Not As Wiki As It Used To Be 349
jonney02 writes "The BBC NEWS is running a story about how Wikipedia plans to take back control due to the recent onslaught of malformed articles." It's always been a scary balance between allowing total anonymous participation in a web forum, and preventing yourself from being overrun. I don't envy the Wikipedia designers one bit.
Sources (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me demonstrate something for you (Score:3, Funny)
Sincerely,
Logged in person
Re:Let me demonstrate something for you (Score:5, Insightful)
If a scientific article is amended with a certain statement, it would be useful to have a user name attached to that edit, so the user can be asked to clarify where the information is from and what credibility the source has. An IP address is not so easy to contact.
The biggest threat? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, IMO the biggest threat to Wikipedia's "quality" claim is that, contrary to the disclaimer at the bottom of pages on en.wikipedia.org, "This Wikipedia isn't English." Vandalism has nothing to do with the problem -- un-vandalized articles are just as bad as the vandalized ones.
Until someone comes up with a way to sort out the crap writing, Wikipedia is still going to have the appearance of something that's poor quality. Some of the articles read like they were written by a random spam generator.
So
Re:The biggest threat? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not trolling. This reflects my actual experience (Score:4, Interesting)
When I first discovered the Wikipedia, I thought that it was cool that I could help to "fix" broken articles (I'm a writer in my day job). So I spent a little free time correcting the grammar errors (and generally sloppy writing) in a number of articles, probably around 10. Within a week, all but one of them had either been reverted so that the original mistakes returned, or re-edited introducing the same or similar mistakes. When I saw that, it became clear to me that what Wiki-boosters claim as the main strength of Wikipedia is also a weakness. It also significantly cooled my interest in editing the poorly written articles I come across.
Basically, writing done by committee is always going to be inferior. Since that's the method that the Wikipedia currently uses, it's hard to see any significant improvement in the quality of the articles coming along. Further, I think that there's no real solution to this problem as long as every article is open to editing by anyone at any time. Someone suggested that there should be a static "live" article and then people would work on a dynamic "backend" article that would become the live article once it was edited and checked for accuracy. But I'm not sure even that would work, since it requires someone to take ownership of the article.
Perhaps there's a solution out there, but none of the proposals I've seen suggested looks like it would work.
Re:Not trolling. This reflects my actual experienc (Score:5, Insightful)
The nice thing about Wikis is that they keep track of each individual change. No vague or mysterious claims permitted; every edit is well documented. I hereby call you on your bullshit and ask you to produce the "diffs".
See my reply to the sib (Score:3, Interesting)
And no, I didn't keep careful records of edits. Change tracking and content revision is something I do in my day job, so I'm not really interested in expending that kind of effort on the Wikipedia in the evenings.
Back when I was making edits, I was interested enough in the project that I bothered to keep a list and return to articles I'd changed with the idea of "keeping them up" if anyone had added
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope you were joking. Don't you mean, "Accounts are free, and people should be required to get one (so they can easily be forced to JUST OPEN ANOTHER ONE when they start causing trouble)?" Requiring a freely obtained login will not strip user's of their anonymity, and as you pointed out, Wikipedia already tracks the ip address for each edit.
Simple fact of the matter is that even
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sources (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sources (Score:4, Informative)
It is a prerequisite. It is always appropriate to ask other editors to produce their sources. The burden of evidence lies with the editor who has made the edit in question, and any unsourced material may be removed by any editor. [wikipedia.org]
It's not quite a prerequisite in that every single fact, no matter how obvious, has to have an academic journal backing it up (for instance, the claim that tires are usually found on cars should be obvious to most people). But Wikipedia:Verifiability [wikipedia.org] is definitely one of Wikipedia's most important core policies.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Anytime you see something that does not have a reference, put {{Citeneeded}} or {{Fact}} af
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That is official policy on Wikipedia: See Wikipedia:Verifiability.
Bwahaaha... oh yes. Good one. I'm a three year veteran of Wikipedia (with 4 featured articles behind me) who recently packed it in because I was sick of the bullshit and idiots swamping Wikipedia, and having to listen to people say things like "believe in the Wiki", as if a Wiki is some magical force that gravitates towards wonderfulness. I spent those years watching good editor after good editor get fed up and leave Wikipedia because they
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I could not agree more. One issue is the fact that wiki is not a citable source at many accidemic institutions, but having clear sited sources. At times even when people are corrected, they don't bother updating wiki.
