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."

Comments

Moral Victory

[biocute]

making the Register headline obsolete.

And then what? Does that make the Register story obsolete too?

While I don't think Wiki should worry about all these whingings (does TheOnion have moral responsibility to warn its readers?), Wiki users might get more out of the whole ordeal by asserting (via an entry) the unnecessity of moral responsibility in Wiki.

Re:Moral Victory

[winkydink]

online debating is to real debating as wikipedia is to a real encyclopedia

Re:Moral Victory

[KDan]

Yes, of course. In the wonderful world of the Wikipedists, anything they say is golden because it's in a kind of encyclopedia, which automatically justifies it as being the absolute truth and if you don't like it you can change it yourself or go whine about it on slashdot and claim that the "Wikipedia has fired back" and if this is a firing back then the ammo was a fart and I'm getting bored of writing in this long add-on sentence style that resembles some Wikipedia articles and so I'm going to stop now.

Daniel

Re:Moral Victory

[Seumas]

I didn't even know documenting facts and events involved any sort of "morality" in the first place. Some degree of ethics, sure - but morality? You can present history and facts and data in an ETHICAL manner... but how the hell do you present them in a MORAL manner? How do you describe the reign of Hitler in a MORAL manner? I don't get it.

Re:Moral Victory

[dnoyeb]

But thats the purpose of a citation isin't it? Would you rather them not cite anything?

I think wikipedia is a perfect example of democracy and what happens within. The people that use the site must police the site. Or do you want to elect a governing body to determine what goes in and what does not go in? And who controls that body?

Wikipedia works perfectly. The only flaw I see is that they even bothered to remove that offensive article. That sets an unfortunate precedent for wiki. They should have left it, and let the community do the job they are charged with. Wiki must encourage/force/let the community to do its job.

Re:Moral Victory

[metlin]

Exactly.

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 /. troll, or worse, a school kid who's picking on something he doesn't like and keeps whining.

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.

Re:Moral Victory

[s20451]

People cite Wikipedia's unreliability almost as a feature, because it insulates Wikipedia from criticism over accuracy, libel, etc.

But if Wikipedia is intended to be so unreliable that it is worthless for debating purposes (which are pretty trivial compared to, say, public safety), then is there any point to having it at all?

Personally, I love Wikipedia and would be very happy if it found a way to be both open and reliable.

Re:Moral Victory

[Bogtha]

Citing Wikipedia is perfectly reasonable. It's like saying "the facts are such-and-such, here's a place to start investigating these facts". Most of the time I see Wikipedia being cited, it's as a convenient link for more information, not "proof".

Sure, some of the time the facts might be wrong, but in that case, the other person is free to counter it with a more authorative source. It's only when the citer then responds "that can't be right because Wikipedia says otherwise" that it becomes a problem. I don't think I've ever seen that happen. Have you?

Re:Moral Victory

[s20451]

Wikipedia is much closer to anarchy than democracy.

Imagine if the federal government worked like Wikipedia. I could log on to wiki.gov and add new laws and edit existing ones at will, but so could anyone else.

It would be pretty cool to see how that would turn out, if you didn't have to live there.

Re:Moral Victory

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Sure, some of the time the facts might be wrong, but in that case, the other person is free to counter it with a more authorative source. It's only when the citer then responds "that can't be right because Wikipedia says otherwise" that it becomes a problem. I don't think I've ever seen that happen. Have you?

About 20% of the debates I've been involved in end with that statement, and a link to the "relevant" wikipedia article. Of course, I have a tendency to flamebait in an effort to get people to think, so I'm involved in more online debates than most people. I consider *anybody* refering to an authoritative source rather than actually thinking the situation throught themselves to be a failure in that.

Especially since it's rare that any of the debates I'm involved in are fact based to begin with. I've even been known to deny that facts actually exist- at best we have models of myths that represent facts, human brains aren't capable of getting closer to truth than that. Wikipedia is just a peer review system- and as such is prone to the same mistakes of all peer review systems- mythology in the community.

Re:Moral Victory

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The key is to understand what it's reliable for- it's an awesome searchable collection of the collective ignorance and opinions of the worldwide culture. It is decidedly NOT a repository of fact or knowledge.

Re:Moral Victory

[Asmor]

One shouldn't take any single source to be reliable, ever. If you're doing something where accuracy matters, look it up somewhere, and then verify your facts elsewhere, preferably with multiple other sources.

Many sources may individually lack authority, but when each independant source is consistent with others, it can be assumed that they are accurate.

Re:Moral Victory

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I'd rather that people THINK instead of bowing out to anonymous authorities in an attempt to "prove" something.

Wikipedia is just worse than most because it's essentially a peer reviewed group without actual peer control. That means it's prone to myths within the community and ignorances from the original writers of the articles, as well as political and religious biases brought from outside the community.

I completely agree it's a fascinating experiment in electronic democracy and group hive minds. It's just not a repository of facts or anything resembling facts.

Re:Moral Victory

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Exactly. I find Wikipedia useful for two things: First, if you know nothing about some topic, it can provide an introduction, and indication of where to look for information. Second, Wikipedia entries (including their history and talk pages) are useful for learning about any controversy that may exist about a particular topic.

I also find Wikipedia's entries on mathematical topics to be fairly useful, mainly because there is usually little or no controversy surrounding them.

Re:Moral Victory

[jcr]

I could log on to wiki.gov and add new laws and edit existing ones at will, but so could anyone else.

You can almost do that today, but you have to be a lobbyist with an expense account to grease the congresscritters.

-jcr

Re:Moral Victory

[tjp368]

If you want to make that comparison, Wikipedia is to encyclopedia as Register is to news.

Re:Moral Victory

[kalidasa]

Human beings are incapable of being objective

Dogmatic nonsense. In my experience, plenty of human beings are capable of being objective within specific realms of knowledge. You can ask them to be objective about "is it day or night" at noon; but perhaps not at astronomical twilight.

Here's how "authority" works: an authority is someone who tells you things that check out. Over time, you trust them to continue to tell you things on the same subject that check out. If you are curious about an aspect of a subject on which your "authority" has tended to tell you things that seem to have worked out, you are more likely to consult that authority.

Academic authority is merely an attempt to create a web-of-trust relationship that models that kind of authority, so you can trust people whom you have never previously consulted and had an opportunity to verify. That's what a degree is: a bunch of folks who have previously been certified (with their degrees) to know what they're talking about agree to certify that yet another person knows what he's talking about. You could say that it's a house of cards; but the point is that these folks are subjected to tests of their reliability throughout their careers. The more unreliable they are, the less often they are relied upon, and ultimately, the less likely that they will be in a position to certify others as authorities.

Re:Moral Victory

[LordLucless]

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.

Re:Moral Victory

[jlowery]

What can be said against Wikipedia can be said against the WWW. If you go to Wikipedia for information, you will find it light in some areas, heavier in others, and pure fluff or chicanery everywhere else. Sound's like the WWW, doesn't it?

Re:Moral Victory

[Alien Being]

"One shouldn't take any single source to be reliable, ever."

Yeah, what he said!

Re:Moral Victory

[rpdillon]

Funny you should mention it. In fact, there is a project called Democracy 2.0 that attempts to do exactly what you describe.

Though there is quite a bit of unpolished stuff, there is also a surprising amount of good ideas. Anarchy? I would say not, though perhaps not as organized as some might like. Makes for an interesting read in any case, especially given your post.

Re:Moral Victory

[macshit]

an encyclopedia: "reference work that contains information on all branches of knowledge or that treats a particular branch of knowledge in a comprehensive manner."

That does clearly not fit wikipedia as it is now.

It clearly doesn't fit traditional "encyclopedias" either, as it's an impossible criteria to meet.

Of course, if you read the definition as it is actually intended to be read, it fits wikipedia pretty well -- a reference work that contains somewhat comprehensive information on selected topics, and covers a very wide range of topics in a less comprehensive but still informative manner.

Indeed, the great thing about wikipedia is that it covers, even briefly, soooo many things that aren't in traditional encyclopedias, especially more obscure "local" (e.g., my local train line) and technical (e.g. HDR imaging -- this article is quite short, but provides a useful intro before following the link at the bottom to Greg Ward's excellent page discussing the gritty details) topics, in a manner that at least attempts -- and usually succeeds -- to be somewhat dispassionate and regular.

