An Interview with Wikipedia's Jimbo Wales 141
Raul654 writes "The Wikipedia Signpost, Wikipedia's weekly in-house publication, is this week featuring an interview with Jimbo Wales. The questions, which were submitted by Wikipedia regulars, hit on subjects related to the Foundation, the budgeting and legal issues, the blocking of Wikipedia in China, as well as where Jimbo sees Wikipedia in the future."
Balkanization Risk as Wiki Grows (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Balkanization Risk as Wiki Grows (Score:5, Informative)
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral [wikipedia.org] point of view
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_persona
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Civility [wikipedia.org]
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiabil
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_goo
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikip
There is no indication that Wikipedia is turning into a trollfest. Of course, some subjects like the Muhammad cartoons cause a great deal of debate [wikipedia.org], but for the most part it is focused on writing an Encyclopedia, not a debate club. As it should be.
Re:Balkanization Risk as Wiki Grows (Score:3, Informative)
Through early 2004, Jimbo handled all of the english wikipedia's "discipline problems" (for lack of a better word) himself. Of course, with all due respect to Jimbo, in retrospect it's clear that didn't do a particularly good job of it. Users like Helga and Lir - not quite vandals, but not good editors by any stretch of imagination - were allowed to troll the
Re:Balkanization Risk as Wiki Grows (Score:1)
Internet -- it's serious business.
Re:Balkanization Risk as Wiki Grows (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if the (highest moderated)
Re:Balkanization Risk as Wiki Grows (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Balkanization Risk as Wiki Grows (Score:2)
I am indeed sure Jimmy Wales is a busy man. I merely noticed that
Asking readers of a website for questions
|
Answering a different set of readers' quesions
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Genuinely asking why the first set of questions
Re:Balkanization Risk as Wiki Grows (Score:2)
(1) Do you have a single bit of evidence to back up this speculation? No? Then it's unsupported by the facts.
(2) Somehow, I don't think that qualifies as a "geniune" attempt to ask why the slashdot questions where not answered. It sounds more like a conspiracy theory to me.
(3) "But they are different interview questions, which was not explained in TFA" - seeing as how the write up says explicitely that the qu
Re:Balkanization Risk as Wiki Grows (Score:2)
I think what you meant to say was "Actually, this interview is unrelated to Slashdot's original request for questions, I'm sure the Slashdot interview will be along in due course".
Re:Balkanization Risk as Wiki Grows (Score:2)
Re:Balkanization Risk as Wiki Grows (Score:1)
How can we stop /. from becoming this?
Re:Balkanization Risk as Wiki Grows (Score:2)
This (comment) might feed the trolls though.
Re:Balkanization Risk as Wiki Grows (Score:2)
Re:Balkanization Risk as Wiki Grows (Score:2)
Immediately slapped with '-1, Troll'. So mods do have a sense of humor.
Cool! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
Could someone be kind enough to post the text of the interview in the discussion?
Re:Cool! (Score:3, Informative)
Wikipedia Signpost: Raul654 [slashdot.org] asks: "Recently, there were revelations about organized attempts by US Congressmen to whitewash their articles. What is your take on this, as well as earlier reports of Corporate astroturfing?"
Jimbo Wales: The question is invalid. There were no revelations of organized attempts by US Congressmen to whitewash their articles. Not any evidence of "corporate astroturfing" of which I am aware. There was evidence that some congressional staffers edited Wiki
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
Somebody ... (Score:2)
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
Jimbo's response (Score:2, Funny)
Quality standards (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Use a static analyzer to detect large amounts of grammatical errors, etc.
