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Wikipedia Criticised by Its Co-founder
wikinerd writes "Wikipedia is under criticism by its co-founder Larry Sanger who has left the project. He warns of a possible future fork due to Wikipedia's Anti-Elitism and he presents his view on Wikipedia's (lack of) reliability. New wikis on various subjects have already emerged, with some of them being complete forks of Wikipedia. Critical articles on Wikipedia are also being published by other sources."
Thank you for so neatly summing up the problem in what appears to be one of the first posts. I've read several articles over the last while on wiki that contained a paragraph or two in them that I just simply cringed at because the author didn't really know what the heck they were talking about.
I seem to remember a story not long back
in which the former head of Encyclopedia Brittanica criticized it for that very reason.
It is in danger of becoming just another set of web pages which may or may not be opinion. The fact that its co-founder is pointing this out as well says a lot.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
First, full disclosure - I'm a wikipedia admin, I'm the featured article director (I choose the featured articles on Wikipedia's main page), and I'm one of the arbitrators (on the arbitration committee Larry mentions). I'm going to try to address Larry's points in turn. Some of what he says is true, but much of it is wrong, or totally misses the point. Larry left in 2002, meaning that he has been away longer than most of th currently active people have been there. The policies have changed radically, and so I don't think it's unfair to say he has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to the community or the policies.
First, about the title of this thread - calling Larry Sanger a co-founder of Wikipedia is a bit of a stretch. It's before my time, but I know several people who were around from those days found this objectionable. As I understand it, Larry was more involved in Nupedia (now defunct). Wikipedia was started to augment Nupedia, and (as I understand it) the idea was Jimbo Wales'.
Now, this "lack of public perception of credibility" Larry mentions - this is misleading. Wikipedia is (as others on this thread have said) an experiment. However, I don't think the public percieves us as uncredible. I think it would be more accurate to say that the public is still making up its mind. Yes, there is some inaccurate information in Wikipedia - the same can be said of Britannica. However, Wikipedia has been cited in in books, in academic studies, in conferences, and in court cases. If the public really though of Wikipedia as a unreliable source, then I don't think that it would be drawing in these kinds of references
The next problem Larry mentiosn is the trolls. The arbitration committee was formed about a year ago as a way for Jimbo Wales (the actual founder of Wikipedia) to devolve his powers to the community. In particular, he appointed a committee of 12 users who would have the right to issue decrees and such - the ability to prohibit people from doing certain things, or ban them, 'etc etc. The primary (and pretty much only) complaint against the committee to date has been that it has been too slow to act. On the other hand, I think if you were to ask the average user what he thinks, the trolling problem has been getting much better in recent months - just look at the list of complete cases. Several long time trouble makers are currently banned (and if they come back, it resets the clock on their ban). I know one recently banned user (troll) said (before he was banned) how much he hated it, how much the "cabal" had taken over, 'etc. If the trolls are saying this, I take it as a good sign. Beyond that, I can't really reply to Larry's nebulous complaint about trolling because he's really not saying a whole lot there.
Larry's third (and perhaps only concrete point - IE, specifically refutable point) is that he claims Wikipedia has a lack of respect for experts. Nonsense, I say. As a rule of thumb, we expect that everyone (experts and laymen alike), if requested, can cite specific sources to justify their edits. In this respect, it is no different than Academia. Quite frankly (and this is my personal opinion) I think a great majority of the editing disputes could be solved by requiring disputants to cite and/or quote reputable sources. On the other hand, Larry's asseration that "But if the expert should have the gall to complain to the community about the problem, he or she will be shouted down (at worst) or politely asked to "work with" persons who have proven themselves to be unreasonable (at best)." - I think this gets more to the heart of how Wikipedia works. If you want to contribut
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton