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An Interview with Wikipedia's Jimbo Wales
Raul654 writes "The Wikipedia Signpost, Wikipedia's weekly in-house publication, is this week featuring an interview with Jimbo Wales. The questions, which were submitted by Wikipedia regulars, hit on subjects related to the Foundation, the budgeting and legal issues, the blocking of Wikipedia in China, as well as where Jimbo sees Wikipedia in the future."
Hey Jimbo, missed the interview... How will you prevent Wikipedia from becoming balkanized, just like ordinary society, as groups of users with differing views form up their own projects, and start slinging mud at each other and calling each other "trolls"? Won't additional restrictions on editing, in the name of "quality," drive potential contributors to other pursuits? How will you prevent Wikipedia from turning into a collection of cranks, slackers, and trolls?
Can we edit his interview?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Let's see...according to Wikipedia, there are.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
WS: On a similar topic, Vsion asks: "Are there currently any efforts being undertaken by the Foundation to address the People's Republic of China's blocking of Wikipedia or to alleviate its effect?"
JW: Beijing-area Wikipedians are working to have the block lifted. Our position is that the block is in error, even given China's normal policies. Wikipedia is not propaganda, it is basic information. We expect that the block will be lifted.
Huh? Doesn't he understand the nature of Chinese censorship?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Now, I don't disagree that that's a badly written sentence, and, interpreted literally, wrong for exactly the reason you say.
But, even though that sentence is rubbish, it's also abundantly clear what is meant. High cereal prices exacerbated the food shortage caused by the drought.
So, there are two responses :
i) correct the sentence so that it reflects the intended meaning [needless to say, someone has already done this].
ii) generalise from this mistake into a lengthy diatribe about the inaccuracy of Wikipedia, pretending there exist infallible sources of information elsewhere.
I would suggest, that exactly one of these would not constitute an enormous waste of your time.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I was going to mod you flamebait, but I guess you'd be expecting that. Wikipedia is significantly more reputable than *any* encyclopedia that I've ever used. Look up Crooke's Radiometer on Wikipedia, then go look it up in Encyclopedia Britannica, then go look it up from at a reputable 3rd party in the sciences field. You'll see that Britannica has been giving out the wrong explanation for decades, and you know what? There is nothing any of us can do about it. Britannica is filled with innaccuracies, typos, and biases that have propagated from one version to the next for years. Wikipedia is the best source of information I've yet to come across. Every now and then there are some errors, as there are in all works done by humans, but they are often quickly corrected. If you get into a revert war, there are provisions in place to put an end to it and to facilitate debate and discussion. Essentially, not only does Wikipedia cover a significantly larger base of human knowledge, but it does so more accurately than any source I've come across and in a way that encourages little to no bias. Everybody has something to add, regardless of what you think of their intelligence. Don't be so full of yourself.
Regards,
Steve
Is that the best example you can come up with?
A six month old problem, that was fixed on the day you blogged about it. It now readsLook at the page's history and you seeOK - Wikipedia isn't perfect, but to completely dismiss it is....somewhat shortsighted of you.
After all - it's the only (decent) game in town when it comes to free, online information.
My pics.
Pick a subject you have particular knowledge of -- maybe a local event or situation, or an area of learning or technology. Then take a look at how it's reported in the newspapers, in books and encyclopaedias, in movies and documentaries and news programmes. It's a fair bet that you'll come across inaccuracies, ranging from oversimplifications and typos to bias and misrepresentation to plain ignorance and blatant lies.
Now, stop and consider that that's how everything else gets covered, too. Frightening, isn't it?
Of course, some sources are much less likely to get things wrong than others. But very few sources are as authoritative as we tend to assume; all get things wrong from time to time. We should treat all printed and broadcast material with a little scepticism.
Now, look at Wikipedia in that light. Maybe it doesn't seem that much worse than the others after all?
Yes, it's true that there's vastly greater opportunity for errors to be introduced. But to balance that, there's vastly greater opportunity for them to be fixed, too. Wikipedia's far from perfect, but the huge majority of articles seem well worth reading, and its average doesn't seem noticeably lower than other reference works.
(In fact, rather than quality, I think its main problem is coverage; it's very patchy, and has too many gaps and stubs.)
Basically, as long as enough people want Wikipedia to be accurate, it will be!
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.