2. Look for articles outside the normal word/source ratio.
Re:Quality standards (Score:2)
Re:Quality standards (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Quality standards (Score:2)
Re:Quality standards (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, what I would like to see is admins given a "Copy to stable" button for each article. When pressed, it copies the article to http://en.wikipedia.org/stable/Article_name [wikipedia.org]. The stable wikipedia would not be directly editable,
Yes, well (Score:2)
TBSDY
someone post the interview, please (Score:2, Insightful)
Interview text (Score:2, Informative)
Jimbo Wales: The question is invalid. There were no revelations of organized attempts by US Congressmen to whitewash their articles. Not any evidence of "corporate astroturfing" of which I am aware. There was evidence that some congressional staffers edited Wikipedia in inappropriate ways
Knowledge in their own 'language' (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Knowledge in their own 'language' (Score:2)
Or, to put it another way - it is almost impossible for a smaller wiki to overtake a larger wiki (because articles bring visitors, visitors become contributors, and contributors write articles -
Re:Knowledge in their own 'language' (Score:2)
Re:Knowledge in their own 'language' (Score:2)
Perspective Affinities & Wiki-certified Creden (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Perspective Affinities & Wiki-certified Cre (Score:2)
Wikipedia: Dangerous Personality Cult? (Score:1)
I mean, is that not the very epitomy of dictatorship?
Re:Wikipedia: Dangerous Personality Cult? (Score:3, Insightful)
And that hasn't been seen in any dictatorship in history: "Yes, I have supreme ultimate power, but if you, the puppet parliament, don't like something I've done and decide against it, I'll go with what you want."
While I recognise that dictatorships (espe
Re:Wikipedia: Dangerous Personality Cult? (Score:2, Informative)
I disagree:
Jimbo Wales has ultimate authority on Wikimedia projects, as a foundation issue that is beyond debate. [wikipedia.org]
The arbitration committee, akin to your example of a parliament, has already issued undying proclomations of fealty to Jimbo. So of course for him it is no big matter to procla
Re:Wikipedia: Dangerous Personality Cult? (Score:2)
In theory, the guy with access to the server on-off switch always has supreme authority. The question is: Is Jimbo likely to abuse the power? What would be the consequences of that?
1. No.
2. People will just fork and work on a mirror - Jimbo is legally constrained to allow this, because of the licensing agreement that is implicit in each and every edit.
Re:Wikipedia: Dangerous Personality Cult? (Score:1, Redundant)
Seriously, wikipedia's fun for looking up klingons and that funny shoe in stage 5-3 of Super Mario Brothers 3, but it's never going to be anything much more.
Re:Wikipedia: Dangerous Personality Cult? (Score:1)
I mean, is that not the very epitomy of dictatorship?
Yes, except:
-Not a government, Wikipedia is an online user-editable encyclopedia
-Somebody needs super admin ability to stop people from continually adding stuff about the N-words and the F-words and the J-words and so on, ad nauseum
-Someone said at the link provided that they hope he realizes he makes mistakes; at worst, this is one of them
Re:Wikipedia: Dangerous Personality Cult? (Score:1)
Well, he is the HNIC (head nerd in charge)
Re:Wikipedia: Dangerous Personality Cult? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, Wikipedia is at root a non-democratic institution, and, were it a govenment, would be a dictatorship. Kind of like every privately held company or charitable foundation in the world.
Re:Wikipedia: Dangerous Personality Cult? (Score:2)
Facts vs. Opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
It must be very difficult with some topics to derive what exactly is the 'truth.'
For instance, what about the perception about how an economy works vs. the reality of gray and black markets affecting that economy?
How does the military work? The government? Who is really in charge and makes the decisions?
Do we rely on CIA and Census figures? Do we rely on 'official' government papers? Encyclopedia Britannica? The internet? The mass media?
Re:Facts vs. Opinion (Score:2)
Re:Facts vs. Opinion (Score:2)
Re:Facts vs. Opinion (Score:2)
Re:Facts vs. Opinion (Score:2)
Good grief (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good grief (Score:2)
Re:Good grief (Score:2)
Yes, you are. :)
Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:3, Insightful)
I have karma to burn, so here goes...
Here on Slashdot, it's popular to tout the wonder that is Wikipedia, to revel in the wild-west democracy of it all, and break into rapturous platitudes about what a terrific source of high-quality information it is. Unfortunately, the reality (which none of the Wiki-boosters is likely to admit) is that Wikipedia is broken... fundamentally flawed, and can't be fixed.
