Nitpicking Wikipedia's Vulnerabilities

tiltowait writes "A lot of Wikipedia critics point to hypothetical situations when giving reasons for not valuing the site. Wikipedia even has a 'Replies to common objections' article set up to field these. I'd rather look at some real examples of applying the same level of scrutiny to materials often held up as the Platonic ideal of 'scholarship,' such as peer-reviewed journals, conference papers, established journalism sources, monographs, and print encyclopedias. Even these have disclaimers because they can be can be vandalized or have their reliability and accuracy questioned. As dangerous as it is to trust unverified information, it can be just as bad to make prior judgments discounting information because the source happens to be anonymous. The above examples illustrate that all materials existing along a continuum of valuable information formats. Wikipedia articles can be useful for quickly obtaining factual overviews or as a starting point to further research. But that's just one librarian's opinion. How do tech-savvy people view Wikipedia?"

Comments

Editorial control

[BWJones]

The problem that I have had with Wikipedia is that in editing articles on which I am a recognized expert, I have had my edits and entries entirely removed by others who "feel" that these edits were somehow inappropriate, even when I referenced those entries along with results from peer reviewed journals. So, while allowing everybody to edit, there is no weighting system in place for those individuals who may, in fact, know more about a particular subject matter than others who exert their biased or uneducated editorial control.

Now, all of that said, I do really appreciate Wikipedia as like the poster stated is a good starting out point for research into a particular topic.

Re:Editorial control

[pHatidic]

This is what Larry Sanger said in his last K5 article about Wikipedia. Larry made the argument that even though he has a PhD in philosophy his articles could be corrected by a six year old. Personally, I think that if your beliefs can't stand up to the curiosity of a six year old then that says something in and of itself.

Nailing theses to the library door

[tiltowait]

I'm probably in the minority, being a librarian a with a good opinion of Wikipedia. Many (mostly older) librarians, for example, relish their roles as gatekeepers to information. I suppose it comes from the old warden-style approach to protecting books, or some sort of warped view of taking "information is power" as a need to hoard and protect its distribution.

There is this sometimes misguided need to teach "information literacy," with exaggerated assumptions about "kids believing everything they read online." Recent library conferences have covered this alongside how students learn and use technology -- often with the same sort of bemused condescension that 19th century anthropologists exhibited toward alien cultures. It's unnerving. But teaching others to evaluate information themselves, rather than thinking it's our job to do it for them, is on the right track. History as shown a path towards direct and open access to information, and I see wiki publishing as a direct extension of this trend.

Librarians, in general, seem stuck on the "omg you can vandalize Wikipedia so it's worthless" argument. Jimbo even got asked, at the last ALA conference, essentially, "What's to stop me from distrupting information in Wikipedia?," by a librarian. And this is the profession so disturbed by book bannings? I just don't see libraries staying relevant if we don't acknowledge the value of blogs, wikis, and other new information formats (and we're not quite there yet).

Of course, those story links are nitpicks themselves. Library stuff (if it exists on your topic) is of better quality than what you'll find via Google. As for Wikipedia, content zealots -- both snobs and censors -- threaten the open encyclopedia's mission at least as much as the cranks. But there's no need to exaggerate the problems of Wikipedia. Sure, it can get messy, but the benefits far outweigh the costs.

As another frontiersman was warned, "If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."

So anyway, all of these comments are a bit of a hyperbolism. As a piece on peak libraries I started shows (oh yeah, that's a library science Wiki btw), I'm something of a provocateur at times. It's just that, after spending my early career trying to educate everyone that librarians are "with it", I've discovered that there's just as much of a need to convince librarians to get with the times.

I tend to be pleasantly surprised.

[Quinn_Inuit]

When I look something up in Wikipedia, I generally approach it with the assumption that I'm going to get a short, moderately informative, and probably at least somewhat mistaken article. Instead, I almost always find a well-researched and in-depth piece on whatever trivia I was looking up. It's not perfect, but I generally learn a great deal.

Yeah, I know I should stop assuming that I'm not going to get much, but I have that assumption with everything I look up online. It's just that Wikipedia gives me more pleasant surprises than most other sources.

Wikipedia and massive growth.

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the things about Wikipedia is that it has become so large and vast in such a short time. Just three years ago Wikipedia only had around 50,000 articles. Last year it only had 300,000. It has grown so fast that it is now the 35th most visited website acording to alexa, and searching for Wikipedia gives over 300 million results.

Wikipedia has literally appeared out of nowhere in the context of the Internet and printed encyclopedias. It is already the most popular online reference work in terms of linkage and hits per month.

Its the fact that Wikipedia is so big, yet still relavtivley new that many people are skeptical of it, but I have been with Wikipedia for a long time and have appreciated its value, by around 2010 Wikipedia will have millions of articles, and people will have gotten used to its power. Anti vandal techniques are being developed, there is a dedicated vandal fighter program and there is now almost 600 administrators patrolling it.

Wikipedia is a monster, and it is carving out the internet. The World wide web will soon split into two webs, the Wiki web, and the Loki web.

I just love it

[$RANDOMLUSER]

As a kid who grew up reading encyclopedias and dictionaries for pleasure by the hour, I think it's like a playground. I can be reading about quantum chromodynamics or something, and three links later I can be reading about the Livery Companies of London, or French Impressionism, or linguistics, or the Luminiferous Aether. This is exactly what the World Wide Web is supposed to be about. I'm 50 now, I can't imagine what my life would be like if I'd had this when I was 12. I used to read a newspaper column where a regular filler bit was something about "things I found out today while looking up other things". That's exactly how I feel about Wikipedia.

Do I take everything I read there seriously? No, no more (or less) so than I take what The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times has to say. After all their authors are anonymous to me, and I frequently diagree with their facts or intrepretations.