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The Register Takes Aim at Wikipedia Again
Syberghost writes "The Register has fired off another salvo in their long-running war of words with Wikipedia, in the form of an article about the lack of "moral responsibility" from the operators of Wikipedia. Wikipedia users fired back less than an hour later, making the Register headline obsolete."
I think this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Any intelligent netizen takes a variety of sources (e.g. Wikipedia, El Reg, Slashdot, Digg, the BBC etc) and forms their own opinions.
Yes, Wikipedia has grown up, and I think it needs to tighten up procedures. But The Register's bizarre vendetta against what the term "wiki fiddlers" is annoying. Perhaps The Register needs to grow up a little too?
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They seem to be on a trolling binge in recent weeks. I don't really mind this - their tone as always been cynical and has respected no sacred cows, but the current flock of flamebait arcticles just seem to me to be a little desperate.
The blog attacks were kind of amusing last year, when the blogging hype was at it's most ridiculous, the snarky Wikipedia articles were occasionally entertaining, though I've never really understood the motivation in attacking that project (unless you happen to be an encyclopedia publisher). But it now just seems to be axe-grinding for no obvious reason than to bait various predictably-easy-to-bait groups of people, and the writing itself is less subtle and much less entertaining.
How long can you keep generating sparks from that axe you're grinding when there's no axe left?
You know they call 'em fingers but I've never seen 'em fing. Oh, there they go.
Exactly.
/. troll, or worse, a school kid who's picking on something he doesn't like and keeps whining.
Wikipedia is a wiki - quite obviously, the system is not perfect and it has its benefits and its downfalls. They are not claiming otherwise, either.
Now, what is the Register's alternative? Rather, what's Andy Orlowsku's alternative? That dude seems to rate a classic
Wikipedia isn't perfect, and there are always morons out there who'd do some nasty things. If you're using Wikipedia for your research, you must be nuts. However, it is a starting point.
In fact, in some domains (e.g. Physics), Wikipedia has oodles of good information that it becomes an excellent reference. Is it a 100% reliable reference? No. But it is a reference, and like anything else, it has its pros and cons.
These guys sound like little whiners - who just know a wee little and go on and on about something. Reminds me of the case with Al Fasoldt who kept doing the exact same thing.
Wikipedia is a dynamic, free, open encyclopedia that is more sophisticated and more comprehensive than a lot of encyclopedias out there. And this dynamicism brings with it a small price - brainless morons and vandals who, like in every other system, have no moral scruples or accountability.
That does not mean the system is flawed - that means some of the people are.
If you want to make that comparison, Wikipedia is to encyclopedia as Register is to news.
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Wikipedia is a good starting point for finding out information about a certain topic. It's not a good ending point. If I want to start learning about, say, Edgar Allen Poe, where do I start? If I just typed in "Edgar Allen Poe" into Google, I'd get sites selling his work, sites selling biographies, poetry appreciation sites, crib notes for students studying his work, etc. With Wikipedia, I can go straight to the article, and get a brief overview of his life.
Then down the bottom of that article, there's a list of reference books and external sites, which I can then go and check out. At this point, I can make the transfer between the "unreliable" Wikipedia into the "reliable" medium of published literature. But using Wikipedia, I now have a good idea of just which books to look up, and a basic understanding of some of the things I'm likely to encounter.
Now, this example is probably not the best, as Edgar Allen Poe will probably be listed in most print encyclopedias. But say I wanted to find out about some wierd race from Babylon 5. Good luck finding that in a print encyclopedia. But if I check Wikipedia, I can get the basic facts, and some links to more authoritive sources.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I actually can't really disagree with you, but it is more of an "inciteful" remark than an insightful remark.
:-)
I've been trying to figure out why this issue is getting people so worked up (myself included), because it's all about some random website claiming to be a sort of encyclopedia. People claim to be experts all the time, and they lie or misinform out of ignorance; it's not a new phenomenon. Why then, do we have articles written like the one at the register, urging a call to arms over "moral responsibility?
It's all over one word: Encyclopedia. If wikipedia called itself the "Unreliable Encyclopedia", would this article have been written? I suppose the author would have had a hernia over what he considered the contradiction in terms. And yet, there do exist unreliable encyclopedias I suspect: those published in the 1950s do not contain up-to-date political and scientific information. They are unreliable, although I would not like to try and guess if they are more or less reliable than wikipedia.
I think you have hit the nail on the head dead-on in terms of the "Encyclopedia" distinction. I teach a Research Methods class for a small liberal arts college in the U.S. and the frustration that occurs from students citing wikipedia as an authoritative source can be overwhelming. It is difficult enough to teach students that the first source they find on the web is not the best source - you would be stunned by how many papers I receive (and correct, and correct again in subsequent revisions) where students cite unaccredited geocities websites, bulletin board posts, etc. in their papers. Wikipedia presents a whole new onion to peel - students see the word "Encyclopedia" and associate it with what they've been taught in primary and high school education systems: The information you find in an Encyclopedia is valid.
That being said, sure, other Encyclopedias become dated or contain inaccuracies, but the fundamental difference is that someone is accountable and culpable for correcting those mistakes or lack of updates. When information in Encyclopedia Brittanica goes out of date, someone corrects the information. With Wikipedia, there's no accountability. There's no impetus for someone to go back and fact check. Wikipedia relies on other users to "pipe up" when they feel its necessary to - and even then those who pipe up may or may not be a qualified source on a particular issue.
Granted, not every article on Wikipedia suffers from these problems, and not every article needs a "qualified source," (for instance, what are the necessary qualifications for an article outlining the history of the Smurfs?) but the "encyclopedia" distinction is one that almost implies that the information contained within is credible, reliable, and subject to qualified review. Wikipedia is just as flawed as slashdot.
Hell, it's only a matter of time before I'm referring to Wikipedia articles written by **Beatles-Beatles** with edits and updates from Scuttlemonkey.