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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."
When it is so easy to create an account on wikipedia, how does this really affect anything? Banning anonymous article creation isn't suddenly going to make all articles interlinked, nor will it stop people from making pointless articles.
It's a shame that creation of articles can't be (officially) anonymous anymore, but I do see the benefit in requiring registration to start a new article. Most common topics already have an article by now -- and it's easy enough to register to start new ones.
I hope they still allow anonymous edits and posts.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
In the interest of accountability, shouldn't it have been this way in the first place? Then again, I'm a crazy person who thinks real sources (not just websites) need to be cited in a Wikipedia article for it to have real credibility.
So a hostile anonymous coward can no longer create an entry. Fine. But isn't the real mischief to be made by modifying a pre-existing entry anyway? The article itself talks about a blogging "pioneer" who deleted references to early bloggers from a Wikipedia story. He could still have done that despite this change.
IMHO (as an anti-linkspam vigilante on one Wikipedia language version) it's high time anonymous users are prevented from edits which contain external links, as the chances are these will be to spammy sites.
The real question is how to manage this tightening. To quick shuts off valuable contribution, too slowly risks splintering chaos.
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.
I would rather have a "free" encyclopedia where I can post articles of my subjects of interest than having to edit those that already exist. Besides, I, like most other people out there, use Wikipedia not for scientific research, but to broaden my perspective on the various subjects out there which old fashioned books are "out of the scope" to provide insight for.
Daniel
basiCreations Software
but perhaps they are trying to increase responsibility and accountability. Perhaps if that guy had been able to find out who had libeled him, he would never have been libeled, or at least they would have fired him or sued him or whatever.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
Wikipedia is realizing that the theory of "many eyes" completely breaks down in an atmosphere lacking in authority. Nothing stops people from acting irresponsibly, and now they are forced to take some action or lose what credibility and cache they have left.
What we see is an example that this belief is nothing more then wishful thinking.
In the area of expert knowledge "elitism", (or, rather, professionalism) is a good thing. The fact is, there are less people who actually know about something, then those who think they know something.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
You don't even need to provide a valid email address to create a wikipedia account right now; it's purely optional. This looks like more of a PR move than a move aimed to actually improve the quality of the content submitted.
The issue was present in the original article as it was first written. At least that's what he and Jimmy Wales agreed to today on CNN.
After the page has had time to settle down, the extra eyeballs will (on average) have improved it. But if the page is still in the process of being edited fifty different ways by fifty different people, then it's not surprising that it may be inconsistent/incorrect. Hence the warning message.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Wikipedia, nice concept...a fairly large resource of information, but a good example somewhat of anarchy in action.
First, Wikipedia often fails to state it's purposes clearly. Is it an information source, an encyclopedia or an all encompassing well of knowledge?
Take for example issues regarding web comics. Wikipedia went on a purge of dozens of web comic entries. Eliminating vast amounts of effort put in by individuals. The premise, "noteworthiness"....a change in the meaning of that term eliminated large quantities of listings. Such a premise must be taken into account before entries begin. To decide to change the qualifications so as to eliminate 90% of entries is to deride the effort of user's works.
Second, a complete lack of check and balances for edits allow for great risk of destructive behaviors. Were Wikipedia to simply implement a small concept common in Roget's rules of order and most others rules of order there would be much less inclination toward destruction. And that is to require a member to "second" any edits. Sure, it still poses risk. But to do so would enable a bit more order. Perhaps large and substantial edits or deletions of content would require 2 or more "seconds" before said change would be implemented.
Changes should go thru some sort of review process and affirmation.
*shrug*
Until such processes are implemented little will impede the anarchy that is Wikipedia.
Although it hasn't happened yet, and arguably isn't likely to happen for months or perhaps years, there will be a point at which every even slightly encyclopedic topic will have a Wikipedia article. Think about it: an average week goes by... there's maybe two or three major news stories, a handful of books, movies, and records get released, maybe a new product or two comes to market, and occasionally there will be some sort of scientific discovery. Even by very loose standards, that would be maybe 50-200 new encyclopedic topics per week. Wikipedia has thousands of editors, and currently several new articles every minute.