Case in point [wikipedia.org]
Here is a case where a man seems to remember an Episode of Urusei Yatsura, an odd ball 80s Japanese animation series, which seemed to pay hommage to Bruce Lee in the form of a ye
Re:Sources (Score:4, Interesting)
Have the articles I've written been subject to vandalism? Sure. The logs also show that fairly substantial vandalism was completely eliminated within a matter of days. That's not bad going for pages on some truly obscure, regional information. We're not talking about stuff likely to get a hundred visits an hour, I'd be amazed if the articles got a hundred visits a month. For readers to spend the time to undo damage, refine the page (there have been numerous truly wonderful additions to the articles) and contribute some excellent material is (to me) proof that the Wikipedia system works fine even for stuff that is rarely visited. (Those who contribute to the less-popular pages can consider themselves thanked. General knowledge can be found anywhere, so the true power of a system like Wikipedia is felt when more obscure material that would normally be scattered and incoherent - if it existed on the Internet at all - is readily available.)
I would like to see reference enforcement added to Wikipedia, but it is unclear how you'd go about doing that. You can check a link exists, but the book and paper references would be hard even to verify to that degree, and AI text analysis systems are not nearly advanced enough to tell if a reference has anything to do with the claims in the article, although it might be possible to eliminate some definitely invalid references. No automated validation of articles is possible at this time.
It might also be good if Wikipedia also provided a grammar checker. They are far from perfect, but it would be useful for catching some of the more basic errors. A spellchecker would be good too, for the same reason. Again, perfection isn't necessary, it merely has to reduce the number of uncaught errors to make it worthwhile. Requiring approval would catch very little outside of the specialist knowledge of the approver and the more general-knowledge stuff. (This is why journals use peer-review, where the reviewers are - by definition - peers in the same specialist field. It is also why newspapers - who tend to rely on sub-editors and editors who do not have specialist knowledge - are forever apologizing for article errors.
Wikipedia hasn't the resources to provide a full nth-degree cross-checking peer-review system. As such, changes to the submission process will really contribute little. Having validators for Wiki syntax, grammer and spelling would likely correct a far greater number of errors with far less effort. Validators would also add insignificant latency compared to full reviews. Yes, I understand that Wikipedia is in an unenviable position as a result of vandalism creating libellous content. However, Wikipedia has some grounds for claiming common carrier status at the moment, as it just carries the content and does nothing more. If it had a review process, it would lose any such defence, so any libel that DID slip through the cracks would be a far greater risk.
All in all, then, I think Wikipedia is reacting under intense pressure but is diving in entirely the wrong direction and may actually put itself more at risk with this idea.
Approved by administrators before publishing ? (Score:3, Insightful)
And who is going to guarantee that they will not prevent anything from publication if it does not fit administrators' political, religious views or outlook on life ?
Huh ?
Has dmoz been successful ?
NO.
Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Peer review is how it works now. (Score:3, Interesting)
Peer review is how Wikipedia has always worked, though in Wikipedia everyone is a peer. I assume what you are suggesting is some way of ranking peers, but that is not as easy as it sounds. Sure, a professor of astronomy from UCLA is the peer of a professor of astronomy from Harvard, but what about an experienced amateur astronomer or a high school science teac
Re: (Score:2)
Q: Who governs the governors?
A: Entropy.
I think this applies to Wikipedia more than just a little.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Noone's going to guarantee that. It's wikipedia, there are no guarantees.
The question is whether ngoing vandalism outweighs the potential for abuse by the administrators. German wikipedia appears to think it is. We shall see.
Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just my $0.02.
Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia (nor any other encyclopedia that I know of) doesn't give any sources for its claim that, for example, Norway borders on Sweden, that it has a "very elongated shape" or that it is "generally perceived as clean and modern".
Giving sources for *every* claim you make quickly degrades into nonsense. It should be sufficient to give sources for any claim that isn't patently obviously true. (to anyone with a knowledge of the field anyway) One could actually well argue that the last claim I mention, what Norway is "generally perceived as" doesn't really belong in an encyclopedia, it's very subjective anyway, certainly it's not an undisputable fact.