Wikipedia clearly needs more mechanism to establish lines of trust/authority that can be used to judge the trustworthiness of unusual or controversial topics, but I don't think anybody is denying that. What people are saying is that for typical uses, it's already an invaluable tool.

Re:Moral Victory

[MaggieL]

If you want to make that comparison, Wikipedia is to encyclopedia as Register is to news.

Which may explain while the Register feels compelled to slag them.

Wikipedia, for all it's flaws, is vastly more successful than the Register is. Wikipedia scares the mainstream media --which in this context includes (beleive it or not) the Register--cross-eyed.

If you don't understand how Wikipedia is produced, and by whom, you're unlikely to be able to judge its reliability. Of course the same is true of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the New York Times, CNN, DailyKos, moveon.org, FreeRepublic and Little Green Footballs.

Re:Moral Victory

[moro_666]

From my point of view you can all whine all day about the wikipedia

But i think:

a) Wikipedia's idea is great, the process needs a bit polishing but the idea is stil great
b) A public FREE book of knowledge is good (i won't call it an encyclopedia ...)
c) People should stop whining like women and children and produce solutions to problems instead.
d) World changes every day, thats why you can't have an accurate encyclopedia ever.
e) Wikipedia is the fastest changing book of knowledge available for free.
f) Your encyclopedias in your book shelf behind you are hopelessy outdated.

  Everybody can whine, better go do something about it. Sit down and try to find a solution for wikipedia where it still could use user data and be accurate at the same time. Go raise funds to create a wikipedia supporter foundation that can keep up 100-200 paid people who will be live moderators for the whole thing and really working for it.

  I think it can be done, but not by whining in slashdot.

Re:Moral Victory

[instarx]

What people are saying is that for typical uses, it's already an invaluable tool.

Oh, I think that is a bit of overstatement. I don't think wikipedia is invaluable at all. I almost never use it and I get along fine without it. In fact, when doing google searches I avoid wikipedia articles because I simply don't trust anything written there. It is not worth my time to have to go to alternate sources to verify the information only to find that the wikipedia article was largely plagarized anyway. Granted, much of what's there is true, accurate and trustworthy, and you seem to have cited some examples, but the big problem is that there is no way to tell which information is accurate and which is not.

I agree, Wikipedia is a tool - it's a broadaxe that most people mistake to be a scalpel.

Re:Moral Victory

[DrSkwid]

I've got 3 Register T-Shirts and 0 Wikipedia ones

victory to vulture central

Re:Moral Victory

[Escogido]

Depends on the subject of the research, I'd say. When you look up something technical or scientific, Wikipedia is often an invaluable resource for a start, however articles on most political or cultural issues are often biased, despite what they claim. On the other hand, it doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to figure that out on your own, so as long as you realize that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter and that articles praising some piece of art are usually written by those who admire it and can't thus be impartial, it's still a good place to start.

And that's where I believe what the Register article is missing: sure you shouldn't be blindly trusting anything written in Wikipedia, but it's still good for what it is: a collection of articles presenting views on most interesting topics. In other words, it's a tool that requires some understanding to use it.

Re:Moral Victory

[instarx]

I totally trust Wikipedia for what it is... a starting resource that almost always gives me a good introduction to a concept,

You said it more clearly than I did, and that is what I meant when I called wikipedia a broadaxe being used as a scalpel. My impression, and it is no more than that, is that many people use it as the definitive source and go no further.

Using wikipedia is like being handed a list of import regulations for every country on the planet but being told that 5% are wrong. At first you might think it was was a really useful tool, but I suspect that after realizing you still had to look up every country's rules anyway to make sure it wasn't one of the 5% you would soon decide it wasn't worth the effort. That's pretty much me and wkipedia.

I will grant you this: because the information on wikipedia at least has the CHANCE of being verified by others it is more likely to be trustworthy than most of the unattributed information floating around on the internet.

Re:Moral Victory

[instarx]

But why trust any other source over Wikipedia? You'd still have to spend the time checking alternate sources on something printed in a newspaper, yes? If not, why not?

Because articles in newspapers and magazines usually have a byline. If an article is by a writer with a long history of well-researched articles or who clearly has knowledge of the subject matter then there is a low chance that the article is bogus. Newspapers also do not assign shipping clerks to write science articles, while anyone can write about anything in wikipedia. The byline also means that there are career and reputation consequences if the writer tries to mislead or makes stupid mistakes. Articles in newspapers also have clearly defined rules about what may be represented as fact vs opinion.

With wikipedia there is no attribution, no way to check on the qualifications or depth of knowledge of the writer, no way to separate opinion from fact, and usually no way to even identify the writer. The perfect example is the recent wikipedia article written by a shipping company employee who falsely linked a respected professor to the assasination of both Kennedys.

relevance

[thexdane]

and slashdot will make this article irrelevant by posting it several times over in various forms

Ironically

[pHatidic]

The Register article saying that Wikipedia was filled with errors was itself filled with errors. At one point they actually called MMORPG's "shoot em up games." The real definition is right in the acronym, I mean how hard is it to figure it out.

Get some perspective!

[bchernicoff]

The very openeness that makes Wikipedia such a dynamic and powerful resource exposes it to abuse. Is it a perfect system? No. Is it an incredibly valuable tool? Yes. Will it continue to improve because of things like this? Of course.

Re:Get some perspective!

[ZachPruckowski]

Very true. Wikipedia has a lot of accurate articles, and if nothing else, collates a lot of good sources for someone to look at. Obviously it isn't perfect. But it's darn good. This is like me giving you a free luxury car, and you complaining that it only has half a tank of gas in it. Accept good things, and strive to make them better, don't reject them because they aren't perfect.

Fired back?

[hesiod]

If that Wiki entry is firing back, the gunpowder must have been wet.

Re:Fired back?

[DarkSkiesAhead]

If you had checked the article in the Register you would notice that the wikipedia article is "firing back" by its existence, not by its content. The content was meant to be honest and helpful, not an argument with the Register. That allows wikipedia to look better without sinking to the Register's tactics.

Re:Ha

[servognome]

wikipediOWNED!

UGH, it's wikipediPWNED! I'm so sick and tired of poor spelling on /.

The Register is a bunch of hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

If you knew their history, you would know why.

Founded in Nazi Germany by Adolph Hitler they were used to register all Jews marked for death in concentration camps. During the 60's, they supported neo-Nazis in America and were involved in the Kennedy Assassination. In the 90's they started covering IT news.

  - From WikiPedia

Pot.. Kettle..

[Dynamoo]

Now, Wikipedia has its faults.. but to be honest, I find it a hugely relevant, usually accurate and very enjoyable resource, sometimes marred by personal agendas and bias. On the other hand, The Register is a hugely relevant, usually accurate and very enjoyable resource, sometimes marred by personal agendas and bias.

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?

Re:Pot.. Kettle..

[radicalskeptic]

Now, Wikipedia has its faults.. but to be honest, I find it a hugely relevant, usually accurate and very enjoyable resource, sometimes marred by personal agendas and bias.

Seriously. Wikipedia is a tool, similar to almost all sites presenting information on the internet: good for a quick reference, but not authoritative. And I think most people realize that.

A few weeks ago I was writing a paper on Thelonious Monk. Wikipedia says he started playing piano at age six, but, for example, this site says age nine. So Wikipedia has a 50% chance of being wrong on that point. But really I don't mind, and I'm not going to stop using it, because Wikipedia is more of a springboard and a starting place in exploring a subject, rather than an etched-in-stone authority. And I think most people "get" that. The Register, apparently, does not.

Re:Pot.. Kettle..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia says he started playing piano at age six, but, for example, this site says age nine. So Wikipedia has a 50% chance of being wrong on that point.

Did you learn statistics from Wikipedia too?

Re:Pot.. Kettle..

[Kelson]

Seriously. Wikipedia is a tool, similar to almost all sites presenting information on the internet: good for a quick reference, but not authoritative. And I think most people realize that.

That's something that often gets lost in Wikipedia debates. In that respect, it is very much like the Internet as a whole: The best thing about it is that anyone can publish. The worst thing about it is that anyone can publish.

Re:Pot.. Kettle..