Since I don't think the flow of new articles will cease once the encyclopedic topics are covered, this means we'll reach a point when "bad" new articles will far outnumber the "good" new articles. Any action on Wikipedia's part to help stem the tide is a good thing. Wikipedia's openness is both its greatest asset and its curse. The challenge it must face is to strike that perfect balance between freedom and control. All the openness in the world will do it no good if nobody takes it seriously as even a causal information source.
Andrew Lenahan http://www.starblind.com/
Obviously you've not done RC patrol or vandalism watch on a high traffic article. The trolls can in the short run overwhelm people trying to keep the article clean. But the notice alerts good users to the situation and can push the issue in the favor of people trying to improve the article. There is of course controversy and some people think the template is dumb.
The problem is that if 25% of the visitors to a high traffic article are determined trolls they can screw up the article a certain % of the time, and the normal wiki many eyeballs improvement can break down, because it takes more time than normal for people to figure out what the good information is.
There is virtually no hassle to register a free account. Virtually is the keyword. This little hassle is what might reduce the creation of flamebait or other nonsense articles. If you are going to create a legit article, then I'd wager you have enough determination to take this little step anyway, so there's no problem in that respect, either.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
"Wikipedia is so often considered authoritative. That must stop now, surely. Every fact in there must be considered partisan, written by someone with a conflict of interest," blogging and podcasting pioneer Dave Winer wrote in his blog.
Isn't this kind of like the pot calling the kettle black? I mean, blogs are also often considered authoritative, even though they're clearly partisan and written by someone with a conflict of interest.
A lot of stories of this ilk about Wikipedia seem to imply that Wikipedia is sort of a black or white thing - it's either authoritative or not, it's either correct or not, it's either a good resource or it's not.
In reality, it's (of course) some of all these things. Sure, it may be less correct on average than some other source, or it may be less authoritative, but that doesn't make it any less useful (especially on topics that are new, esoteric, or emerging - where else could you find well-written, generally correct information about Leeroy Jenkins or the GNAA?)
Honestly, I think having something where a slightly greater burden lies on readers to evaluate the quality of information is probably a good thing - we should really be doing that more with all "authoritative" information sources anyway.
I agree completely.
Also, in the area of writing, elitism is a good thing. Expert knowledge of a topic does not mean an expert ability to write on the topic.
What wikipedia needs is a system for editing its content for style and grammar. The writing is generally awful: awkward sentences stitched together from the contributions of multiple different authors, thousands of malapropisms, blatant misuse of jargon, etc.
Wikipedia is OK for what it is, but reading it is painful. If I want a quick survey of hair metal bands, or an explanation of a piece of technology, it's a decent place to take a look. But it is not, in my opinion, a great source of knowledge. It is extremely flawed in both content and style.
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.
No one ever disputed that wiki is good for something. The question is, what things are they good for. Even before I had heard of wikipedia, I already liked wikis -- but I had also seen more than one abandoned due to porn spamming and other abuse. Wikipedia is susceptible to similar problems, but is more successful at resisting them than I'd thought possible.
What Jimbo and Wikipedia have done is amazing, and greatly increases my respect for wiki methods. BUT: if the goal is to create a Britannica-quality encyclopedia, I doubt that it will ever be met. The quality of the average contributor is just too low, and so the popular articles reach an equilibrium far from what I'd call "excellent", in which for each real improvement made by one editor, some editor, in changing something else, unwittingly drags the same article further from the ideal.
I honestly think that wikipedia has just fallen(arguably) to the same problem as /.: lack of scalability.
What they need is a solid, decentralised moderation system based on some kind of digital respect. For example, let everyone moderate a change in an article or a new one either up or down. But let those who have previously had good moderations have a greater voice.
It's just an example, and might not work, but a system the size and complexity that wikipedia has reached needs some kind of feedback mechanism that's more than just everybody screaming at the top of their lungs at each other.
Why are you doing a big project somewhere where you can't make backups of the data??? Seems kind of a dumb idea to me.
...And that was Jimmy Wales and John Seigenthaler Sr., giving us the only two possible sides to this issue.
Next on CNN, in keeping with our binary debate format, we'll hear from the Rev. Jerry Falwell, telling us how secularists are trying to kill Christmas, and from Michael Newdow, who thinks all Christians should "shut the hell up."
