:3, Interesting)
I've also noticed a trend whereby people will do stealth vandalism, changing one tiny fact or number. This is far more insidious than the harmless dorks who replace an entire article with "Brent Stevens eats babies". This is clearly an effort by people to discredit the very idea of Wikis.
Re:What's scary is... (Score:2, Interesting)
There are many specialists on any particular subject and in the Wikipedia model these individuals can update the site to contain relevant and accurate information. Everyone get to peer review the information. It's the long tail for information [wired.com].
Making it open and accessible actually improves the overall breadth and quality. It is counter intuitive and many people have been unable to grasp this concept with open source projects.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I think we've talked about this before. (Score:1, Interesting)
There have been a couple of proposals:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Article_validation
Or they could rate... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think they should lock a lot more articles that are known to be complete and accurate. The definition of, say, orange juice hasn't changed all that much in the last 10 years and probably won't in the next 10.
Working these two concepts in together, I think they should have the 'modifiability' of the article be based on how high it's rated. For just a stub, or no article at all, then anyone should be able to modify it. But if the article is long (enough) and complete, then say maybe only a register with many high-rated articles can change it.
I think the main idea here is to promote and protect good content, but I seriously think they should not do anything to restrict an average joe from exlpicitly adding content.
Anyone else there think I'm on the right track?
Re:Perhaps they need a team of paid editors (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, no kidding.
Point 1. The system doesn't favor true information, it favors whoever can be the most obstinate, anal-retentive, vindictive prick. Take this dipshit [toddverbeek.com], for example. Imagine having a flaming, bitchy drag queen editing your stuff. Not to make it better or more correct-- changing/deleting/removing content just because he didn't like edits to other, unrelated articles you'd done.
Point 2. Then you get the tools that label your factually correct additions as "vandalism". They'll delete whole paragraphs just because they consider the article to be "their" article. This is especially prevalent by the older users towards the newer users.
Point 3. Then there's the "vote for deletion" nazis. See Tverbeek [toddverbeek.com], above. Again, as "revenge" for some perceived past slight, these mental giants will put your stuff up for deletion with the rationale that it belongs on uncyclopedia, this is the typical rationale for deleting topics relating to fiction or pop-culture. Why then, do certain "uncyclopedia-quality" articles (i.e. the Klingon dictionary) stick while others don't? See Point 1.
Re:Wikipedia generally works (Score:2, Interesting)
I see its lack of a tight editorial policy as one of its strengths. There are plenty of conventional publications, periodicals, references, etc. with strict editorial policies. And while this can sometimes make the information provided more accurate, it often results in the exclusion of less popular views or views that are simply contrary to the position of the editors from a discussion. With mainstream media sources being consolidated and exclusively owned by corporations and people with very similar perspectives/worldviews and shared interests, the issue of media diversity is often neglected and overlooked.
Take a look at the U.S. media coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Due to media consolidation there is only one perspective that is covered by mainstream American sources. This is no surprise when corporate America, especially the arms industry which has many of the same shareholders as a large number of U.S. media outlets, has such a vested economic interest in the area and has been actively using political posturing to exploit the situation for financial gains.
I think assuming that simply because a media source employs paid editors that their information is 100% accurate and unbiased is much more dangerous than having a wide variety of perspectives on any given topic and very limited editorial policies. And if you sacrifice media diversity for strict editorial policies then you must trust the editors to be completely knowledgeable/unbiased/ethical.
OTOH, with sources like Wikipedia you don't need to make those assumptions or place that kind of deference in the editorial staff. It's good practice to always be skeptical with "facts" that you are presented with and critically scrutinize information before you accept it as true. The benefits, and indeed necessity, of such practices are very apparent when you are presented with information through a source like Wikipedia, but you will not likely see CNN preface any of their news coverage with the warning: "some of the details about this topic are disputed" even when they are covering a controversial topic where may be more than one point of view.
Re:Perhaps they need a team of paid editors (Score:4, Interesting)
i.e. "on one entry, me and several friends have inside sources (one being the entry) and when we try to correct it, or correct misinformation that has been posted, the sites owner locks it down or chooses the misinformation over what is even know as fact. starting to distrust information found on there due to personal experience."
Tverbeek was a good example, because he's a royal prick, but he's got no shortage of equivalents on Wikipedia.
And my points are reiterated by one of the Wiki admins there, as well (so no, I'm not "trolling", unless you're also accusing Wiki admins of trolling as well):
The majority of edits on large topics are decreasing the quality of those articles. This is because, for most people, the quality of the article as a whole is taking a back seat to the desire everyone seemingly has to have their imprint on articles. This is turning many articles into long lists of disparate trivia instead of naturally-flowing, high-quality encyclopedia articles. Efforts to stem this and make the encyclopedia more encyclopedic are criticized as counter to the spirit of "openness."
His User page is here [wikipedia.org].
Re:General problems with Wikipedia (Score:3, Interesting)
As to PR professionals, surreptitiously editing without disclosing their affiliation might not be such a good idea. If they get caught, Wikipedia's profile is such that such interference would likely be of interest to the mainstream media, and would probably embarrass the company more than any changes to the article would be worth.
They need to smarten the F up! (Score:1, Interesting)
Only to find out some nobody rolled back all the changes a few hours after, asking me to back everything up with references... Like, dude, you want me to backup statements like "the sky is blue" ???