[Anonymous Cowpat]

Yes, it is, but over the last fortnight I've found myself handing in 3 pieces of work with wikipedia as the primary reference. It's simply a lot more possible to data-mine than any other source. When you're doing degree level physics (don't laugh at my incompetence at research) the amount of sources that will explain what you want to know in an understandable format rapidly approaches zero. What you use is wikipedia, because it's the only thing you can understand - you either reference wikipedia (allowing whoever is marking to take those references with as big a shovel of salt as they want), or you lie and reference the papers that relate to the topic but that you didn't read because you didn't understand them.
I go with honesty

Re:Pot.. Kettle..

[Traegorn]

I understand completely.

I just turned in a paper on the history of Hindu Nationalism in Indian Politics (I'm a poli sci major, what can I say?). If you have ever sorted through the Hindutva and RSS (The Hindu Nationalist Movement, not the syndicated standard) stuff in there you'd be banging your head against the wall regarding all of the misinformation and warped accounts. But what the articles DID do was help me find the right names and references to go plug into JStor to find legitimate articles. Until I looked at Wikipedia I was really unsure as to where to start, and while I ended up citing academic journals and other (much more legitimate) research, I would have never known how to find the research without Wikipedia.

Speed of Response

[ZachPruckowski]

This episode shows a strength of Wikipedia, it is quick to respond to problems when it recognizes them. Tell a company about a bug, wait a month, get a response. Tell Wikipedia about a factual error, wait a hour, and see it fixed.

Re:Speed of Response

[NumbThumb]

better: don't wait at all, fix it yourself.

Re:Speed of Response

[teslar]

This episode shows a strength of Wikipedia, it is quick to respond to problems when it recognizes them.

Mmm. Yeah, I guess you're right there. However, it can take a long time for a problem to be recognised. Case in point, it was months before anyone complained.

I think this episode also shows what I see as the fundamental problem of Wikipedia... the assumption that, somehow, articles will get better over time is in my opinion just flawed. To really get better, they have to be read by people who know the stuff anyway and who are willing to correct mistakes. Now granted, there will be experts on topics out there that do this, but your average guy will not look up things he already knows to see if they need checking - he will look up things he only has a vague or perhaps no idea about. He will not necessairly notice mistakes or omissions. He might add things he believes to be true but are in fact wrong, simplified or otherwise inadequate. If no expert on the topic comes along, these erroneous facts will simply stay there.
Just like the allegations against Seigenthaler did.

For me, this whole episode just solidifies my belief that, while I can use Wikipedia for a quick checkup on a topic, I cannot use it if I really need accurate information. There is no guarantee for me that what I'm being told on Wikipedia is accurate and complete.

So no, I acknowledge that the quick fixing of problems is a strength, but ultimately, I don't think this episode shed a good light on Wikipedia, in spite of this.

Re:Speed of Response

[The Bungi]

Here's the rub in that. Let's say that Siegenthaler had seen the incorrect (libelous!) information on his bio. And then actually figured out how to edit the page, which is not trivial for most users (simple as you and I might think it is). And then actually went in and removed the offending paragraph.

Let me tell you what happens then, in case you don't know. Some tightass elitist prick "editor" would have seen the change and reverted it because Siegenthaler probably would not have managed to produce a "valid reason" for the change, assuming he also figured out how to do that while editing. Then Siegenthaler would have (obviously) gone back to see the page and seen his changes had been undone and the problem was still there. So, he would have made his changes again. Then he would have been banned by said elitist prick editor on the basis of being a "vandal", with a terse message saying that if Siegenthaler corrects the evil of his ways, he can be unbanned again. At this point Mr. Siegenthaler would have been besides himself because the page is still there, he can't change it and any cursory search of his name would have revealed the same WKP entry in one of the hundreds of sleazy and not so sleazy websites out there that leech WKP content to drive search traffic from Google.

Want to know how many times I've seen this happen? Enough that I know it's probably more common than changes to low-traffic pages being accepted at face value. And who the hell cares if you're logged in or not? Like the Register says, it's not the victim's (how else can you call them?) responsibility to correct these problems.

The article is right in that if "Wikipedia" didn't have the "pedia" part in its name and wasn't so massively hyped, no one would care. But that's not the case now, is it? It's simple really - the more "famous" and visible you are out there the more responsibility you have to exercise. The technorati that run Wikipedia basically have the position that this is not true; that there are no problems, everything is A-OK and all will be well in time because Wikipedia has a higher moral standard than everyone else. How can it not be so?

Re:Speed of Response

[ZachPruckowski]

If I was him, I'd go onto the talk page, and say that neither of the comments were adequately sourced, and that's why they got the axe. That'd prolly have gone over fine. And I'm sure he has some way to prove he didn't live in the Soviet Union from 1969 to 1985 or whatever it was.

Mr. Seigenthaler's page's problem is that it is relatively obscure. He isn't a guy anyone outside of 1960s politics or the newspaper industry would know about, if I understand correctly. Wikipedia tends to be better at articles that receive more traffic and where the information is more widely known.

Who cares?

[Albinofrenchy]

The reason this went unfound for so long? No one cares about Seigenthaler. Even if he was a Nazi.

What the fuck?

[0olong]

Wikipedia is a very easily accessible free source of information with just as much reliability as any other non-peer-reviewed source. Would we somehow be better off if Wikipedia didn't exist at all? Of course not. I can only assume the bad press is fueled by ulterior motives.

Some truisms

[pHatidic]

The same process that makes the most popular articles on Wikipedia of better quality than Britannica also makes the least popular articles of lesser quality. Although no one was willing to say it to his face, the real reason the error in Siegenthaler's article persisted for so long is that not many people care enough about him to read his eponymous article. Over the four months it was posted I'm willing to bet less than a thousand people read it. Really it is a tree-falls-in-a-forest issue, if no one is reading incorrect material does it really matter that it's incorrect?

People ask, "Where will Wikipedia be after five years." The real question is, "Where will the world be after five years of Wikipedia?"

Re:Some truisms

[shystershep]

if no one is reading incorrect material does it really matter that it's incorrect?

If, indeed, no one was reading it, it would not matter. But even in your example you guess that "less than a thousand people" read the Siegenthaler article. When does it matter that material is incorrect? When more than one thousand people will see it? Ten thousand?

Re:Some truisms

[pHatidic]

If more people read it then it would get fixed. I'm not trying to suggest that it literally does not matter, but rather that there is essentially a cap on the number of people who will see bad information. This isn't perfect, but it is the best anybody has ever been able to come up with. There are basically two things that need to be done to right this wrong:

A) Publish the number of people who have read the current revision so that users can get a rough heuristic of quality.

B) Educate users about what Wikipedia is and isn't. Wikipedia is not a list of facts, that is what an almanac is for. Wikipedia is a gateway to further information. If one occasionally runs into a "fact" that is PDOMA then it doesn't really matter. So you go to verify the fact, you find that it isn't really true, no harm no foul. This isn't "blaming the users," it's just using a source as it is meant to be used. You wouldn't use a plyers as a wrench and then sue the tool maker if you hurt yourself, nor should Wikipedia be liable for misuse. As the quality of Wikipedia improves, and stable versions of articles are phased in, then the way Wikipedia can be used will change. This is good. But currently Wikipedia only goes so far. Personally I think it is an extremely useful tool, but if you find the limitations of WP are too severe then just don't use it. It isn't really a big.

Call me a paranoiac...

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:
Everything you read is suspect! You'd better duck!
Only a paranoiac, or a mad person, can sustain this level of defensiveness for any length of time however, and to hear a putative "encyclopedia" making such a statement is odd, to say the least.

This is just plain bullshit. My grandfather had a saying he taught me(and pardon me for some downhomey common sense), but it was popular among he and his friends, and they were very well adjusted people:
Believe half of what you hear, and nothing that you see.

This isn't paranoia. This is reality. Individuals, corporations, governments, etc... tend to be bullshitters. Half the time, they don't even realize they're spreading bullshit. The reason is too many mistake their opinion for fact, because most people don't go deep enough to care what the difference is.

The INSTANT you identify a source as something you can believe is honest and accurate without you having to verify facts or take with a grain of salt, is the instant you've set yourself up to be misled and enter a state of dogmatism.

You question everything. You question what you see, you question what you hear, you question it all. Not out of some hysterical paranoia, but out of rational observation of the reality that we live in a bullshitters paradise.