Re: (Score:2)
Just saying...
Tom
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Clearly, you dont cite the treaty, you need to cite someone else who discusses the treaty.
Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ? (Score:4, Funny)
Tom
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ? (Score:4, Informative)
-Eric
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmm, that almost sounds like some sort of editorial control or something...
Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ? (Score:5, Insightful)
They FIRE people. People LOSE THEIR JOBS. If someone abuses or games or otherwise plays loose with the facts they risk MAKING LESS MONEY.
Money. You want capital 'T' Truth? Make it about the money.
The wikipedia "model" as it stands now is all reward (big ego boos, "Look Ma, I edited Luxembourg!") and very little risk (Dood1: "Yo, I just got banned from posting in wikipedia!" Dood2: "Like, D00d, you are so-o-o-- cool! That rawks, man! And screw them!"). The day a writer of a wikipedia article loses his source of income for doing a bad job is the day wikipedia begins to be credible.
You want "community"? Go to a parade or fireworks display. You want an encyclopedia of facts? Pay people.
Re:Approved by administrators before publishing ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Check out the history of cyberstalking, for one. See how repeatedly it morphs into a completely bland and useless article that makes no mention of the use of an false accusation of cyberstalking as a means to suppress dissent.
Try adding mentioning, with citations, that people can be falsely accused of cyberstalking. Watch how that is reverted away. That has happened repeatedly on this article. On July 11th, a section containing the DOJ description of cyberstalking and how it compares to physical stalking was added, along with a section containing a link concerning the problem of false accusations, and the use of the accusation of cyberstalking itself as a means of well, stalking. Note how in the span of 15 days, Aine63 repeatedly attacks the article, until by July 21st, there is no indication that the DOJ itself say that cyberstalking has no universal definition but that stalking laws generally require a credible threat of violence. And also gone by July 21st is any mention of the problem of false accusations.
So who is the cyberstalker here? Is it Aine63 who stalks that article to keep out for his/her own reasons any discussion of false accusations? Or is it me because I a) used the compare feature to find out why a section was removed, b) noted Aine63's involvement, and here state that Aine63 is a Wikinazi, who has a definite POV and should be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
I wonder why Aine63 is so worried about false accusations as to remove their discussion from the wikipedia.... What a fucktard though.
If you read the talk page you find out that this has happened repeatedly. Someone puts in sections about false accusations and things like that, and it gets expunged by some sort of article stalker. In fact, the discussions of this behavior have themselves been removed from the talk page. Why is the wiki so worried about talking about false accusations? Well you might look at how the wiki itself has been used to promote false accusations against John Seigenthaler.
My sense is that the Wikipedia ultimately is doomed due to its insistence on Neutral Point of View articles and all of the fights that that causes. The traditional media is encountering the same thing with the bloggers. An open, but non neutral point of view is far superior in terms of presenting information AND context than a supposedly neutral, objective, point of view that can only fail to provide context and that hides a hidden agenda.
Because let's face, to claim that cyberstalking is not subject to false accusations is just bullshit, and definitely not a neutral point of view.
So what have we learned here? Wiki's NPOV is fatally flawed. Wikiality, truth based on majority rule is fatally flawed. Aine63 is fucktard that probably uses the false accusation of cyberstalking as a tool in his/her life.
I don't know how their new editing rules will prevent Aine63's malicious attacks, we shall see.
POV (Score:3, Insightful)
Give generally accepted and nominal usage of what cyberstalking is, give related pages to "cyberstalking - cases" which gives backgrounds and such on cases, examples of, etc. and then have a "cyberstalking - false accusation" which gives examples such as you have pointed out.
Better usage would be for highly charged political topics like GWB,
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Corruption (Score:5, Insightful)
So you need some form of regulation to curb corruption. You introduce editors, moderators, whatever.
And then you have to ask: who watches the watchmen (quis custodiet custard or summat)
(Cue the usual /. Wikipedia flame-war)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Scrupulous and responsible"!?! Dood! How about "old enough to shave"? More edits to global geo-political articles in wikipedia are crafted in a week as a result of dares made in the backseats of school buses than in a decade's worth of Britannicas. Why not just take the ten most altered articles each day and have the people watching MTV's Total Request Live call in and vote for the ch
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So here is what life has taught me, "Wikipedia hurts the underdog and there is Slittle you can do about it."