Sorry, but too fucking bad. I doubt I'll even bother visiting them (or referring them, mentionning them or anything) after that. (I've actually taken my wikipedia links off my websites eh)
Re:Perhaps they need a team of paid editors (Score:1, Interesting)
Well, on the one hand including these very specialized articles is very nice. But on the other hand, there are some costs.
The global namespace has a kind of scarcity (see the disambiguation page for Praxis [wikipedia.org]). If the scope of Wikipedia were as narrow as a paper encyclopedia, you could just look up "Lincoln" and immediately get the entry for Abraham Lincoln. Having so many articles makes it more challenging to store and index data, and the disambiguation pages mean that users have to load more pages to get what they want. This increases not only the time users must spend to find the page they want, but also adds to the network load. Of course, there are probably technological ways to improve the 'finding Lincoln' situation (e.g., an "I'm feeling lucky" search that vetoes disambiguation pages).
There is also a problem that articles of marginal interest may have poor quality and rarely be reviewed. Vandalism to such articles may also go uncorrected for a long time.
The biggest personal annoyance I have with Wikipedia is the incredible amount of specialization and detail found in current events articles. The Cindy Sheehan [wikipedia.org] article is the best example of this that I've run across. It is much more like a reference text for specialists than a general encyclopedia article. In a year or two, even those few people that remember who Cindy Sheehan is are not going to care about the day-by-day account of "Bus Tour - Week 2". [wikipedia.org]
Basically, current event articles wind up looking more like a community discussion board. This is not by itself a bad thing, but it is not what Wikipedia aspires to be. If I donate money to Wikipedia, I would prefer it to support useful articles of general interest rather than political discussions that are of interest only to the participants.
Madam, we're merely haggling over price. (Score:5, Interesting)
The "tortured prose" of this Register article is apparent in their lack of details on how the Bill Gates and Jane Fonda Wikipedia entries are "unreadable crap" (in Jimmy Wales' words). We're merely told this repeatedly, but the Register never backs their argument (or Wales'). Also, one sees another instance of the double-standards which are tolerated for judging Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica.
If "[s]omething that aspires to be a reference work ought to be judged by the quality of the worst entry" then why are we only allowed to judge one encyclopedia—Wikipedia—on that basis? With such a ridiculously high bar, it's easy to hand-pick articles one knows a great deal about and see if the encyclopedia in question measures up.
Which brings me to the next problematic criticism of these encyclopedias: drawing conclusions by weighing too small a sample. I recall that EB's former editor used exactly one entry to conclude that Wikipedia is akin to filth one is likely to find in a public bathroom (or words to that effect). The Register article's critique centers on reviews of two Wikipedia articles—Bill Gates and Jane Fonda's entries. The only way to reach the conclusion that EB has a "handful of errors" (as the Register says) is to do a survey; you can't judge articles you've never read. It seems to me that a proper review of a large encyclopedia would require a far larger sample size than a "handful" of articles in order to justify any reasonable conclusions about quality, no matter what those conclusions were.
Finally, the Register article mentions a few "respon[ses] to criticism" but doesn't actually critique these responses with a proper explanation. Just because one is told something like "this is what my critics will tell you" doesn't mean you have reason to dismiss the criticism. If one is interested in learning what's really going on, one has an obligation to think about the critique and weigh it on its merits. I "welcome the candour" as well the Register does, but I certainly want my candour to come with examples to back up points. When I evaluate EB using the guidelines I'm told to evaluate Wikipedia by, I come up with the conclusion that EB is merely different from, not better than, Wikipedia. And this conclusion I arrive at without giving any credit to Wikipedia for being free (as in the freedom to share and modify) which EB most certainly isn't. So, if I happen to be a victim of EB's "HUAC", I can't do anything to improve EB without going through the gatekeepers that registered their unwillingness to examine the above topics at all.
Re:Perhaps they need a team of paid editors (Score:5, Interesting)
What wikipedia needs to do is have both "stable" and "unstable" branches of wikipedia, like the linux kernel does.
Make searches default to the stable page, with the option to add in the more recent changes by clicking a button.
This has a number of advantages:
Trivia (Clarification) (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect that this trend will continue. Wikipedia will continue to expand in geek-friendly and pop-culture areas, while articles one would expect to find in Encyclopedia Britannica will be left mostly empty. If you're looking for the title of a Star Trek episode or a comic book supervillain, check Wikipedia; for articles on Ancient Greece, use Encarta. Most teachers don't accept Wikipedia as a bibliographic source anyway, due to the possibility of students editing a Wikipedia article and then quoting themselves authoritatively. I think that as long as people (including Jimmy Wales, the founder) compare Wikipedia to Britannica and expect it to measure up, they'll continue to be disappointed--they're simply different things with different strengths. That's all there is to it.
not a normal encyclopedia. (Score:2, Interesting)
if you go to a restaurant on a date.. you pay for it.. this is more like a free shared cook out where you prepare meals for each other for free, ofcourse you're not going to like all of it.. but you can help people with their recipe's and cooking.. you can still bring a date ofcourse
it's just like with opensource software.. it requires interaction, ah different way of thinking.. and that's what makes it a better product in the -end-