This article should get -1, Ministry of Truth publication. Believe half of what you hear, nothing that you see, and be happy and secure doing it.

The Blame Game

[Arandir]

If there's a problem - well, the user must be stupid!

I'll probably be modded down for saying so, but that one sentence nicely sums up Wikipedia's philosophy.

One is that Seigenthaler should have corrected the entry himself...

See, they even blamed Seigenthaler for the libel against him!

What's up with with the Reg these days?

[CurlyG]

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?

Re:What's up with with the Reg these days?

[Taxman415a]

Yeah, I'm not sure either. They're obviously hugely pro opensource, so why they've decided to make disparaging Wikipedia their mission I have no idea. Of course, much of the negative press about Wikipedia is true-- there are thousands of crappy articles there. But where the register horribly misses the point is that Wikipedia is a work in progress and nowhere claims to be authoritative and correct. The value in Wikipedia is in the process and the open license. If this current model fails, the information can still be freely used. That's what's so powerful.

Besides that I think people taking potshots at Wikipedia has just become the think to do. Wikipedia is more important than the Register and traffic stats prove it. I suppose that's not easy to take if you're a site with your income depending on drawing traffic. Wikipedia's traffic is rising at an enormous rate, and has actually made a leap since all this bad press has come out. http://noc.wikimedia.org/stats.php?period=monthly (and yes that M is million). But what everyone should reallize is that it's a work in progress, it's certainly not ready for brick and mortar publication, and as a whole, it's contributors are just fine with that for now. But trolls like the register will keep claiming as this article does that Wikipedia supporters think it is perfect in order to get people riled up.

Lawsuit

[MeatSockit]

Just to note, there's allegedly a class-action lawsuit against Wikipedia. But it turns out that the site was created by an organization called QuakeAID, who had previously had complaints about Wikipedia due to information about possible problems as an organization soliciting donations. Today, they posted a whiny press release about the site going live:

Now another story suggesting that Wikipedia is out of control emerges. Some months ago, OfficialWire published an article about untrue postings on Wikipedia, by Christian Wirth also known as RaDMan. Shortly after the devastating earthquake and tsunamis on December 26, 2004 in the Indian Ocean, Wirth took upon himself to wage a war against QuakeAID Foundation, Inc. Wirth's arsenal consisted of untrue, libelous writings that he and Wikipedia published as fact. All attempts, by QuakeAID's founder, to correct the untrue comments were re-edited, blocked or labelled as 'untrue' by a group of volunteers, who hold themselves untouchable and above the law.

QuakeAID has written once again to Jimbo Wales, demanding the untrue and libelous information be removed from Wikipedia, while a group of interested parties have joined together and plan to initiate legal proceedings against Wales and Wikipedia Foundation, Inc., and numerous others--the so-called anonymous 'volunteers'--who they believe should be held responsible for the content they publish.

Re:57 electoral votes...

[Synic]

so correct it? that's the whole point, jackass

oh, shut up already

[penguin-collective]

I don't see any reason to change anything about Wikipedia or how it is created. I understand how it is created, how much I can trust it, and what I need to do to verify the information on it. Anybody who doesn't understand this about Wikipedia at this point must be from Mars.

I think people who criticize Wikipedia for the way its entries are created are living in a world where they assume that just because an information resource is well known or popular, it must be accurate. That wasn't true when companies like the New York Times and ABC had a near monopoly on information dissemination, and it sure isn't any more accurate today.

What needs to change is not Wikipedia, it's people's naive notions about epistemology. Or, to put it more bluntly: don't trust any information unless it either doesn't matter, or you can verify it from multiple independent sources yourself. Popularity, trust, and reputation of a source are very unreliable guides to the validity of information.

Re:oh, shut up already

[luvirini]

Userfriendly had a good take on subject of reliability in their Friday comic... insulting wikipedia by claiming it is as unreliable as CNN.

It's too bad we don't see this in the mass media.

[CyricZ]

This kind of conflict is excellent. It keeps everybody honest, or at least brings flaws out in the open, so as to lead to potential resolutions to such problems.

Of course, the world will never see NBC Dateline truly questioning what is said on FOX News, nor will the New York Times truly question the reporting of the Washington Post.

The key question

[Darius Jedburgh]

Would we somehow be better off if Wikipedia didn't exist at all?

Despite some inaccuracies the Wikipedia is a veritable goldmine of useful information. What do the people who complain about it expect? An editor to peer review every single article? Wikipedia is probably the best model for a free encyclopedia that anyone has come up with and it's an amazing use of technology almost undreamt of a couple of decades ago. As long as we bear in mind how the entries are created (and it's not exactly a tough concept to grasp) how can it not be providing great benefit for people? The nay-sayers would put us back into the dark ages where we have to pay money for out-of-date information when there are people out there with the up-do-date facts who want to share them now for nothing. By all means don't keep the innacuracies a secret (because, among other things, that'll help to get them fixed), but there's no need for moral lectures unless you have a better alternative to propose. So I think your question is the right one to ask.

Re:The key question

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

Wikipedia is a veritable goldmine of useful information.

Gold mining requires panning tons of mud, explosives or cyanide spraying.

Economic gold extraction can be achieved from ore grades as little as 0.5 g/1000 kg (0.5 ppm) on average in large easily mined deposits, typical ore grades in open-pit mines are 1-5 g/1000 kg (1-5 ppm), ore grades in underground or hard rock mines are usually at least 3 g/1000 kg (3 ppm) on average

Re:The key question

[jafac]

I think that one of the most valuable features of any given Wikipedia article is the "Links" section at the bottom of most entries. If an article author provides links and references, then it makes it far easier for a researcher to verify the credibility of the article.

In fact, this is as it should be. If you leave the responsibility for verifying credibility with the author, well, then, thats just like interogating a criminal suspect, and then asking him if he's lying. You verify that by looking at other sources. It's the responsibility of the reasearcher to establish his source's credibility. With Encyclopedia Britanica, people just make the assumption - and it's most often true, but not always, that an Encyclopedia Britannica article is credible. And that's because there's more accountability in the system: The author, the publisher, are all well known and subject to tort law in cases of libel. Wikipedia - not so much. But it's the responsibility of the reader to know that. Uphold that principle, and you don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater; Wikipedia is a great and useful tool. Not always perfect, but far better than nothing.

Internet Content

[kenp2002]

Wikipedia is the prefect format for any type of information on the Internet. Sadly The Register has failed to observe one significant point; Unlike the Register itself Wikipedia is subject to a thousand year old form of analysis: Peer Review. If peer review is good enough for the scientific community (they put a man on the moon, the register has yet to accomplish that) and the medical community (they have done heart transplants, the Register has not) and the Linux Kernel, as any open source project, is subject to peer review (they have a very good perating system, the Register has yet to boot a machine) why would we not subject our historical data to such a process? Why not subject our media to such processes. Sadly it seems that the Register has the disease many younger Internet-generation kids have, a lack of patience. Peer review is slower, but as history moves on, faster. I personally think that colleges could help improve the content by assigning classmates, in the study of their respective fields to contribute to Wikipedia's need for editors. The broad variety of instructors, and college cultures could accelerate Wiki's accuracy and improve credibility. It would also be an excellent place for students and colleges to like student thesis and papers as additional linked sites. I.e.

The American Revolution
Student Works
      Browse Purdue's Student Archives
      Browse Stanfords' Student Archives

and so forth.

If peer review is good enough for science, medicine, and open source it is certainly good enough for history as well.

My 2cents

Re:Internet Content

[the phantom]

Not that I am disagreeing entirely, but in academia, peer review is done by people that have proven that they are experts in a field. Any random shmo can edit a Wiki. Wikipedia editors, by and large, need offer no credentials.

Re:Internet Content

[twalton]

"If peer review is good enough for science, medicine, and open source it is certainly good enough for history as well."

Peer review in medicine and science is fundamentally different - the reviewing peers are sanctioned by established and authoritative bodies, and qualified by education, experience, and reputation (rather than by being the only other guy in the freshman dorm who can't sleep that night). The process isn't perfect, being susceptible to inertia, intellectual fashions, lassitude, and even occasional fraud. But it beats hell out of 'anyone can change it, knock yourselves out'.

They may have missed moral responsibility

[GMFTatsujin]

But Wikipedia was ready for The Register. They already had an entry for "Yellow Journalism."

Hey I've got an idea.....

[dspisak]

Stop accepting every stupid story submission about Wikipedia.

It's BORING.

Seriously, its like opening up Popular Science to see an article about how Scientific American discovered there were some factual discrepancies in Encyclopedia Britannica Vol 24 45th Edition entry on Underwater Basketweaving.

Thank goodness for The Register

[0xdeadbeef]

I'm glad we have an authoritative opinion on this issue, otherwise I wouldn't know what to think about Wikipedia. Those reckless ne'er-do-wells should heed this criticism, because as we all know, British tabloids have never had their credibility called into question due to the publication of libelous or inaccurate information.

I attribute this scandal to the streak of rugged individualism present in American culture. When will you Yanks learn that the truth is decided by experts, and that expertise is determined by well-known and respected members of a field?

Wikipedia abused Andrew Orlowski as a child

[ChaosDiscord]

Wikipedia must have abused Andrew Orlowski as a child, because I can't think of any good reason for him to keep harping on it. Check out the Register's archives. All of the Wikipedia bashing is from Orlowski. Wow, Andrew, great reporting. I totally didn't know that some things on the internet are false. Way to go on the investigative reporting! Could we maybe get a twenty part series entitled, "Shock! Falsehoods found on internet!"

Some Wikipedia fans are little overenthusiastic. Wikipedia's lack of review is a weakness. But just because it's a weakness doesn't make it useless. Indeed, most of the internet is full of unreviewed crap, yet we all still use it. While Wikipedia would like to think of itself as challenging traditional encyclopedias, I don't see it happening. But compared to doing research on the internet as whole (say, via Google), it's a definate win. Wikipedia is, compared to the general internet, better organized, more neutral, and better reviewed. For a quick overview of a topic I find it an extremely valuable resource. I accept its weaknesses, help flesh stuff out as I can, and get on with my life. If Orlowski thinks Wikipedia is unredeemable crap, so be it. He's reported that. Now move the fuck on. Reposting "Wikipedia has some errors and is therefore completely useless" every week is hardly a good use his time or The Register's money.

Reliability and quality come from accountability.

[CyricZ]

Reliability and quality come from accountability, be it an encyclopedia or a complex engineering project.

An engineer who makes one mistake, even if it is not fatal, will lose his license. Why is that? Because said mistakes cannot be tolerated.

The same goes for an encyclopedia. If a high degree of quality is wanted, then people will have to pay severely when they make a mistake. Of course, that's very difficult to accomplish in an online setting, especially one like Wikipedia.

Agreed. Try this experiment.

[brian0918]

"Although no one was willing to say it to his face, the real reason the error in Siegenthaler's article persisted for so long is that not many people care enough about him to read his eponymous article."

Agreed. Here's an experiment: Go to Wikipedia, click on "Random article". Look at the history for that page, and determine how long it has existed, and how many edits it has had. Now, compare to the Seigenthaler article:

1st edit: 13:53, 15 September 2004. Created with only the contents, "John Seigenthaler SR"
2nd edit: 08:29, 26 May 2005. False biography added.
3rd edit: 15:52, 29 May 2005. Minor spelling correction.
4th edit: 05:06, 23 September 2005. False info deleted, replaced with correct info.

So, the article lasted for 9 months with only his name. Now, any average Wikipedian who came across this article would have marked it for "speedy deletion" immediately, since there is no content/context. In the span of over 1 year, the article had 4 edits. How does your random article compare? How about 10 random articles, or 100?

Reverted edits by Anonymous Coward (talk) to last

[Tripax]

If you knew their history, you would know why.

Founded in Nazi Germany by Adolph Hitlerthe UK by John Lettice and Mike "Crazy Brit" Magee in 1994. they were used to register all Jews marked for death in concentration camps report about technology. During the 60's, they supported neo-Nazis in America and were involved in the Kennedy Assassination did not exist. In the 90's they started covering IT news.

- From WikiPedia

Two-word response

[Kelson]

Straw man.

Re:Two-word response

[StikyPad]

The problem with a community of anonymous authors is that every one can claim plausible deniability and label any argument as a straw man. Not that the GP made much of an argument, except to comment on the ridiculous characerization of an article on Moral Responsibility as somehow "firing back." In fact, it's clearly an attempt at an ex post facto justification of legitimacy. He may have made an inaccurate presumtion that the submitter was a "wikipedian," but I think his characterization of the summary and the situation was humorously accurate.

At any rate, if an organization seeks to establish legitimacy as a source of information, then it must take responsibility for all content, or make it clear either explicitly (disclaimer) or implicitly (the ridiculous nature of The Onion) that the content should not be regarded as authoritative. I think Wikipedia has done a mediocre job of that -- clearly because it's founders want it to be considered authoritative -- but sites like Answers.com which incorporate Wikipedia's content are even worse.

Re:Two-word response

[MarkusQ]

I'm probably wasting my time, but:

• The "straw man" accusation was targeted at the post above it, not the wikipedia, so the anonymity of the Wikipedia community has no bearing on the point.
• In any case, anonymity has nothing to do with straw man arguments.
• And even if it did, print encyclopedias do not provide their readers with information on the authorship of individual articles
• In fact, Wikipedia actually provides more (and more accessible) information on the revision history and editorial decisions leading to the present state of an article than any print encyclopedia I've ever heard of.
• Wikipedia may not provide a strong or prominent enough disclaimer to suit you, but the obvious question would be: what does? TV news? The New York Times? Can you name a single "authoritative" source of information that either 1) Prominently disclaims their status as authoritative or 2) provides some substantive guarantee of the accuracy of the information?

--MarkusQ

Re:Please do not use the word "troll".

[Angostura]

The problem is that while Andrew Orlowski highlights the problems with Wikipedia he does so in such a consistently inflammatory way (wiki-fiddler, anyone) to make the word 'troll' appear to be fair enough. Many of his reports look like pure flamebait, or rather click-bait designed to increase El Reg's advertising revenue.

Wikipedia has its problems, indeed and it is good to see someone willing to go against the flow and point out the system's short-comings. Sadly Orlowski's invective (for me at least) got old rather quickly, with more than a hint of spittle-flecked vehemence in his writing.

You misinterpret what they wrote.

[CyricZ]

Chase thought Wikipedia was a joke site and he made the edit to amuse a colleague. From which we conclude that the spoof site Uncyclopedia, which consists entirely of fictional entries, is doing far better than expected, and that Wikipedia has a long way to go to rid itself of the image that it's a massive, multiplayer shoot-em-up game, or MMORPG.

They're obviously not referring to MMORPGs as shoot-em-ups. They're saying it's not a "massive, multiplayer shoot-em-up game" nor is it a "MMORPG". It's neither one of two separate styles of games that involve large numbers of participants, that is.

Re:Reliability and quality come from accountabilit

[HardCase]

An engineer who makes one mistake, even if it is not fatal, will lose his license. Why is that? Because said mistakes cannot be tolerated.

Were that the case, there would be no Professional Engineers. The mistake must rise to the level of "gross negligence" as defined by state law - and a complaint must be filed. And even then, license revokation is only one of many penalties available.

People, even engineers, make mistakes all the time.

-h- (PE)

Re:Reliability and quality come from accountabilit

[Anonymous Coward]

An engineer who makes one mistake, even if it is not fatal, will lose his license. Why is that? Because said mistakes cannot be tolerated.

Is this erroneous information something you picked up reading Wikipedia, or is it just a product of your own personal ignorance and stupidity?

Re:Wikipedia stable version?

[Linuxbeak]

Actually, there is already something in the works for something like this. It's called Wikipedia 1.0, and you may find that at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pushing_to_ 1.0.

If the troll label fits

[ChaosDiscord]

Nope, Andrew Orlowski is a troll. I still have no idea why The Reg keeps him on. An article or two about the flaws of Wikipedia? Great! An occasional cheap shot at the "We're going to defeat all traditional encyclopedias" silliness? That's what I like about The Register! But seven full articles attacking Wikipedia, all written by Orlowski? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) This isn't journalism, not even of the snarky sort The Reg is good at. This isn't about expressing an opposing viewpoint. This is about trying to be controversal, to rile people up, and generally be an ass.

Andrew Orlowski is a troll.

Re:If the troll label fits

[ChaosDiscord]

I suck. The missing missing link 4 from above.

Re:If the troll label fits

[autophile]

Nope, Andrew Orlowski is a troll. I still have no idea why The Reg keeps him on.

You must be new to British tabloid journalism.

--Rob

Re:Reliability and quality come from accountabilit

[UserGoogol]

To be slightly pedantic, no. Accountability can only help ensure quality once you have it. If you have a room full of kindergarteners and ask them to write a Calculus textbook, they will produce a textbook of dubious quality even if you kill every kid who makes a mistake. Quality can only come from people who know what they're doing. Accountability is merely one way to seperate the competent ones out from the incompetent.

Personally, I suspect that Wikipedia's method is a somewhat viable way to shuffle out the stupids, as true statements will be less likely to be edited than untrue statements, so gradually over time Wikipedia will tend to be more and more likely to contain true statements. But eh, you might be right.

support-wikipedia.com

[XMilkProject]

I can't begin to explain how furious I am over this situation.

I came home today and turned on the evening news, and saw nothing but one news show after the other bashing Wikipedia, and displaying complete ignorance towards both the technology and the purpose of the site.

I literally am left with a sick feeling in my stomach over some of the things I have seen. I have a hard time believing that most of the wikipedia hatred is related to any libel, but instead believe that there are many people who are horrified of the idea that information is being made available without any government censorship.

I feel so strongly that wikipedia, and the entire notion of community knowledge, is an important thing. I am trying to find anyway I can to help the cause.

I have registered www.support-wikipedia.com, although there is no content there yet. I have a hosting service available to host the site on as well. If there is anyone who feels they would like to join me in this effort, or contribute in any way, please contact me and let me know how you can help. I do not have an enormous amount of free time so any group effort will be appreciated.

I envision the site can contain facts and information to fight the effect of techno-ignorance, as well as information on the importance of freely available information. Maybe I can even setup a cafe-press account to sell "Support Wikipedia" t-shirt, with all proceeds donated to wikimedia.

To avoid posting my email publicly, please contact me via slashdot, or the feedback form on my personal website: http://www.xmilk.com/

flamebait

[selfdiscipline]

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 that responsibility is the heart of this issue, and is why so many people get worked up about it. It's about who is to be assigned blame if wikipedia is inaccurate.
    The author of the register article obviously wants the administrators of wikipedia to be held responsible, as if it was a top-down heirarchy. But it's not: it's more of a sort of p2p encyclopedia. It's not useful to blame wikipedia for being irresponsible any more than it is to blame gnutella for having illegal media on its network.
    And the problem with attacking wikipedia and saying its not only useless, but it is harmful, is that it is not only attacking those people who spread disinformation. It is also attacking smart people who have a lot of worthwhile knowledge, and have carefully attempted to transfer this knowledge to an online medium that they knew people would use.
    Now, maybe those people who write good articles for wikipedia shouldn't do so, because it'll only confuse people into thinking that wikipedia is more than a mountain of lies.
    But I think that the answer lies in finding a way to hold individual wikipedia authors more accountable for their actions.
    Hopefully as the internet grows up, people will go from thinking "I have to be careful in believing what I read on the internet" to "I have to be careful in what I say on the internet, because it represents me". We should start believing that it is a serious offense to spread disinformation on the internet, so that people will hold themselves to higher standards.
    I say we need secure, historied, online personae.

Re:flamebait

[winkydink]

my comment was intended to skewer online debating which, more often than not, degrades to, "I'm smarter than you". This is nothing more than the geeks equivalent of, "my dick's bigger than yours".

And yes, I am smarter than you and my dick is bigger than yours. :)

Re:flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

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. :-)

Re:flamebait

[Deviant Q]

If wikipedia called itself the "Unreliable Encyclopedia",

I think that's what the "Wiki" in Wikipedia means. Along with a lot of good things, like freedom, up-to-date-ness, etc., but unreliability is in there too.

Re:flamebait

[colinbrash]

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.

From TFA:

If what we today know as "Wikipedia" had started life as something called, let's say - "Jimbo's Big Bag O'Trivia" - we doubt if it would be the problem it has become. Wikipedia is indeed, as its supporters claim, a phenomenal source of pop culture trivia. Maybe a "Big Bag O'Trivia" is all Jimbo ever wanted. Maybe not.

For sure a libel is a libel, but the outrage would have been far more muted if the Wikipedia project didn't make such grand claims for itself. The problem with this vanity exercise is one that it's largely created for itself. The public has a firm idea of what an "encyclopedia" is, and it's a place where information can generally be trusted, or at least slightly more trusted than what a labyrinthine, mysterious bureaucracy can agree upon, and surely more trustworthy than a piece of spontaneous graffiti - and Wikipedia is a king-sized cocktail of the two.

The author of the register article obviously wants the administrators of wikipedia to be held responsible, as if it was a top-down heirarchy. But it's not: it's more of a sort of p2p encyclopedia. It's not useful to blame wikipedia for being irresponsible any more than it is to blame gnutella for having illegal media on its network.

The author wants the administrators to be held responsible, true, but not for the content of the site, as you seem to think; but rather, for the impression that Wikipedia gives that it is a reliable source of information. Personally, I think this is a valid argument. I know too many people who think Wikipedia is a reliable source of information. It really is not.

Further, the author is making a claim about the philosophy or theory or whatever you want to call it behind Wikipedia. There are a lot of people who view Wikipedia as a counter to capitalism, commercialism. I have seen it used to argue that anarchy "works." The author attempts to show that, in fact, it really does not "work"; that it may be an interesting phenomenon, but it is not an end, it is not a "solution."

The Gnutella analogy really does not apply.

But I think that the answer lies in finding a way to hold individual wikipedia authors more accountable for their actions.

I think you'll find that if you attempt this, Wikipedia will fall apart quite rapidly. No one wants to write an article if in the back of their mind they are thinking, "What if I get in trouble for this somehow?"

I really don't think there is an answer, except to somehow make it understood that Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia in any sense of the word. Wikipedia really is a new phenomenon. Of course, I have no idea how this should be done...

Re:flamebait

[1u3hr]

Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia in any sense of the word.

But it is.

encyclopedia: A book or set of books containing extensive information on all branches of knowledge, or on one particular subject, usu. arranged alphabetically.

It's not a book, but I think otherwise it fits. The above is from the Oxford Dictionary; that's my first resort for defining a word. But when I come across a usage that hasn't made the OED, I resort to less formal sources. For instance, the term "cameltoe" can be found in the Urban Dictionary, which is written in a similar manner to Wikipedia, by anyone who cares to contribute. It suffers from a tendency to over-represent sexual fetish words, but among that you can find the meaning for most recent coinings; and as long as you understand the process, and most especially realise that the word "Dictionary" (or "Encyclopedia") in itself does not confer respectability or authority, but simply a method of organising knowledge; it is quite useful. The original dictionaries and encyclopedias came into print about 300 years ago, and were products of small groups, or single authors, often with strong opinions and disputable facts. It's down perhaps to door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen trying to convince you that they were the ultimate knowledge that they're treated with reverence now, but one always has to recall that they were all written by people with opinions, and they can be wrong. Learning not to blindly trust the written word, and how to weigh information's validity, is an important step in learning.

Re:flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

The author wants the administrators to be held responsible, true, but not for the content of the site, as you seem to think; but rather, for the impression that Wikipedia gives that it is a reliable source of information. Personally, I think this is a valid argument.

It's because of people like you that my hair dryer has a warning not to use it while sleeping.

I know too many people who think Wikipedia is a reliable source of information.

Then just give them a hair dryer and tell them it's nap time, problem solved.

Re:flamebait

[colinbrash]

I hate to say it, but warnings are sometimes necessary. Take, for instance, air bags. Many people believe(d) that air bags are a seat belt replacement. They are not, and there are appropriate warnings in cars with air bags to tell people this.

Many people visit Wikipedia and don't understand the entire concept. They may understand that "anyone" can contribute, but not to what extent, or they may only understand that it is an "internet encyclopedia." I think these are reasonable misconceptions. I would be very wary of placing the blame entirely on these people.

And besides, I deliberately refrained from saying that Wikipedia should have some sort of warning, because I really don't think that would solve anything.

Re:Please do not use the word "troll".