Join us later this evening, when Anderson Cooper will oversee a cage match to the death between a pro-life activist and her pro-choice counterpart. All on CNN...We set up false dichotomies, you decide!
In the area of expert knowledge "elitism", (or, rather, professionalism) is a good thing. The fact is, there are less people who actually know about something, then those who think they know something.
But what if all the professionals were incompetant to begin with? Or rather... Who is to say you are an expert? PHD does not make one an expert by default. Especially when we are talking about all the thousands of odd topic wiki articles about pop culture and non-scientific/non-historic articles. (you know like Star Trek)
If you want real professional articles then go get them from their sources or buy a scientific journal. If you want general or common knowledge then wiki it.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Why not set up wiki software on your own site and manage wiki permissions as you see fit? It doesn't sound like you expected a bunch of strangers to compose the book for you, so the main gain of it being on wikibooks is negated.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
In most cases when someone says or prints something nasty and incorrect about you, you have a major struggle on your hand to get it retracted.
This is the one - possibly the *only* - place where you can simply get in there and fix it yourself. Yes, someone can then go back and trash you again - but there are Wiki mechanisms to get that fixed.
If someone had said this stuff about the guy on Slashdot - or in the New York Times - or on radio or TV - he'd have had an enormous fight on his hands to get his good name cleared - and in all likelyhood, never have gotten clear retractions. A retraction in a newspaper doesn't retract all of the copies already in print - an erratum or even a full apology is going to go unread by the vast percentage of readers and would possibly occur weeks or months after the damage was done.
In this case, a dozen keystrokes would have fixed the problem within minutes of the problem being discovered - and REPLACED the offending material burying the original maligning text where most people will never look - and those who do will understand clearly what happened from the document history. Furthermore, the fact that nobody noticed the problem means that almost certainly nobody read the darned article in the first place.
This should never have happened to Wikipedia - it's the one place where this kind of thing isn't a real problem.
www.sjbaker.org
My area of interest (not quite expertise, but getting there) is history (of science, in particular). In general, there is room for a massive, huge, gargantuan, enormous number of new articles on historical topics... Wikipedia is just scratching the surface. I don't see the time for big contributions ending any times soon in that regard. But the biggest problem I see with Wikipedia on more traditional encyclopedia content types (as opposed to the esoteric culture articles for which it is a great resource) is organization. The thematic hierarchies of topics are very limited. For example, there are lots of history of science-related articles that don't get linked to from the broad "history of science" or "history of physics," etc. articles. At least for the kind of articles I'm interested it, I haven't seen very much vandalism at all.
Or rather... Who is to say you are an expert? PHD does not make one an expert by default.
I'd say that yes it does. Earning a PhD in a subject means that you have spent years studying that subject, and that that research has been scrutinized by a supervisor and outside parties who have studied that subject even longer.
If a PhD does not entitle you to 'expert' status in a particular subject, then nothing does.
Especially when we are talking about all the thousands of odd topic wiki articles about pop culture and non-scientific/non-historic articles.
Nobody said a PhD made you an expert in every subject. It makes you an expert in the subject you got your PhD in. However, in the sciences, there is a lot of overlap, so that someone who has a PhD in structural biochemistry can also be considered an expert on biochemistry in general, a good authority on chemistry, and well-versed in physics. But if a PhD in biochemistry says something about physics which a physics PhD disagrees with, you'd be better off listening to the latter.
If you want real professional articles then go get them from their sources or buy a scientific journal. If you want general or common knowledge then wiki it.
Wikipedia's stated goal is to create an encyclopedia of all human knowledge. Meaning most of that is expert knowledge. And the people looking at Wikipedia (or any encyclopedia) don't want 'common knowledge'. They want facts.
It's "common knowledge" that eating too much sugar causes diabetes. (Try going out and asking some people in the street.) It's also completely false. (Try going out and asking some medical doctors). Popular myth or lesser-known fact? I think most our out for the latter.
I feel the same way about ACs on /. Rather than dismiss their posts out of hand, I prefer to judge posts on their merit, not their post status. I'd bet liars and nuts post as much on /. whether AC or not.
