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Wikipedia to Restrict Creation of Articles
cine writes "News.com reports that starting Monday Wikipedia will restrict the creation of new articles to members. Anonymous users will only be able to edit existing articles. This move comes after a controversial week for the free online encyclopedia" From the article: "Wales said the Seigenthaler article not only escaped the notice of this corps of watchdogs, but it also became a kind of needle in a haystack: The page remained unchanged for so long because it wasn't linked to from any other Wikipedia articles, depriving it of traffic that might have led to closer scrutiny."
"Anonymous" Wikipedia accounts are actually less anonymous than registered users. As an anonymous user, your IP is visible for tracking across the site and tracing to your physical location; but you have the ability to create as many username sockpuppets as you want.
As a formerly prolific contributor, I never really understood how registration was helpful for anything but tracking people who want to be tracked.
It's just a standard "This page has just been linked from Slashdot, if all you can see is an ASCII rendition of Goatse, then you'll be wanting to check the article history for the original content. We'll be rectifying it shortly" disclaimer.
No, they aren't. There's this article or, for something more general, there's this one.
Andrew Lenahan http://www.starblind.com/
Well, the problem is that there is an increase in the number of people seeing the article, relative to the number of people who usually maintain it ("the wikipedia community"). Under normal conditions, the incentive to deface an entry are somewhat lower, and vandalism can be reversed by people in the know. In cases of high traffic, hundreds of people who don't know about a topic will see the article before the maintainers check on it. I know, in theory, that anybody could fix an incident of vandalism, but if you are reading an article, trying to learn something, you are unequiped to even recognize a subtle error. Even if you do spot something wrong with the article, if you are unfamiliar with the editing facilities of wikipedia, you'd be unlikely to fix it.
In the case of a lower traffic article, there is low incentive to deface the entry and a high ratio of people with an honest interest in the material maintaining the entry.
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Crudely Drawn Games
Jimbo Wales and John Seigenthaler Sr. were on CNN to debate this issue. There's a partial transcript being worked on now.
The high traffic warning is to new eyes, and to old eyes, for different reasons. It lets experienced Wiki users know that things might have ben changed with malice, and it lets new people know that things can be changed.
It's not saying that more eyes are bad, it just means that more eyes means more vandals as well as fixers too.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Actually, there were two cases mentioned. One was that an article was created with factually incorrect information that was inadequately checked after publication. The second was that an article was changed and this has led to problems. It is the former that has caused the change.
If I've read the article correctly, Wikipedia does a far better job of tracking changes than it does new articles. The second problem was noticed very quickly, reported and presumably corrected (after much comment on slashdot). The first problem stemmed from the fact that the article went unlinked and unedited for so long. All changes on Wikipedia appear to be tracked and checked by a number of people, so the article would have either been edited for correctness by a user or verified for correctness on each change. Because it got through the preliminary check (presumably by one person -- multiple people can register interest in an article after creation and will see changes, but I assume only one person verfies it initially).
The reason for the change is to increase the level of accountability. If an anonymous user changes an article and in some way "messes it up", someone checks that and can either undo it or correct it again. However, if an anonymous user creates a new article and somehow it gets through preliminary checks, then the incorrect information could be up for a long time (because there may be poor linkage) and there is no way for Wikipedia to track who made that anonymous article (remember, many people are on dynamic IPs that change regularly, so an IP is only valid for a short period). I assume that by registering, a valid email is required and therefore there is a semblance of control.
(Disclaimer: I'm a relatively active editor on Wikipedia, although under a different name than this.)
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The article in question is right here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr
And yes, the IP addresses of (anonymous) people doing page edits are logged and publicised; but that still doesn't mean that people can be held accountable. If all you know is that whoever wrote a particular sentence in an article that's considered libellous or something else is that they edited from an AOL IP three years ago... good luck finding that person.
The big difference that Jimbo points out and that makes sense is that articles written by other users are likely on someone's watchlist, so that person would see the edit and check it out - I know I do that with articles on my watchlist, especially if the edits are by anonymous contributors or people I don't know. A malevolent user could still sign up for an account, of course, and get around the restriction that way, but I'd think it's safe to say that at least some trolls are gonna be deterred by that (although it's probably the low-level trolls who write things like "XYZ is a dumbass" in new articles instead of the high-level ones that write articles that look reasonable but are wrong in subtle but important ways); and if the problem persists, the system could just as well be expanded to people who have just signed up five minutes ago or who have not edited any existing articles yet etc. (Of course, that's just an idea of my own, and I'm not speaking for Jimbo, Wikipedia editors in general, the Wikimedia Foundation or anyone here.)