[vague disclaimer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll [wikipedia.org]

In Internet terminology, a troll is a person who posts inflammatory messages on the internet, such as on online discussion forums, to disrupt discussion or to upset its participants./wiki

I could only read halfway through page two of TFA because the article was so trollish.

Self appointed experts do not like knowledgeable peasants treading on their turf.

Congratulations. You have won today's WHOOSH! Award.

Epistemology vs. Review Process

[aphor]

It seems to me that we have two separate issues to deal with. One is the theoretical limits of epistemology that Wikipedians must cite when defending errors in the Wikipedia. The other is the difference between an honest mistake and deliberately misleading content. The Register, I think, is correct to say that the former is no excuse for the latter.

So the real problem is not that the Wikipedia cannot achieve a higher level of factual rectitude. The real problem is that the Wikipedia has no facility to help novices establish the authority of an article of the Wikipedia. The best science can offer us [laypeople] is a bunch of journals that practice a complicated protocol of anonymous referees from a select bunch of supposed "experts" in the journal's field. If you want to don the scientist hat, you can always try to replicate the results of someone's journal article. I leave it as an exercise for the reader, but plenty of crap, for various reasons, has slipped through the journals' sacred peer reviews.

The real problem here is that the Wikipedia puports to be peer-reviewed, but each article has its subscribers, and it isn't clear whether an article has been tacitly approved by innumerable readers, or quietly corrupted out of salutary neglect. This ambiguity is the real failing of the Wikipedia, but it should be easily corrected by applying something similar to Slashdot Karma--just to show whether any editorial attention has affected any given article or not.

The real problem with the Register's scathing polemic is that it is just scathing polemic. The Wikipedia and the Register are apples and oranges. The authority of the Register's criticism cannot really be levelled with the Wikipedia, though its argument has a resounding us and them posture. It conveniently ignores the wealth of good content in math and science and that traditional encyclopedias get historical biography just as wrong (Christopher Columbus is a good candidate for this angle). So the punk teenager straw man at the conclusion of the Register article could just as well have been a fat, lazy armchair anthropologist to characterize the racist crap in the encyclopedias I grew up using.

In the end, I think the Wikipedians are right. "The price of liberty is vigilance." The Register is also right. This is one thing that will happen if we're asleep at the wheel. However fiery the iconoclasty makes you feel, do we throw the baby out with the bathwater? No. We take what we have and make it better.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Why Use Wikipedia?

[GaryPatterson]

Okay, it's an online source of collective knowledge. That's a Good Thing (tm).

Whether it's accurate or not is completely up in the air. Many articles are read by many people, so hopefully errors are weeded out. Some articles are rarely read, and errors in those will stay for a long time before being noticed.

And then there are topical articles, which may just end up reflecting popular points of view rather than definitive information. That's also worthwhile, but it seems that Wikipedia can be used to 'shout down' dissent by editing articles you disagree with.

Who is responsible when an article is incorrect? The users apparently, but who are they? Just people on the Internet. You, me, that guy over there, people like us. So who is responsible for ensuring accuracy and quality? No-one, really. It's so distributed that there's no real focus, and the end result is the cry of "do it yourself!"

Well, I have a job, a fiancee, hobbies and many things I prefer doing rather than watch Wikipedia articles for changes. That answer screams out "broken process!" to me.

What happens if I make a change to an article and someone maliciously alters it again? Am I really supposed to continually edit an article, and if not, who do I apply to for a final version to be locked?

So what is Wikipedia? Well, it's not correct enough to be a solid source of information. It's not stable enough to be reliable. It's not actually a good source, because nothing you read may actually be correct!

It may be, but the prevalent feel around here is to take everything with a grain of salt. That's all well and good, but if you have a child researching something, how can they do that? Even as an adult, I recognise that while we add filters of perception to events, there is one thing that actually happened, and many accounts of it. Can't we at least find the objective case in the subjective perceptions?

Lastly, people say that Wikipedia is the starting point for research. Well, if it doesn't point you in the wrong direction it may be, but if I have to go to other more authoratative sources, then why bother with Wikipedia at all?

I won't use it, for those reasons. If I need an encyclopedia, I'll buy Encyclopedia Britannica which is a much more reliable source and actually has a solid process for reviewing information. It's a shame, because I like the idea, but I can't see where any value comes from with Wikipedia.

Wikipedia ! = Truth

[MMaestro]

Anybody who thinks Wikipedia is a perfectly reliable source of unbiased information is an idiot.

And yet this one of the most commonly accepted beliefs regarding Wikipedia. Some people on Slashdot alone have gone so far as to claim that Wikipedia is public domain and have gotten modded up for it.

Its no longer about whether or not the government can control the information, its now a matter of whos controlling the spread of disinformation. If 'anyone can edit' entries, who's monitoring the monitors? At least with the government its this big huge target we can all see and gang up against. With Wikipedia, we're staring at a bunch of easily masked IP addresses, false user ID info and the complete anonymity (for anyone determined) of the internet. I'd take the lesser of two evils and stick with the big, mean, elitist, capitalist run governments.

Re:Wikipedia ! = Truth

[Mr. Slippery]

At least with the government its this big huge target we can all see and gang up against. With Wikipedia, we're staring at a bunch of easily masked IP addresses, false user ID info and the complete anonymity (for anyone determined) of the internet. I'd take the lesser of two evils and stick with the big, mean, elitist, capitalist run governments.

The worst Wikipedia can do is call you a chicken fucker, and you can very easily erase that insult.

The worst the government can do is disappear you, torture you, or kill you. If you try to "gang up" on it, odds are very good that at the very least you will be herded into a cage at gunpoint.

Pardon me if I find the notion that the government is "the lesser of two evils" in comparison with a website, an incredible conclusion.

Re:Wikipedia ! = Truth

[Perey]

The major experiment of Wikipedia is whether, on the balance of things, good information (or sincere mistakes) will outweigh malice and unexcused stupidity.

The answer surely must be yes.

Have stupidity and malice been completely eliminated from Wikipedia? Of course not; anyone who tells you otherwise is probably part of the problem. Wikipedia is the grand global equivalent of asking your friends what they know about something. Some will steer you right, some will steer you wrong, some will give you irrelevant anecdotes or misunderstand the question. But the Wikipedia balance shows that for information purposes, the wiki is your friend.

Re:Readers please note

[rk]

Why do you think I posted what I posted? The levels of meta were too delicious to ignore. A pedantic correction of the definition of anarchism in the discussion of an article about wikipedia editing woes, using one of the most contentious wikipedia articles as backup, which in its discussion page has similar pedantry.

I tried, but frankly, I was too weak to resist it. :-D

If you don't like it...

[raddan]

...don't fucking use it!

I suspect that the battle over Wikipedia is really a debate over the future of cognitive authority in general. All of the publishing industry has a vested interest in making sure that they stay authoritative. This is combined with the fact that many publishers (disclaimer: I work for a publisher) gear the material around what's marketable. This practice is so entrenched in publishing now, I don't think publishers even see what's wrong with it. I think in a battle between truth and money, money wins.

Wikipedia may have some unique challenges, but at least they are free from this problem.

Published Encyclopedias Unreliable

[LogicX]

"This defense firmly puts the blame on the reader, for being so stupid as to take the words at face value. Silly you, for believing us, they say."

Yes. He is correct. Despite his sarcasm, users ARE silly for believing things at face value. Just because a work is published does NOT make it the definitive source for all accurate knowledge. How many scientific findings have been published, and later discovered to be inaccurate.

He seems to think that because a work is put to paper that is must have more accuracy than a work such as wikipedia. I challenge this: Errors in the Encyclopædia Britannica that have been corrected in Wikipedia

Wikipedia has the opportunity to be both free and more accurate than any printed work. Even an encyclopedia, devoting resources to topics they are not experts in get things wrong, such as some of the items on the list above. Wikipedia gives those out there directly working on it -- Subject Matter Experts -- to contribute their knowledge for others to share.

In regards to the fears of lawsuits, obviously due diligence would be given to review the content of articles before put to paper and widely distributed. What more can be asked for? This is the same thing that Britannica does.

Until Wikipedia is making some claim to take authority over content -- they are just like the post office, the telephone company, or xerox. They are providing a service. Just as Xerox is not responsible for people violating copyright law with their copiers, Wikipedia is not responsible for the accuracy of information on their site. If you ask me, the rules, regulations and procedures they have come up with are an amazing effort at being open to respecting others, and cooperating with them. Similar to the post office working with police to track packages.

