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WikiPedia Founder Wales Speaks About Wikinews
sebFlyte writes "One of Wikipedia's founders, Jimmy Wales, has given an interesting interview to news.com.com.com about the new WikiNews project. He talks about his dissatisfaction with IndyMedia's bias, the problems with traditional news media and how to make Wiki content credible (a problem WikiPedia faces, as previously reported)."
"They seem to forget this."
From TFA:
How can you ensure that you are actually neutral? Doesn't each individual contributor have his or her own bias? Even the choice of story reflects some bias.
Yes, of course. There's no magic bullet to eliminate bias, and be objective and neutral.
You were saying?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I must say that I was impressed with the interview with Jimmy Wales. I've had my misgivings with the Wikinews project in the past, despite being an avid reader/contributor to Wikipedia. Yet from the article Mr. Wales lays out the project well:
The bloggers are the editorial page and response to the editorial pages, and we're the response to the front page. We'll synthesize what's being reported in a variety of sources.
Brilliant! That's exactly what WikiNews should be, and what it would excel at. Now, it will be simply a blog, but sort of an.. uber-blog. I'm just glad that Mr. Wales isn't looking too far, and acknowledges the shortcomings of the Wikinews project - the accessibility to foreign lands, important peoples, etc. In short, the power to break many stories. Not that bloggers haven't broken a few stories, but the lion's share will continue to reside with the big media sources.
All in all, a great interview. Kudos to Mr. Wales!
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
You linked to a scanned image on geocities?
And expected people to take you seriously?
A link to a site where anyone can place material is not a link worth having on wikipedia.
To prove my point - I can put a scanned image up on geocities purporting to be from you, saying you were wrong.
Would that prove anything? No - and nor does your link.
My pics.
The authenticity of any web document must be corroborated. In the case of this letter, there is more than enough corroborating information that's easily verifiable. For crying out loud there's the author of the letter himself to call if you really want to be a jerk and harrass him.
Seastead this.
It wouldn't kill the project as such, but I'm not sure it's a good idea. Why would you want to *elect* experts? The fact that someone is popular doesn't mean he's an expert in a certain field. Wikipedia already is a meritocracy of sorts where how much you're respected depends on what you do, not what you claim, and I think that's the right idea. Of course, a "stable" branch from the Wikipedia trunk that's being double-checked for factual accuracy and the like by experts is still a good idea for a CD-ROM version or so, for example, but it shouldn't be mixed with the trunk. The fact that anyone can edit a page and have the changes go live immediately is Wikipedia's strength, after all, and the failure of Nupedia should tell us all something. :)
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Was it part of the McVeigh-UFO conspiracy also reported on your page before geocities axed it?
Fusion power research is known for bitter blood feuds and with nothing but some non-viewable jpgs on a geocities page (the google cache is accessible but it didn't cache the images) I see it as proof of Wikipedia's abilities of self-regulation that your change was reversed.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Here is a sample of a fact only news article that I just made up:
Police responded to a 911 emergency call at 123 Maple Ave last night at 3:22 AM. Mr Raymond Maynard called police to report that several persons were trying to break down his door, and asked for help. The police dispatcher could hear the sound of banging and hammering, and then Mr Maynard stated that the door was giving in, and that he had to put the phone down.
When Police arrived on the scene, they found Mr Dumbo Mcnutt, Mr Metoo Imdumb, and Mr Gang Banger on the floor of the house in the hallway leading to the master bedroom. Handguns were found by the bodies, and Mcnut had $6400 on his person. Mcnut, Imdumb, and Banger were pronounced dead at the scene from multiple shotgun wounds. The intruders all had previous records for assault, robbery, rape, and stampeding cattle thru the Vatican.
Police do not expect to file any charges against Mr Maynard.
Last month, the Governor signed into law the bill that bars lawsuits on the behalf of persons injured or killed while commiting a crime. Instances of home invasion have dropped 62% since the city mandated that each homeowner be armed last year.
### Now here is another story about the event, with a particular bias:
Another tragedy occured in the city tonight, and its cause was, as always, an armed citizen. A vigilante viciously gunned down 3 young men of color, innocent victims of Bush's oppression of the poor, the homeless, those who never had a chance in society. Police responded to a complaint by Mr Maynard that someone was knocking loudly at his door, and that it was past his bedtime. When officers arrived at the scene, they found a scene of bloody carnage. Mr Maynard had killed these three young men, claiming self defense. These sorts of senseless and unneccesary killings must be stopped now!. If only guns were outlawed, then citizens like Mr Maynard would be unable to act as judge, jury and executioner.
In an added tragedy, The Republican Governor last month signed a bill, over the objections of the UN , Cuba, and the ACLU, which prohibits the relatives of the victims of these attacks from having their day in court. Fatal shootings of persons accused of entering peoples homes without permission have risen sharply following the citys bloodthirsty mandate that all homeowners be armed to the teeth.####
I could do a 3ed version which puts the bias of the second version the other way, but I've spend too long on this already. In any case, you can see the first version reports only facts. The second version uses emotional language to press the readers buttons.
Most of what gets put into the mainstream media should be marked as troll or flamebait.
How many times does this once brilliant but now hackneyed and stupid Simpsons quote have to be used by jwz fanboys like your idiot self before people will realize that INCESSANT REPETITION MAKES SHIT NOT FUNNY? I repeat, NOT FUNNY.
This assumes that the truth is always in the perceived "middle". A compromise has no greater probability of being true than an "extreme" position.
You have an interesting understanding of the word "facts."
I've always said that the obvious slant found in most newspaper articles should be attributed not to any systematic imposition of bias but simply to the fact that most newspaper and wire service reporters couldn't write themselves out of a paper bag if you gave them a really sharp pencil.
If you're a lousy writer, but your job is to design jet engines or something, that's fine. But if your job is to write and you're a lousy writer, we have a problem.
But whichever it is, here's a friendly tip for you: Words like "claims" and "denounced" and "finally" and "repel" and "invaders" don't belong in a story that runs under the headline "nothing but the facts."