I think you're leaving out a whole bunch of other cases that warrant anonymity. Oppressive governments, families and bosses all spring to mind. There are plenty of knowledgable people living in situations where they would get in some degree of trouble for expressing their views or even visiting Wikipedia.
One last thing, I find it a little Orwellian that you think anonymity, hence privacy, needs to be "justified." Did you really mean to use that word? Did you just mean in relation to Wikipedia?
Even beyond that, I believe in possession as nine points of the law, and even if you agree to let someone collect and use information about you, the default case should require that they store that information on YOUR own computer. You should have the right to change your mind at any time, even if you felt like letting them collect that information in the past.
In practical terms, I think this would generally be handled by your own privacy policies as stored in your computer, and the basic tradeoff would be convenience against privacy. Examples:
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I'd say that a large part of those who remain AC when posting comments on politically charged subjects are doing so because what they are posting is contrary to the editorial slant of slashdot. Basically any post that is not leftist in nature will be modded down either by editors with unlimited mod points or censorship-happy leftists.
This includes posts that are well said, have references, and have no troll factor whatsoever.
I see a consistant effort to stifle free thought through perversion of the mod system.
The fact that you claim to be very happy with the status quo whilst apparently being a hard left advocate kind of makes my point.
So, do you think I should be modded down (usually as overrated - even when no mod points have been applied) for this post?
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
AC on wikipedia like on many other webpage is most to encourage activity altough user laziness.
It just a good start to be able to just participate, without having do go through the "complicated" process to create an account. Its just to move one barrier away, to become a wikipedian. Once you feel more comfortable you will create an account nevertheless.
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
Your little rant has to be the most childish I've seen on /. in a while. Right or left wing you are a typical political knee-jerk idealist. The GP's post didn't have an ounce of right leaning in it. Instead he was pointing out /.'s groupthink. You failed to refute this and instead retorted with an ad hominem and paranoid rant.
BTW, I thought it was the lefts position to be for the privacy of the citizen? Seems like your values are in conflict. It also seems that no matter what side of the political spectrum you come from, if the person is anonymously espousing views contrary to your own, then in your world that person forfeits the right to anonymity. This reeks of the right-wing fascism you so hate. Freedom for those who have the same views and death to dissenters eh?
Pax Slashdotcana: News for those who think the same. Death to anyone who thinks differently.
You might be right... that nothing *entitles* you to the status of 'expert'. Think about, and tell me one objective factor that you've ever been able to note, before meeting someone, and feel confident that they aren't completely stupid. I'll tell you this: a PHD doesn't fit that bill for me.
I think the only thing that suggests that you should be considered 'not stupid' is for you to not-be stupid. The only thing that I might say entitles you to the status of 'expert' is that you've demonstrated your expertise.
In some sense though, that's inevitable - once an article has reached a certain level of maturity and is reasonably good, it's hard to improve it that much further. The popular mature articles continue to get a lot of attention and edits, but it's hard to actually make it that much better without causing disagreements.
;)
I mean, the OP was complaning that his edits were getting reverted - I'd say the real problem is that people are wasting time editing already mature articles whilst not really making them any better (no offence to the OP - but it's hard to accept his claim as evidence that Wikipedia has gone downhill, without knowing what some of these edits actually were).
As you say, the edits tend to be vandalism or "low-quality edits", so I don't see it's a problem that these tend to get reverted on Wikipedia. Change shouldn't be done for the sake of it - if an article is essentially the same over a month, then I'd say that's good, and a sign of maturity.
The problem here is editors wasting their time (both the new contributors, and those who have to revert/edit the changes). Personally I prefer to try to work on the many newer articles out there that are in need of attention.
Even when these new articles look like someone's pet project, I've still gotten away with making significant changes.
WP is right up there with Civilization and Freecell in the competition for the most efficient time-eaters ever created. It's sort of like the humans in The Matrix -- they're all pumping huge amounts of energy into the system, and most of it isn't productive.
Wikipedia is nonetheless quite an achievement, and I've found it very useful. The way I look at it is time spent debating on Wikipedia at least results in something, unlike time spent debating on forums such as Slashdot