In the end, the lesson is probably that freedom also always means that people will be able to do bad things.
But look at it like this - even though there's almost a million articles in the English Wikipedia already, and even though Wikipedia is among the top 40 most popular sites on the entire Internet, as determined by Alexa, these are about the only examples of real controversy surrounding Wikipedia yet. I'd say we've been pretty successful at showing that the Wiki model *does* work - if the naysayers had been right, the whole site would've collapsed a long, long time ago. But it hasn't, not at all.
So we must be doing something right.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Wikipedia's success has come from people joining together and creating new articles, not just editing them. We need to be able to post new facts, new ideas, and new discoveries that are going on in the world. New users are the primary source of these articles.
Perhaps you didn't read the summary.
"Wikipedia will restrict the creation of new articles to members. Anonymous users will only be able to edit existing articles."
Members. Not admins, or moderators, or privileged people. Just members. All you have to do to create an article is sign up. Becoming a member is free.
Most people on Slashdot moderate/modify Anonymous Cowards into oblivion. If someone takes the time to register their name, there's a greater likelihood that what they have to say is relevent, from a purely statistical point of view (trolls obviously also register their name). I don't see how Wikipedia should be any different in its regard of anonymous postings.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
Following this incident, a control system was begun that let project initiators have increased control over their Wiki. this appears to be working.
Wikipedia is a great resource, and a great idea. That said, I think the move to more rational control - to prevent malicious attacks or even inadvertant disasters - is a good idea.
I used to be a big Wikipedia proponent. I have well over 3,000 edits there. Now however I think the site has gone to hell. I do think that it remains a nice reference site when trying to find general information about a common subject, but its usefulness stops there. Trying to get involved in the process any further is an exercise in futility. The site is run by people with huge egos, and any change you do will most likely get changed back regardless what it is. The time of big contributions of factual information is over, and it's mainly revert wars, arguing and vandalism that are most of the current edits.
The News.com story did not report this: Jimbo Wales calls this an "experiment." Link to his email announcing the change.
Penny - plain text accounting
No email requirement.
You can see the entire edit history of a logged-in account.
"Piter, too, is dead."
The situation with the Seigenthaler article was somewhat unusual. The article (according to the OP link) had no links from within Wikipedia, allowing it to escape the scrutiny of Wikipedians. The article might as well have been posted to someone's Myspace page, except that being on Wikipedia grants somewhat more credibility than just appearing on some random blog. In other words, Wikipedia is as much a victim here as Seigenthaler, as its credibility was usurped (presumably with contravention of Wikipedia's rules like NPOV and no original research) to post an unsubstantiated political point. If the article went unnoticed for so long, it's likely that the only people that ever saw it were people who got the link e-mailed to them by the article's OP, or people who actually searched for Seigenthaler's name. Given such minimal exposure, the damage caused to Seigenthaler's reputation is probably greater now than if he hadn't said anything publicly after he eventually edited the article himself.
But unlike Seigenthaler, Wikipedia gets it from both ends in this case. An anonymous user posts (allegedly) false information about Seigenthaler, and then, seeing that he has no recourse against the offender, Seigenthaler lambasts Wikipedia. Are there problems with Wikipedia's policies? Sure. Adding restrictions upon anonymous users is a good thing, especially given how prone Wikipedia is to vandalism, and I'm still surprised it doesn't require every contributor to post under an account (which would let them then focus their attention on weeding out sock puppets). But that doesn't make Wikimedia, as an organization, responsible for the incorrect content. In fact, the whole point of Wikipedia is that if you, the user, see something that you know is incorrect, you behave as any good member of the community would, and you contribute to making Wikipedia more factually correct. This is peer-to-peer information: the community as a whole suffers if you only take without giving back.
I work in a library. We provide free Internet access to literally thousands of patrons every week. Under state law, what you do in the library is confidential, so we do not keep any record of your Internet usage. Should an anonymous Wikipedia account be traced to a library IP, there is no possible way to determine who was using a particular library computer at a particular time on a particular day.
It might narrow you down to a particular physical community, or at least to being within driving distance of a particular community. But otherwise it sounds pretty darn anonymous to me.
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
In Brazil (and most likely in other countries too) an IP address and a timestamp of an event coming from it (DoS attack, break-in attempt, fraud ou whatever) is enough to identify the user. If something unlawful is performed on the net, the authorities have the right to obtain the user's identity from the ISP. ISPs are required to be able to identify users based on IP/timestamp. Most ISPs disencourage IP-sharing (one user buys fat-pipe link, provides access to friends/neighbours via NAT) and even if that is the case, the subscription owner is legally responsible for whatever crimes their NAT'ed friends commit online.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. That is the beginning and the end of it. Encyclopedias happen to also be information sources. It is not an all-encompassing well of knowledge. At what point is this ambiguously stated?
qntm.org
The first process you describe sounds a heck of a lot like democracy, while the second sounds closer to the process that would be used by a dictatorship.
So, in a democracy, one whiny jackass gets to make the decisions by virtue of his whininess? I thought democracies were ruled by the majority.
It's the masses, not the asses.
There's no reason the majority needs to wimp-out and acquiesce to every useless complainer who opens his mouth. (Though they can if they want to.)
I don't see how you could have lost anything when wiki's keep all page versions in the history. Sounds like a technical glitch on the part of whatever wiki program the site used more than anything else.
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
(articles on Nazism will always be very negative, but there will be little mention of the atrocities committed by Jewish families, such as De Beers or Ariel Sharon).
The De Beers brothers were not Jewish. Neither owned anything more than a mine they were later forced out of. However, the company carying the name was founded by a Jewish person, but was named after the mine, not any Jewish family. Perhaps the reason that Wikipedia dosn't get into the anti-semitic articles is that those that wish to spread anti-semitism are ignorant of facts, so they are quickly taken off. You make it sound like you want a section on "evil jews" or something. I don't see Nike's entry talking up all the child labor problems and such. All the uncontroversial entries seem to be generally more positive than negative.
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http://cnx.rice.edu/
There's already some open content there, and pretty decent tools for creating more. It's all creative commons.
Why doesn't wikipedia just create a queue for articles before they're submitted. Have different queues for each topic that can be pared down, so the editors can see it before it's committed and vote on it or something to ensure some validity. If no one notices/votes on it while it's in the queue, you could commit it, flag the article at the top saying there was unverified data, and zip off a message to a couple people designated to keep an eye on articles committed due to review expiration. If you tweaked the system enough, I could see a couple days between submission and commitance (due to deadline) at the most, which would help credibility and accuracy a great deal, I think.
http://www.uncyclopedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler _Sr
It looks like Uncyclopedia has even jumped on the bandwagon.
You're kidding, right? You're complaining about people getting "Gospel Truth" from Wikipeida, but then claim that the dictionary, encyclopedia, and a weekly news magazine are sources of fact? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you should level the same sceptical eye towards those sources as you do towards Wikipedia. None of these things are original sources, and all are vulnerable to incorrect information. The same can be said for many published books -- just because someone published something doesn't make it correct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_S ignpost/2005-12-05/Page_creation_restrictions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pum p_(news)#Anon._page_creation_disabled
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Nocreatetex t - The message that gets displayed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Nocrea tetext
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_fo r_creation - The page where anon users can list content.
There's not such thing as anonymity in Wikipedia. Even if you don't sign in, you IP and timestamp are posted. If it was just a question of publishing anonymously (i.e. not using you usual account), that would simply meen that the guy has to make a new account (an alias of sorts) and that's it.
"You superiour intellect is no match for our puny weapons" - The Simpsons
Quote from the wiki clean up page : The cleanup page is a place where articles with problems (ungrammatical, poorly formatted, confusing, etc.) can be listed. Any user can fix or list articles here.
So this could simply be bad spelling or grammar. Since wiki article are also written by persons not having english as first language this does not sound that bad. Example taken at random : # Project Chapleau - reads like a press release # Jeff Morrow - Contains poor language, lacking in formatting, and generally needs more information --Spring Rubber 22:00, 24 November 2005 (UTC) # Hydraulic power - Needs more info, categories, internal link creation, heading creation - the works in other words. - (Erebus555 20:25, 24 November 2005 (UTC)) # Fat acceptance movement A tad incoherent at times. # Smog, needs to be sorted into sections. --Thorpe 17:37, 24 November 2005 (UTC) * Article self descriptive? (bad pun, I know)
Granted there might be other section with "worst" cleanup ("read like a PR release, blatantly false, hoax, etc...) but tose 12000+ cleanup are NOT all bad article but also bad grammar that that is the point here.
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