At least that is my experience with wiki-crap.
Me, I've given up on it and relegated it to the trash bin. For the longest time I didn't understand why so many people actually hated it, but then I started to realize there were issues.
My last effort to clean up some wi
FOSS approach probably better (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And lo, hopefully the deathknell of web 2.0 has been rung. I have been predicting that it won't be long until the overload of simply way too much unfocused content on sites like digg or myspace will quickly wear people out and remind everyone of the benefits of having professionals provide editing and focusing of information. Having someone provide oversight and separat
Good idea, I second it (Score:2)
Hm, to my great surprise, that actually sounds like it would work. The analogy is good; Wikipedia is like a large open source project where EVERYONE has commit rights and where commiting requires a single click.
I would imagine that a fairly structured system would be needed, with provision to make sure that editors who die or lose interest don't result in permanently stagnant articles, and so on; but these are all things that OSS projects have faced in the past and they are relatively well understood.
Now,
Ya dance with who brung ya (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone loves an analogy! (Score:4, Interesting)
But if we modify the analogy so that wiki IS the dance and that all the people meet at the dance and pair off and settle down, they don't need to go to the dance anymore.
What I'm saying is that after the initial wiki process is over for a given article you could say that - as long as people agree that it's a complete and up to date article - the wiki process could be closed since there is no more to be added at the present time.
I'm not saying that this would work but I can see on both sides of the line.
Re: (Score:2)
No, it usually ends in the girl and the new guy being happy for a while, while the old guy makes such a pest of himself complaining to his buddies that they suspect she might have had the right idea when she ditched that whining cry-baby. But of course men are useless when you bring them problems they can't fix; if that sounds rendundant to you, then
subuse level 2 (Score:3, Interesting)
But when a forum is completely anonymous, and completely without an intent on what the content should be, you have something that never needs "control taken back".
Besides, anarchy can be fun!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Until it gets found by the porn link spammers who have destroyed many unregulated wikis elsewhere.
Who watches the watchers? (Score:4, Insightful)
And who decides who will be part of the cadre? Jimmy? I think we can see from his past actions, that he may not be the best judge of who would make the best administrator. I think they need to take a vote within the ranks, and let the editing community decide, then give Jimmy a limited number of vetoes to remove people he doesn't want.
Re:Who watches the watchers? (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, I've got an idea. Let's do something based on the Hindu concept of rewards for good deeds. We could call it "Karma". Like if someone had done a bunch of editing that nobody disapproved of they could accumulate points and after they get a certain number of points they earn the right to approve changes... we could call that "moderating."
Re: (Score:2)
Again: Wikitruth.info (Score:3, Informative)
It is to Wikipedia what DailyKos is to conservatism or Instapundit is to liberalism - a completely biased site decrying the flaws in a philosophy. As such, take its claims with some skepticism and salt, feel free to reject them, but do at least consider them before you reject them.
Note: I am not associated with WikiTruth - but I feel they make some good points.
Backlog (Score:5, Insightful)
With the thousands of edits that happen on wikipedia per second, I don't see how this change will do anything but create an impossible backlog.
-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
Re:Backlog (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Because when people quickly realize that their changes are being monitored and filtered they'll stop making defacement changes to the site.
I Appreciate Them (Score:5, Informative)
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I envy and appreciate the designers of Wikipedia.
Now, I know you're going to post some examples in response to this of just crazy outlandish things (see GW's page if it isn't on lock down) but all and all, I appreciate what they've done for me.
To illustrate the shortcomings, however, enjoy this Onion Article [theonion.com].
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
We also want those with credentials to be able to contribute without the hassle of having to prove their credentials, as that would cut off 90%.
Eivind.
Re:The implosion begins (Score:4, Interesting)
In a purely credentials based system, I would likely not have been allowed to edit the work of a more experienced person in my own field. To allow otherwise would be to defeat the entire purpose of the credentials system, as an amateur hobbyist in any field would have to be allowed to edit the work of a seasoned professional, and that's essentially what already exists.
