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Slashback: Wikipedia, Netwosix, GooglePC
Why the media can't get Wikipedia right. Ruff_ilb writes "David Weinberger has published a quite down-to-business look at Wikipedia, the media, and what they have to say about each other. From the article: 'When the mainstream media addressed the John Seigenthaler Sr. affair -- he's the respected journalist who wrote an op-ed in USAToday complaining that slanderously wrong information about him was in Wikipedia for four months -- the subtext couldn't be clearer: The media were implicitly contrasting Wikipedia's credibility to their own. Ironically, some of the media got the story fundamentally wrong, in tone and sometimes in substance,' he writes. 'Wikipedia has been a continuous state of self-criticism that newspapers would do well to emulate. It has discussion pages for every article. It has handled inaccuracies not defensively but with the humble understanding that of course Wikipedia articles will have mistakes, so let's get on with the unending task of improving them. Wikipedia's ambitions are immodest, but Wikipedia is not.'"
Linux Netwosix follows up. LinuxWorld writes "Vincenzo Ciaglia has authored an article that describes his Linux Netwosix release, and answers many questions being posed by developers. He reiterates much of the information that he conveyed in a recent interview with LinuxWorld, but also added some new information. From the article: 'The installation is simple and with the new release, Linux Netwosix 2.0-rc1, there's a new setup tool based on the Crux one that really help every user because it is simple and user-friendly for a security/network oriented GNU/Linux distribution. The Setup script will show a simple list of available 'base' packages you can choose to install on your system.'"
Hwang Woo-suk defends himself. JonN writes "The Korea Herald is reporting that 'disgraced stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk recently defended himself insisting he has the technology to produce patient-specific stem cells and that he had been the victim of a "long-planned" conspiracy. An investigation panel at Seoul National University has concluded Hwang did not produce any embryonic stem cells individually tailored to patients as claimed in a paper published in the journal Science last year. Hwang stood by his work in an interview with a local Buddhist newspaper Saturday.'"
Plasma thruster verified by the ESA. JonathanGCohen writes "Researchers at The Australian National University have developed a plasma engine to provide spacecraft with thrust, with implications for future Mars missions. Their design was recently verified by the European Space Agency and will go into full-scale testing next year."
Google dispels PC rumors. JamesAlfaro writes "Google has spoken, and the rumors were merely that. According to a Google spokesman, the company won't be releasing a PC, Internet appliance, or web-enabled toaster anytime soon: 'We have many PC partners who serve their markets exceedingly well and we see no need to enter that market,' a Google spokesman told Times Online. 'We would rather partner with great companies.'"
Most of Wikipedia's problems stem from the fact that it calls it's self a free encyclopedia and when people think of encyclopedias they think of "A work containing factual articles on subjects in every field of knowledge, usually arranged alphabetically"
Many of the non-science articles in Wikipedia are as much opinion as fact. The article on my home town was once "When it comes to culture XXXX seems in many ways able only to grasp the most dominant [[trends]] and, once this has occurred, unable to abandon them. Thus explaining the overwhelming popularity of oakley [[sunglasses]] (adopted in the mid-90s) combined with [[mullets]] (circa 1986), [[2Pac]] music, and [[jean jackets]]."
Clearly, marking new and unreviwed articles as opinion would go a long way to help Wiki's image.
Today Google celebrates the birthday of Louis Braille, who invented the braille tactile writing system used by the blind community, with a custom homepage logo written in braille. However, the Google Accounts signup page does not allow users who use a refreshable braille display to create an account. Blind users are treated as collateral damage in the war against spambots. Is Google acting hypocritical, or am I just a critical hippo?
Editors often fuck up stories left and right. Here is an article on drinking games for which I was interviewed (back when I ran the 'net's largest drinking games website) and which shows the editorial markings. Only one quote from me went into the article, and then they proceeded to botch my job title. WTF is an "Administrator"? They deliberately edited the guy's article to change the entire feel from hopeful and whimsical to condemnatory.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes - though the problem is there's not yet any easy way to hilight the relevant or interesting parts of the discussions -- if you look at the first page of a discussion with several archives you are only getting the last week of discussion or so, which may be a silly rehash of an annoying revert war rather than anything useful. It would be nice if there was a moderation system in the discussion forum that allowed readers to use the discussion area to learn more about a topic rather than to just see what editors are fighting about lately.... though I fear such a system would be used instead as a gauge of who is winning these debates.
It may wax and wane but I wonder how much "actual journalism" ever existed.
When I was studying journalism and writing for the college paper in the 80's, I used to delight in correcting stories in the local papers. After all, the facts had been wrongly reported--things like chronology, technical or legal process, impacts or consequences--and I felt a responsibility to correct those wrong facts in my story if it were going to press at a later date. :)
It wasn't just the facts. Sometimes the fairy tales my role models wrote simply stunned me and left me gapping like guppy.
Interestingly, it is the generation of journalists who were predominantly college educated, starting in the '70s, that have generated the reputation of the hour for American journalism. I don't know that to be cause and effect. It just seems noteworthy. :)
Claiming a standard isn't in itself anything more than a voiced expectation. To expect Wikipedia to be the final authority might be a mistake. Maybe as much of a mistake as expecting there to be a final authority at all.
freeman
IMNSHO, the main problems with wikipedia are:
Find free books.
Perhaps someone who thinks this or any similar rearrangement of wikipedia content would be a good idea could take a look at the free content license and put together a more useful version of what's available there. That, I think, is the true future of wikipedia, and what makes it an important landmark in the history of knowledge. Any given article may be crap at any given time, but the open source model allows wikipedia content to become a grab bag of tools available to anyone with an idea for editing it and incorporating it into some other project. I can think of any number of projects involving specialized encyclopedias (online or hardbound and printed) based on wikipedia content that has undergone a more rigorous editing process.
Sure, Wikipedia wouldn't compare well to actual journalism, but where do you find that nowadays?
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, of course.
Don't forget that Steven Colbert has The Word.