Here's a tidbit for you concerning the food crisis in the Horn of Africa: drought is caused by high prices, overpopulation, and conflict. From the Horn of Africa Food Crisis article on Wikipedia: "This shortage, along with other factors including high cereal prices, overpopulation in the region, and conflict, have led to severe drought conditions." (1/11/06)
This is another example of why you can't rely on Wikipedia-the online encyclopedia written and edited by people with a limited grasp of the English language and (frequently) an even more limited knowledge of the subject matter. If you think that things written by committee are the epitome of bad writing, wait until you read articles that were both written AND edited by committee. And not just any committee, this a committee composed of your average basement-dwelling Net geeks, know-nothing Web noobs, and agenda-driven politicos.
Drought is a condition created by a shortage of water. That's the definition of the word. But here we have a Wikipedia article that plainly states that 'high cereal prices' are causal. Hmmmm... Explain to me again, oh geniuses, how high prices for cereals have 'led to severe drought conditions'? Apparently high prices are drying up the water supply. Clearly the author of this one is confused, either in their understanding of causality, or their understanding of the definition of the word 'drought.' Yet they felt competent to write (or edit) an article about the issue. Welcome to the world of the encyclopedia written by the ignorant.
The usual response of Wikipedia-philes is to answer any concern about the quality or accuracy of articles with 'anyone can edit it.' Which leads us to the immediate response (mine when I saw the above error): Why would I? Why would anyone waste their time? The person or persons who wrote this incorrect article will either a) change it back, or b) edit it further to destroy whatever correction I make. Where's the value proposition in this editing task? Am I supposed to feel satisfaction if I can see that it's corrected for 20 minutes before being reverted or overwritten? How am I supposed to feel tomorrow when I come back and see my efforts undone? Why would anyone with writing or editing ability or subject matter knowledge go to the effort of changing something that will almost immediately be screwed up again by someone without any.
No one is willing to address this issue. In forums, anyone who questions the problems of articles being written by people lacking essential subject-matter expertise is immediately shouted down. Long Live Wikipedia! Nothing possibly can be wrong! You just don't like the egalitarian nature of a "people's encyclopedia"... and on and on. Hello, McFly! If Wikipedia worked, it would be a wonderful resource. But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, as the old saying goes.
In a community where everyone is 'equal' in power, despite inequalities in knowledge and ability, those with the later will, eventually -- inevitably, decline to participate. This particular type of communism (and that's not a pejorative) leads inexorably to a devaluing of the best in favor of not just the good, but the bad. In the case of Wiki articles, this means that a physics article is as likely to be written by a 12-year-old as a physicist. Or that 'drought' is as likely to mean 'famine' as 'water shortage.'
Wikipedia is an amusing read, but I wouldn't look to it for accuracy or anything resembling an even-handed explanation of a topic. The most that can be said for it is that it's an interesting social experiment. Nothing more.
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:1)
Unfortunately, on articles which aren't contentious enough to get people angry and editing vigorously, these criticisms are often not forthcoming, and
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
Where does Wikipedia position itself as being authoritative?
TBSDY
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
It need not be free, open or what have you; but clearly it must be "What I have". I have Wikipedia at my fingertips anywhere I have web access. Furhtermore, I question whether "actual" encyclopedias status as "autoritative" are in any sense beyond question. I've looked up subjects I know well in paper encylopedias, and the fact they don't have a footnote saying it's only true if you cath a good edit is not because they d
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
I would disagree. I often look up a mathematical theorem or an algorithm in Wikipedia, and have always been surprised by how accurate it is. The quality of writing might be mediocre compared to planetmath or journal articles, but the basic information is always there and correct. The reason (I suspect) is that most people
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
Well, I dunno about that. A few days ago, I used wikipedia to look up info about the orbits of Titan, Enceladus, and a couple other Saturnian moons. I'd guess that almost everyone would consider this to be extremel
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:5, Insightful)
But, even though that sentence is rubbish, it's also abundantly clear what is meant. High cereal prices exacerbated the food shortage caused by the drought.
So, there are two responses :
i) correct the sentence so that it reflects the intended meaning [needless to say, someone has already done this].
ii) generalise from this mistake into a lengthy diatribe about the inaccuracy of Wikipedia, pretending there exist infallible sources of information elsewhere.
I would suggest, that exactly one of these would not constitute an enormous waste of your time.
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:3, Insightful)
By no possible standard reading of the English lanquage can that sentence be interpreted that way. None.
You miss the grandparents point - if the Wiki Way worked - that sentence should never have been bad by t
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
You miss the grandparents point - if the Wiki Way worked - that sentence should never have been bad by the time he read the article in the first place.
If you understood the Wikipedia Way, you would understand why that assertion is a strawman.
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
It's a basic assertion, repeated again and again, that errors [in the 'pedia] don't survive any length of time.
It's a stone cold fact that they do - by the thousands and tens and of thousands. But each time it's pointed out - 'pedia boosters just bury their heads i
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
It's a basic assertion, repeated again and again, that errors [in the 'pedia] don't survive any length of time.
Maybe some people repeat that, but that (erroneous) assumption is not central to why Wikipedia works.
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:4, Insightful)
Regards,
Steve
The outcome (Score:5, Insightful)
Pick a subject you have particular knowledge of -- maybe a local event or situation, or an area of learning or technology. Then take a look at how it's reported in the newspapers, in books and encyclopaedias, in movies and documentaries and news programmes. It's a fair bet that you'll come across inaccuracies, ranging from oversimplifications and typos to bias and misrepresentation to plain ignorance and blatant lies.
Now, stop and consider that that's how everything else gets covered, too. Frightening, isn't it?
Of course, some sources are much less likely to get things wrong than others. But very few sources are as authoritative as we tend to assume; all get things wrong from time to time. We should treat all printed and broadcast material with a little scepticism.
Now, look at Wikipedia in that light. Maybe it doesn't seem that much worse than the others after all?
Yes, it's true that there's vastly greater opportunity for errors to be introduced. But to balance that, there's vastly greater opportunity for them to be fixed, too. Wikipedia's far from perfect, but the huge majority of articles seem well worth reading, and its average doesn't seem noticeably lower than other reference works.
(In fact, rather than quality, I think its main problem is coverage; it's very patchy, and has too many gaps and stubs.)
Basically, as long as enough people want Wikipedia to be accurate, it will be!
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
Both Wikipedia and Britannica have errors in them (some are factual, some are poorly worded sentences, etc.). It turns out that for scientific content, Wikipedia is more reliable (I wouldn't be surprised if, for highly controversial topics in poli
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:1)
i havent thought this through properly, i just thought of it just now
also, you could then, whe
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:1)
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:3, Informative)
Not at all. Here on Slashdot, no article about Wikipedia goes by without a bunch of people whining about how it'll never be useful.
"From the Horn of Africa Food Crisis article on Wikipedia..."
There is no such article. Try again. The closest that WP comes is the highly contested Poverty in Africa [wikipedia.org] which carefully warns its readers at the top that it is under dispute, and even that article makes no such claim.
Of course, Horn of Africa [wikipedia.org] does sa
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
Hmm.. A few moments with Google yeilds: 2006 Horn of Africa food crisis [wikipedia.org].
[snippage the usual Wikipedia cheerleader rhetoric by the OP.]
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
Yeah, it looks like there was a bad edit in there, and it was fixed. Not much of a story to that.... Most of the problems that people have with Wikipedia end up being, "some article said something braindead when I looked at it," rather than, "some article says something braindead and continues to."
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia in flux. The good part of that is that you get to partake in the process, and c
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's look at that article [wikipedia.org] again, shall we? It now says: "These conditions of drought, together with other factors including high cereal prices, overpop
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:5, Informative)
Is that the best example you can come up with?
A six month old problem, that was fixed on the day you blogged about it [danzbb.com]. It now reads Look at the page's history [wikipedia.org] and you see OK - Wikipedia isn't perfect, but to completely dismiss it is....somewhat shortsighted of you.
After all - it's the only (decent) game in town when it comes to free, online information.
The Selfish principle (Score:2)
It is what I call The Selfish Principle - that a collaborative operation is most successful when every member has a very selfish reason for contributing. Sad, but true.