Re:The implosion begins (Score:5, Funny)
Experiment in human nature (Score:4, Insightful)
I did not research this but I assume that in the beginning mostly more educated people used it and they tend not to abuse it too much. As it became widely adopted and used, everybody started to use it, meaning a higher percentage of people who would like to abuse it.
Unfortunately I don't believe that a [global] experiment in human nature can survive... Check out Winterbottom's movie, "24 hour party people [imdb.com]".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wikipedia has actually hung on to some surprising small society-type things. For instance, a significan
Keep it as it is!! (Score:4, Insightful)
They have my sympathy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Over the following weeks, this relatively low-profile article was vandalized several times; each time it was corrected but also represented a vulnerability to people reading the page. One attack, in particular, deliberately reversed the sense of several health and safety tips, making cautions into recommendations and recommendations into cautions.
Amazing? (Score:4, Informative)
Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
So even when you are talking about Britanica, it's improper form to cite a reference book. When you are talking Wikipedia, it's downright stupid. Especially since it's changeable. I mean the student can always change it to say what they want. It'll get revered, of course, but they can just claim "That's what it said when I looked at the page, so I figured it was right."
You always want to go to the most primary source available. Don't read a paper about a paper about an experiment, read the paper about the experiment by the experimenters themselves. Don't read a newspaper article about a speech, read the transcript of the actual speech. While all the sources that are more levels removed can be useful starting points, and have useful commentary and analysis for you to think about, they aren't what you should cite. Don't believe their version of things, get the original and check for yourself.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikipedia needs a way to recognize professionals. (Score:2)
Why Digg will never surpass Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Good: coming around back on topic. This [wikipedia.org] is infintely more helpful than any help on the actuall Digg site.
Meta-moderation of wikipedia (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably a good move (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the Wiki concept is perfect for a niche application, such as documenting a software process, or a software project, or some other specific topic that has a focus. I use a number of corporate Wikis and hobby related wikis for these exact types of topics. However.. in Wikipedia's case, it is a whole different ballgame.
The problem with Wikipedia is that the folks that *now* are most inclined to contribute to Wikipedia are the ones that stand to benefit from their contribution, either by pushing an agenda, or disparaging another source. Granted, there are a number of contributors that are active with good intentions, but I suspect as Wikipeda continues down the path of letting *anyone* contribute immediately, that subsequent contributions will be more skewed towards revert wars and subtle edits to existing content vs. new content and contribtions.
The reality is, all the editing of existing content will become more of a platform to introduce opinnions and agendas vs usable content. Not to say that there aren't contributors that will continue to give good content, but what might have been 5% of agenda pushing 2 years ago is going to be 40% now with the critical mass of information.
Wikipedia is making a good move and the social dynamics will be interesting (i.e. Managing and Staffing this new model)
Speaking truthiness to wikiality (Score:4, Informative)
*sigh* (Score:3, Insightful)
For reference, this is supposed to be about the semi-protection. Which just happens to involve registering an user account and showing, just for a few passing moments, that you are capable of appropriate conduct.
That is, if you want to edit the couple of popular articles that happen to be semi-protected at the time.
There's 196 semi-portected articles at the moment in English Wikipedia. There's 1,355,706 articles. There's 70 articles at the moment that are full-protected, as well as handful of articles that show up in article count but are actually protected against recreation.
It still leaves you (...calculations, calculations, I'm a bit bad at math...) over 1.3 million articles for you to completely vandalise if you don't bother to spend a whole two minutes registering an user account.
You don't even need to confirm your email address.
And the separation of approved / unreviewed edits has not yet, as far as I know, even been implemented in MediaWiki.
Sorry if I sound a bit tired. I just find it a little bit vexing that people get stuck on small things like "hey, it says 'anyone can edit', and I get this error message that says that I can't". This is what happens when someone realises that you need some control. Regrettably, utopias where everyone can do anything don't work - human nature being what it is, you need some control. It's almost like saying "Oh, sure, everyone can come in our country!... except for people who don't have a passport and visa... and people who try to cross the border at a funny place... and armed, hostile soldiers of another country... obviously... But apart of that, everyone can come!"
So read "a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" just like you would read "a city where everyone can perform on the streets." (don't be surprised if, in such city, the police asks you to get the hell away from the way of the traffic and move to the sidewalk like everyone else.)
