Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia Announces Tighter Editorial Control
Daedalus_ wrote to mention a Reuters article reporting from Wikimania. "Wikipedia, the Web encyclopaedia written and edited by Internet users from all over the world, plans to impose stricter editorial rules to prevent vandalism of its content, founder Jimmy Wales was quoted as saying Friday." (Update: 08/06 23:45 GMT by J : But see his response here!) Meanwhile, kyelewis writes "WikiMania, the First International WikiMedia Conference is open in Germany, but if you couldn't gather the money or the courage to fly over, you can listen online in Ogg Vorbis format, or if you miss the talks, you can download them later. The WikiMania Broadcast page has more information, and the WikiMania Programme is also available, so jump in and learn more about the mysterious technology that is the wiki."
I have no idea how they plan on implementing this, but if it was up to me, I'd have a "stable" and "draft" version of each high-profile page. Anyone should be able to edit the draft. Periodically, the draft version could replace the stable version (perhaps a voting system could be in place, not unlike the kuro5hin submission queue).
The importance of a page (to decide if a locked "stable" page is necessary) could be determined automatically either by number of hits, or computing the pagerank of each page given the link graph of the whole wiki.
> That's my main worry, what I liked was the kind of controlled chaos of the idea
Yeah, I like that too. Unfortunately, on the internet, once your site reaches a high enough profile every dickhead in the universe feels obligated to do whatever they can to screw it up.
Like Slashdot, for example.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Eh, when you read something in the media or in an encyclopedia in paper or something in a library, how do you know it's correct?
Let's say you are doing research on a two-seater variant of the f-16 foghter aircraft, and the "paper encyclopedia" puts the range at 2400km, and wikipedia puts the range at 2550km, who would you trust?
Now, if you came to the knowledge that the article on the trainer variant in question was edited by Captain John Miller, USAF, at the Point Ueneme Air Force base, the only base in the United States using this particular variant, and that he was the man in charge of all pilot training, who would you believe then, the "paper encyclopedia" printed in Taiwan in 2003, or Wikipedia?
Now, let's say that John Miller posted as JonM at 3 am, you might not know that he's the USAF trainer, but you might ask him how he knows, and he might tell you to call him at the base during his office hours. Then you might know. Try calling the Encyclopedia.
Assuming that information is correct is always asking for trouble, regardless of where the infomration comes from. What wikipedia allows you to do is more easily contact the authors to validate or invalidate, as the case may be, the factual nature of the information.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Which is, of course, the point of an encyclopedia.
But then again, I could be wrong.