Slashdot Mirror
FUD-Based Encyclopedias
blacklily8 writes "Someone has finally gotten around to offering an intelligent point-by-point rejoinder to an ex-Brittanica editor's lambasting of Wikipedia--which was covered in this earlier Slashdot post. Aaron Krowne, a mathematician and head of Emory University's library research department, argues here that established encyclopedias are using FUD to discredit what is actually a more reliable way to build an encyclopedia: 'McHenry's definition of quality seems to consist solely of presentational matters such as spelling, grammar, and text flow. These are of course important considerations, but I propose that there are other important facets of quality - for example, coverage.'"
But to think that Google will automagically give you the right information is just rediculous. Not long ago there was a review of a book in a paper here. The author of the book mentioned Francis Bacon, and discussed his philosophy. The journalist writing the article about the book didn't know who Francis Bacon was, so he consulted the great Internet. He got his information and wrote a small paragraph about how the painter Francis Bacon's philosophy was mentioned in the book. The author of the book obviously didn't mean the 20th century painter Francis Bacon, but the philosopher who lived in the 16th and 17th century. See, looking on the internet isn't always great. And when it comes to Wikipedia, it's a good source, most of the time. But it does happen that articles written by people who know what they are talking about is being re-edited into mediocrity.
One might add these aren't mutually exclusive. It would be perfectly possible, for example, to take a "snapshot" of Wikipedia, have the articles reviewed by (paid?) experts, grammar and spelling errors corrected, rubbish that crept in weeded out and all that and then publish that "stable" version - whether it's on a website (presumably a static one, not a Wiki), on CD-ROM/DVD-ROM/... or even in print or another medium.
The GFDL under which all Wikipedia content is licensed does allow you to do that. In fact, it already *has* been done, too: a snapshot of the German Wikipedia was published on CD-ROM (also available for download as an ISO image) last September, IIRC.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
I've found Wikipedia to be a great source for even somewhat esoteric things, in particular, chemistry/biology.
For example, I needed to know the biological significance of Zinc metal for a chemistry problem set the other day... lo and behold, Wikipedia's page on Zinc had a broad answer that led me to know what to search for in books (Zinc "fingers" & DNA).
I also used Wikipedia as the starting point for a large research paper on thrombin, a blood clotting enzyme. Note: this is not some simple little tidbit, but a enzyme in a extremely complex series of reactions that are the blood clotting cascade. And who had a good overview of the process to get me started ? Wikipedia ! (Coagulation) & (Thrombin).
What I find MOST helpful about wikipedia is the cross-linking. It represents uncommon words as a treasure trove of further information instead of a confusing word just sitting there. Sometimes you avoid looking up all those words because of the effort involved, but w/ Wikipedia it's extrememly painless.
As you can see, i've had a lot of good experiences w/ Wikipedia. I've found it to be lacking in certain topics, but I've actually found myself contributing to those topics due to the help i've received from it before.
I think the fact that it provides such a high quality resource to a lot of people will only encourage them to help add to it, to make it better, or as a way of saying thanks. I sure did.
I would have thought that in matters such as encyclopedias, the biggest indicator of quality would be accuracy.
Exactly. I can report a small sample of experience in seeing how accuracy has been managed in a particular wiki. That sample does not inspire me with confidence.
In a nutshell, I read a wiki page, saw some incorrect data about a subject which has been my bread and butter, and I added a note giving correct data (plus citations for independent verification by whoever might want to check it out).
A day later, the note had been removed to a discussion page accompanied by a comment by someone who seemed to be taking a role as the wiki's maintainer, saying that he 'didn't feel like' putting that stuff in 'right now'. Several months later, the correct info still was not back on the wiki page, the information on the wiki page was as incorrect as it had been when I first saw it.
I didn't try to push the correction, it's a free medium, seemingly the maintainer and maybe everybody else (or maybe not?) has a right to offer and put in what they please.
That freedom clearly has a lot of pluses.
But accuracy, or an assurance of accuracy, equally clearly isn't one of them.
I don't know how many wiki pages have maintainers. But that's what I saw happening.
My conclusion is that a wiki appears to be as accurate (or inaccurate) as its maintainer keeps it; or if there is no maintainer, then it is as likely to be as inaccurate as the most careless of its contributors.
-wb-