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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."
I occasionally use Wikipedia for something or other, generally when I click a link to an entry which someone has posted on their Web site. I've found that it's reliable for the most part, but when you run into something that's wrong, it's really wrong. And the threat of revert wars can keep many people (including me) from contributing at all.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
I hadn't realized Sanger's background was in the theory of knowledge. I'm wondering now if what he's actually up to is something much more subtle than seems evident on the surface. Of course Google is into the "sum of all human knowledge" business too, but they're going for bulk and automated quality selection methods, rather than Wikipedia's human touch. Having been around myself since the Interpedia days, I know there's a long history here...
The first encyclopedists had at least ulterior motives. Anybody have any other ideas what this is really all about? Then there's always the parallels to the world of Asimov's Foundation series, which started off as an Encyclopedia project!
Energy: time to change the picture.
Larrys contributions page on wikipedia...
:)
2002 was the last time he edited a page *not* related to himself
Wikipedia has the right basic structure but they need a rotating team of pro Guest Editors to go through and fact-check and then "lock" articles, or portions of articles. I'm sure they could easily add a section entitled "Are you and Expert" and many experts would volunteer their time to look at specific sections.
It seems that incorporating a version of Slashdot's moderating routines would not only solve most of wiki's downsides, but people may learn lot from just metamoderating.
The Linux kernel is a good model of how Wikipedia should work. All source code contributions must be vetted by Linus or one of his designated underlings before being checked into the kernel. If anybody and everybody could check whatever code they want directly into the root branch, the kernel would quickly become an unusable mess. New Wikipedia submissions or changes should be held as pending until passing editorial review.
/. style moderation, where you can log in and vote on the accuracy of an article. Enough -ve mods and the entry would be deleted or rolled back to its previous iteration. Meta-moderation would ensure that the moderation system is not abused, and trolls are prevented from moderating.
Another option is
But the idea behind Wikipedia is great, and shouldn't be allowed to die. Despite its warts, I do consider it a valuble reference, and keep a quick link to it on my Mozilla toolbar.
My rights don't need management.
Just have 2 versions of every article - Evolving and Edited. People could toggle between the two depending on their preference.
Time and time again, I run into this wrong headed notion of the "expert". When I was a kid, I bought into it. I believed there were people who knew just about everything there is to know about a particular subject. As I got older, I saw these "experts" cut down one by one as they could no longer provide answers to questions for me. It happened first with my parents. Then with various teachers and librarians while I was in elementary school, junior high and high school. Finally, with my professors at the various colleges I went to. This is not to say that these people don't know a great deal, but there is not one person on the planet that can be called an expert.
The fool who wrote this critique of Wikipedia is attempting to defend the exclusivity of who can be considered to be informed and who can't. One of the worst things in the world you can do to any information resource is to make it exclusive. When you make it exclusive, you make it useless and inaccessible to the average person. It might be nice to have someone who has a deep knowledge of philosphy share their knowledge on Wikipedia, but if they can't speak in terms that others can understand, what good is it? Even with it's warts, Wikipedia provides people with better access to knowledge on various subjects than they previously had access to. That's the point. If one wishes to expand their knowledge on that subject, then they can feel free to delve deeper into it from more authoritative sources. The Wikipedia is not meant to be ultimately authoritative. The set of Encyclopedia Britanica Year books I have at home prove that to me. In the early 50s, their music reviewer (a supposed expert) claimed that rock and roll was a fad of insanity where children wanted to play and listen to tribal rhythms. Apparently, he was wrong since rock and roll had a long life beyond the 1950s. By the 1957 edition, he had been replaced by someone who was a little more flexible in their thinking. By the previous expert's opinions, I'm sure that the new reviewer was one the "rabble" or the "hoi polloi" who didn't understand the value of real music vs. those tribal jungle rhythms. (Note: the older reviewer did refer to rock music in increasingly racial terms between 1955 and 1956 editions, I believe)
My point is that there can be no experts because information is not immutable. It always changes and updates are required. Homosexuality used to be considered a psychological disorder that could be "cured". Blacks used to be considered sub-human as they didn't possess souls. These views are quite obviously wrong. But if you would have checked with an expert of the past, those are the answers you would have gotten. If Wikipedia never reaches a point where the information is 100% reliable at all times, it doesn't matter because it still does the job of opening minds to new subjects and areas of knowledge. I say, kick this guy in the bollocks and charge forward. If we want people to be armed with knowledge, Wikipedia is a pretty darn good tool.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
And astrology is only a controversial topic on Wikipedia because complete fucking idiots who actually believe that tripe are given the same credence as everyone else. Ignorant fools who think blind mysticism is somehow just as important as the science that gives them electric lights, automobiles, cell phones, penicillin, the very computers they're typing on, and just about every other thing that makes their lives tolerable are allowed to push their superstition as having the same importance as the science that's built the world around them, and without which many of them would be dead, or never born.
That in and of itself is a very good reason not to put too much trust into Wikipedia.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?