I think something commonly being overlooked here is -- Who exactly was affected by this article? The article apparently wasn't link to from other pages -- meaning that it wasn't seeing much attention, which is why it hadn't been changed. Who cares if it was there for months, if only 5 people saw it, was he really severely hurt by this? When he came across it, fix it, move on. Hes actually created a much larger problem by bringing so much attention to this.

Not to sound like a broken record...

[zor_prime]

I said this the other day, but I think it bears repeating:

Not to be trite, but how much can you really complain about a free resource? You get what you pay for. I use Wikipedia all the time to research things and learn about new areas of interest, but I know full well both its provenance and its accuracy.

If you want accuracy, either pay for a resource you trust or do the research yourself. If you want unbiased facts, it solely depends on what you think unbiased means. Everything from the Encyclopedia Brittanica to the Oxford English dictionary has been accused of bias. Why would you think that something that is maintained by volunteers on the internet wouldn't be subject to abuse, scandal, spam, and outrage?

You can go anywhere on the internet for your information. Why do you keep going back to Wikipedia? Becuase it fills a need. If you don't like, vote with your "feet" and go somewhwere else. Wikipedia has exactly the authority you imbue it with.

Re:Reliability and quality come from accountabilit

[vistic]

"If you have a room full of kindergarteners and ask them to write a Calculus textbook, they will produce a textbook of dubious quality even if you kill every kid who makes a mistake."

I don't know... it worked pretty well when I tried it.

Don't you know how the Register is funded?

[JoeBuck]

Every time Orlowski pisses people off, someone posts a complaint to Slashdot, and all the Slashdot folks rush off to read Orlowski's latest outrage. The Register then sends a hefty bill to the advertisers for all the page views, and management eggs old Andrew on to outrage the world yet again.

Of course they keep him on; he represents income. If you don't like it, don't read him and don't post links to him on Slashdot. You're just falling for his act.

Here, just so it's not a waste.

[Jack9]

• The "straw man" accusation was targeted at the post above it, not the wikipedia, so the anonymity of the Wikipedia community has no bearing on the point.

I think you have missed the point.

• And even if it did, print encyclopedias do not provide their readers with information on the authorship of individual articles

I think it's obvious that it's not worth the paper. I submit that you have never even attempted to ask for authorship information from an encyclopedia. I had a physics science project I failed in GRADE SCHOOL. This was primarily due to a failure to make the correct distinction between "potential" and "kinetic" energy. I was able to bring out the physical source. The project was given a revised grade after the instructor contacted the publisher who admitted it was a known misprint.

I think you can safely imagine that medical encyclopedias are fairly well documented, 30 years later (today). After 2 open heart surgeries and countless other illnesses encountered, I know so. My current views are based on my logical assumptions and experiences. YMMV.

• In fact, Wikipedia actually provides more (and more accessible) information on the revision history and editorial decisions leading to the present state of an article than any print encyclopedia I've ever heard of.

I believe this is because, this rev. info is just as unreliable (in terms of determining accuracy or good judgement in deciding relevant content) as any single article currently displayed in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is now the only accurate word to describe this type of unwitting and part-time collaboration. An encyclopedia, it is not.

• Wikipedia may not provide a strong or prominent enough disclaimer to suit you, but the obvious question would be: what does? TV news? The New York Times? Can you name a single "authoritative" source of information that either 1) Prominently disclaims their status as authoritative or 2) provides some substantive guarantee of the accuracy of the information?

US media has been losing much of it's clout due to corrupting and scandal involving deliberate inaccuracy. Short answer, the news doesn't state the truth, but what their agents hear or see or what agenda they wish to promote. Attempts at stating facts of discovery (like the falsified Bush military records) have continued to be a sore spot, even with accountability.

Given the rate of decline in newspaper subscriptions in metropolitan areas, look for it on your handheld in the next 10 years. It will look a lot like network news looks. Newspapers can be queried for sources in most cases. The sources are often quoted.

Finally, are there sources of information that state they are authoritative, with a guarantee of accuracy? Why yes there is. Unfortunately, there are none that guarantee accuracy AND cover anything more than a very specific topic. (statistics on Federal wage rates, ballots, Grants, operating tolerances of a 1947 Chevy engine mount, etc.) I believe what you intended to ask was, "Is there a self-proclaimed authoritative source of general information?" Nope. You will find all publications (physical and virtual) cleverly have been reworded since, I presume the 1980's, to reflect the nebulous nature of "truth". Even Britannica now claims to be a "standard for reference" rather than a source of facts.

/Fark style PS slashes on slashdot. I love irony.

//Not promoting an agenda

///Sorry about first bullet, GP was reponse to a flame to a summary, not worth it

////I will consider your responses if you like the topics, I love being taught more than learning

Research

[EsbenMoseHansen]

I think you have hit the nail on the head dead-on in terms of the "Encyclopedia" distinction.

But wikipedia is an encyclopedia going by all definitions of the word I could find. People trust untrustable sources all the time (e.g, newpapers, teachers, salesmen). That does not make the source worthless.

I teach a Research Methods class for a small liberal arts college in the U.S. [...] 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.

If you are a teacher in research, I surely hope that you teach them that any encyclopedia is worthless as a source to cite. Though I do realize that "research" means altogether different things in the "hard" sciences and the "soft" sciences, I know that encycleopedias are at best untrustworthy source for any specialized information. Wikipedia actually has a better track record with me there, going by my occasional look up in some area of my own expertise (General Topology, you can search for my master degree if you care, though it is in Danish).

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.

I doubt anyone is culpable for making a mistake while writing any encyclopedia or other material. At worst, they might loose their job, I suppose. As for incentive, the incentive for correcting the wiki is the same as writing it in the first place. I am not sure what the incentive for updating a written encycleopedia is, and I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't happen, but I do know that such updates would seldom or never make it out to the shelves, and even if it did make it, would probably be lost as an appendix or similar. As for qualified --- who knows who gets the best qualified person(s) to write the article? As I said, in my (very small) area, wikipedia is more accurate and a lot more comprehensive than the printed encycleopedias I have seen. I do realize that my area is hardly controversial with personal attacks etc.

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.

I can hardly believe a person with an acedemical background would resort to that sort of argument. Not every? I would be extremely surprised if 10% of the non-stub articles are more inaccurate than they printed brethren. I recall seeing some numbers on this, but I can't recall them offhand. And what is that "wikipedia is just as flawed as slashdot"? That sort of argument should be below one such as yourself. If you have issues with wikipedia or slashdot, point to concrete errors with either instead of making cheap retorics.

I won't even quote the last line.

agreed

[Ender Ryan]

Wikipedia is my second favorite online resource, just under Google. The veracity of any given page on Wikipedia is terribly easy to estimate, given all the outside sources linked to in the most thorough topics.

And now people are trying to use slander and legal tactics to damage them, a non-profit, free online resource, made up of volunteers. Humanity doesn't get any lower than that.

It's hilarious, or not; Wikipedia's critics are exactly what they claim to oppose, unaccountable slanderous bastards.

/rant

Sorry for the rant, people who are so bent on controlling other people just really piss me off.

untrue

[Ender Ryan]

First of all, My take on this isn't so much that people want to control others. They want to maintain damage control.

Yes, damage control, by controlling other people.

but if I disagree with some whacked out wiki-fiddler my information (if there is any) could very easily be altered to harm my chances for success in the REAL world.

You still have the same recourse you've always had against slander and libel, file a lawsuit. It may be hard now, in this day and age where anyone can post anything, *anywhere* on the Internet(ie. NOT JUST WIKIPEDIA). But that's life. Deal with it.

Oh, but you'll claim that because it's on Wikipedia, it's more damaging. Bullshit. Unless you're famous, very, very few people will read the entry about you. The damage will be just as limited as if they posted it on, hmmm, say, Slashdot, or anywhere else on the Web.

I guess my point is, the complaints leveled against Wikipedia apply not to Wikipedia, specifically, but to the whole of the Internet. So, the logical conclusion, by the logic of those who would attempt to force Wikipedia to make changes, would be to forcefully censor the whole of the Internet, for "damage control."