Consider free software - I'll use Wine as an example. The Wine joystick drivers didn't work. I fixed them - not because of some enlightened idea of "giving back to the community", but because *I needed them to work* - I had a very selfish reason for spending my time to make them work. I then contributed my cha
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
The issue of allowing unskilled people overwrite the actions of skilled people is tricky. Yes, there is nothing stopping brilliant prose being overwritten with substandard writing. Yes, the edit might get missed, but it often is noticed and the better piece reinstat
Re:Why Wikipedia isn't working (Score:2)
How about this for an insight: an information source can be quite useful even if it is not completely accurate and even-handed. Think for instance of your senses, or your memory.
China blocking (Score:5, Insightful)
JW: Beijing-area Wikipedians are working to have the block lifted. Our position is that the block is in error, even given China's normal policies. Wikipedia is not propaganda, it is basic information. We expect that the block will be lifted.
Huh? Doesn't he understand the nature of Chinese censorship?
Re:China blocking (Score:2)
The Tank Picture (Score:2)
Re:The Tank Picture (Score:2)
Re:China blocking (Score:2)
Huh? Doesn't he understand the nature of Chinese censorship?
Exactly. The Chinese government policy is very simple: they either control information, or they censor it.
It's frightening to see how the Chinese market is making governments, companies and organizations all over the world give in an inch at a time, for some small favor, thinking that things will change. The Chinese never change. They absorb whoever att
china (Score:1)
JW: Beijing-area Wikipedians are working to have the block lifted. Our position is that the block is in error, even given China's normal policies. Wikipedia is not propaganda, it is basic information. We expect that the block will be lifted."
does anyone see this really happening? i mean without a
He Sounds Like a Politician (Score:1)
should add a rating system... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:should add a rating system... (Score:2)
Re:should add a rating system... (Score:2)
Re:should add a rating system... (Score:2, Insightful)
And how do you rate the articles?
Most of the "rating" systems online don't measure quality; they measure popularity. You always get five stars on some popular topic that gets a lot of attention anyway, while marginal topics don't.
One way would be that you'd have to make sure each user would be subjected to mandatory daily "metamoderation" of random articles on their field of expertise, and the thing that kills that is that the "expertise" of all users varies depending on whether or not they've had their
Re:should add a rating system... (Score:2)
This doesn't seem like such a hard problem, though it would probably entail some interface modifications. I could imagine a drop-down list of characteristics that a page might have (accuracy, neutrality, clarity, writing quality, relevance), and then, say, another drop-down with a 1-5 rating.
The average rating for a particular characteristic should be a good indicator of quality, wherea
Re:should add a rating system... (Score:2, Interesting)
Which brings us to another social problem: It's one thing to list good articles, interesting articles, or like. There's always a few of them. I love browsing the Unusual Articles, for example. But then for the opposite end of the coin you can go look at the Articles for Deletion, or Dead-End Pages, or most of the cleanup or stub categories. What happens if you slap those on people's faces? "350,000
Translating for third-world countries... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait a minute (Score:2)
Questions I missed (Score:2)
Wikipedia says that some pictures are public domain and other have been released by the publisher just for use by Wikipedia. It does not indicate which rights apply to which picture and so we are left with their conclusion that copying is at your own risk. Something similar seems to apply for the sound fragments.
Shouldn't Wikipedia have a strict PD or GPL license only policy in these areas? Or will it slowly eclipse the copy sites by depriving them of the multimedia fi
Re:Questions I missed (Score:2)
Copyrighting is pretty much one of the most annoying things with Wikipedia. *Most* media should be tagged on upload with an appropiate license information. So if you click on it, it should tell you what terms it is available for use on. Some, though - espe
Re:Questions I missed (Score:2)
Many of the copying happens automatic or semi-automatic. You cannot expect people to go for every image to a descriptive page where they can find somewhere in the middle the license.
I doubt article size can/should grow indefinitely. The preferred approach is always to split up larger articles into subpages, if there is enough material.
There is always enough material: many books have been written about the