Secondly, what the heck is wrong with the concept of reviewed versions? It doesn't prevent anyone from editing the stuff or even seeing the unreviewed edits, it just prevents people from seeing stuff we don't know to be good. It's a quality control measure, not a barrier to contributing.
Wiki Truthiness (Score:3, Insightful)
The BBC story is completely wrong (Score:5, Informative)
We are introducing some changes, yes. The changes are specifically designed to make us MORE of a wiki than before.
We used to have to protect articles. We didn't like that, so we moved to what we call semi-protection. We still don't like that, so we are moving to non-vandalized-version flagging.
Each of these steps was specifically designed to make Wikipedia MORE of a wiki.
Sheesh.
--Jimbo
Wasn't this rejected? (Score:3, Informative)
This to me, looks like a description of the proposal (marked as rejected) of Wikipedia:Stable versions now [wikipedia.org].
In some ways, that proposal would make it very like the linux kernel. The public face which most people see would be the stable branch, with the "unstable branch" still open to edits, and once stabilised, becomes the new stable version.
"Approved" versions on Wikipedia FAQ (Score:5, Informative)
From Wikimedia Meta-Wiki [wikimedia.org]:
What is changing?
We want to open up editing without damaging the reader's experience.
We want to be more wiki and let editors edit freely, which is where all the good things come from. At present a small percentage of articles (a few hundred out of 1.5 million on the English language Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/ [wikipedia.org]) are locked or partially locked from editing. We want to open these up. But Wikipedia is a top 20 website (Alexa ratings, no. 17 on 3 month average; no. 15 on 30 August 2006 -- http://www.alexa.com/ [alexa.com]), so we must keep it good for the readers.
The new feature will mean that edits from new or anonymous editors will be delayed before being shown to readers - they will see a 'flagged OK' version by default, with a link to the live version. The idea is to enhance the reading experience, and free us to enhance the editing experience. If vandalism can't be seen by the general public, there will be less motivation to vandalise.
Anonymous or new-editor edits will need to be approved by a logged-in editor. Of the thousands of editors on the large Wikipedias, many concentrate on checking revisions and dealing with odd changes and vandalism -- this will assist their work and we do not expect new delays.
We are also considering a related feature to flag particular versions of articles as being of high quality. This is to a different end: a high-quality finished product. This will likely be tested first on the German language Wikipedia (http://de.wikipedia.org/), which has already had three stable editions released on CD and DVD, which have sold quite well. If the feature works there, it may be used on other language Wikipedias.
These features are not finished, so we don't have a lot of fine detail as to how it will all work as yet. But we hope this change will allow us to do things such as open up the George W. Bush article or even the front page itself to full unrestricted editing.
When was this proposed?
Jimmy Wales asked for a time-delay feature for casual readers in late 2004; after very fast editing on the Indian Ocean tsunami produced a very high-quality article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_ea rthquake) very quickly, but with some highly visible vandalism; we've hotly discussed how to achieve stable high-quality editions of Wikipedia since almost the start of the project, in 2001.
Open Edit vs. Professional (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've lost count of the number of times this canard has been repeated on Slashdot.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
An opinion piece repeating uncritically the claims in Britannica's response and ignoring Nature's counter to Britannica's response. Proves...someone at the Register has an opinion, and not much else.
Soon, I'll lose track of the times this false rebuttal has been posted in this thread on Slashdot.
Re:4 months... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's an idea: maybe you could, like, remove it?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's an even crazier notion: Maybe, if he wanted to interact with content on the Internet, he'd be playing friggin' EVE Online? Maybe -- and this is a stretch, stay with me on this one -- he just wants to consult an encyclopedia and get some geo-political information without the risk that it has somehow been altered by a twelve year-old on a dare made in the back of a school bus?
Re: (Score:2)
Society? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It is our society, they way we form groups and heirarchies that has decided that minority of agressors show 'leadership' and 'strength' and that these qualities allow them to demand a greater percentage of the wealth and a gre
Re:Society? (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, the history of all societies is driven by such people.
It's banal to remark that even monsters love their children - banal, but true. I'm pretty sure the people who trash wikipedia wouldn't treat their own homes or families that way.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, Wikipedia isn't perfect, but taken on the whole, it's one of