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Interview Looks at How and Why Wikipedia Works

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the better-than-britannica dept.

driehle writes to tell us that he recently had a chance to interview Angela Beesley, Elisabeth Bauer, and Kizu Naoko. All three are leading Wikipedia practitioners in the English, German, and Japanese Wikipedias and related projects. The interview focuses on how Wikipedia works and why these three practitioners believe it will keep working.

25 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Convenience by BrickM · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wikipedia works because it completely satisfies our need for getting information that's probably *mostly* accurate with little to no effort. And, since the internet is practically filled with people who think they know more than you, there's an endless supply of folks willing to type of wiki entries! =)

  2. What I dislike about Wikipedia... by IANAAC · · Score: 4, Insightful
    is that's it's not really unbiased, as is claimed. Of course, nothing really is unbiased, so why claim it when it's untrue.

    I'm willing to bet that at some point we'll see more and more incorect information, as the system struggles with being crushed under its own weight.

    The sheer number of roles is daunting.

    And further on in the interview, I read "there is increasingly a distinction between 'normal' authors and 'high-end' authors who are explicitly trying to get their articles 'featured'."

    I don't know... that statement right there speaks volumes as to how unbiased a system Wikipedia can really be.

    1. Re:What I dislike about Wikipedia... by interiot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wikipedia doesn't put a sign up that says "we are totally unbiased". They DO put a sign up that says "we're working towards being unbiased, so we'd prefer if you don't add any edits that clearly work against that goal". Just because any work can never become totally unbiased doens't mean they shouldn't try have a goal of trying to become as unbiased as possible.

    2. Re:What I dislike about Wikipedia... by OneManCongaLine · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I use wikipedia a lot since I can get quick, accurate-ish info. But at the same time, I am aware that if I really want some authority behind the facts, I have to go elsewhere. Wikpedia is a good starting point though.

      Wikipedia is great if you keep this in mind, in fact it might even be better that people use a less perfect sorce of info if it keeps them on their intellectual, critical toes and does not accept anything printed as "the Truth(TM)"

      --
      -Queen of the Kung-Fu fairies
    3. Re:What I dislike about Wikipedia... by Bogtha · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No college student should quote the Encyclopaedia Britannica in a scientific paper, but they quote the Wikipedia. Every blogger links routinely to wikipedia articles, because it is so easy.

      The college student is screwing up. The blogger is not. The former is attempting to cite a source to back them up, but bloggers just link so that you can obtain more information. Wikipedia is perfectly suitable to give a brief overview of a subject.

      Wikipedia contents are the first result on Google, MSN and every other search engine.

      So? There's no reasonable expectation that a search engine is going to give you an authorative source for a subject anywhere in their search results, let alone as the first result.

      --
      Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
    4. Re:What I dislike about Wikipedia... by modeless · · Score: 2, Insightful
      They don't claim to be unbiased. They claim to strive for the absence of bias, which is true and laudable.

      The problem with most criticisms of Wikipedia is that they predict a turning point followed by catastrophe. But the things people predict will bring it down aren't novel. Wikipedia has had every problem people complain about for years now, and they're all being dealt with constantly. If anything catastrophic was going to be triggered by increasing popularity it would have happened already, before Wikipedia became one of the top 20 most visited websites in the world.

      Wikipedia has been around long enough to prove it can handle success. There is no catastrophe waiting to bring it down. Like it or not, it will continue to exist in its present form.

      --
      Firebug. It will make your jaw hit the floor.
    5. Re:What I dislike about Wikipedia... by mdwh2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem is that Wikipedia is quoted as if it was a perfect source

      No it isn't.

      No college student should quote the Encyclopaedia Britannica in a scientific paper, but they quote the Wikipedia.

      So what, that's Wikipedia's fault for being free?

      Every blogger links routinely to wikipedia articles, because it is so easy.

      And what were they linking to before Wikipedia existed - the free online version of Encyclopedia Britannica? Of course not - it was random webpages. Which brings me to the next point:

      Wikipedia contents are the first result on Google, MSN and every other search engine. And no one puts this sign on these references.

      It's one thing to compare Wikipedia to paid-for encyclopedias, but are you seriously saying that Wikipedia compares poorly to the random webpages that used to get top hits?

      Trying to find an article to link before Wikipedia came along was a nightmare - you'd have to trawl through irrelevant pages, and any pages would be far far less likely to cite references, and being usually just one person's opinion, not open to debate, they would be far far likely to contain bias.

    6. Re:What I dislike about Wikipedia... by Mr.+McGibby · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wikipedia, just like many other community sites, has some elements of a game.

      True. However, I imagine that the people who work at Encyclopedia Britannica aren't only interested in the veracity of their work, they're also trying to do better than their coworkers so they can get the raise, or the promotion. They too, are playing a "game". Just like the folks of wikipedia.

      The difference is that if that the fighting is fairly transparent on Wikipedia, whereas we'll never know about who hates who at Encyclopedia Britannica.

      --
      Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
  3. Probably Not by wasted · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The Professors' view is understandable, since qualifications to edit a subject aren't verified. And yes, I have seen a false statement or two, and edited the one I knew for a 100% fact to be false. Others may have quoted the statement for their academic research prior to the edit, so I see your professors' point

    1. Re:Probably Not by 15Bit · · Score: 5, Insightful
      As with all sources, the facts on wiki must be considered with your brain turned on. I've read plenty of peer reviewed research papers which contain glaring inaccuracies/mistakes - no source should be taken as fact.

      In recent times i've actually started to consider wiki as not being so bad. This is mainly because it has grown up, and is no longer the repository of knowledge of america's teenagers, as it seemed to be to start with. Its still a bit weak in some areas, and perhaps a bit too technical in others. But all in all its a pretty decent effort.

      Unfortunately, its greatest strength (dynamic content) is also the reason it cannot be used as a definitive academic resource. In essence, the content that a student or researcher references is not necessarily the content that someone down the line is going to read. So if i reference a synthesis technique or method thats on wiki, someone who tries to duplicate my work might not be following the same recipe that i did. Reproducability is the keystone of research (even incorrect methods/results must be referenceable), and so university people get understandably annoyed by wiki references. Its a great resource, but for academics it can only ever be an interface to static content from somewhere else.

    2. Re:Probably Not by Moraelin · · Score: 5, Insightful
      As with all sources, the facts on wiki must be considered with your brain turned on.


      Having a brain turned on isn't going to help you if you don't already have the data to judge that stuff as true or false. You can be the most logical person in the world, and still lack the data on which to use that logic.

      E.g., if you're not a historian and I start telling you about the achievements and pyramid of the great pharaohs Tutankhbast and Bastmeses... how do you know if they even existed? Or maybe it's just me pulling your leg and telling you what happened in my last Children Of The Nile games? You may even know enough about pharaoh names to notice that they _are_ built in the same manner as some real pharaoh names you may have already heard of. One means "Living Image Of Bast" (same as Tutankhamun = Living Image Of Amun) and one is "Born of Bast" (same as Rameses = Born of Ra). But how do you know if they actually existed or I'm pulling your leg? I'll tell you in this case that it's the later. It's the cat-loving dynasty names I've used in a computer game.

      See, that's the whole problem. Sometimes having a brain and having it turned on won't help you much. You'd also have to do the research and dig up the data to judge whether the stuff on Wikipedia is believable or not. At which point, frankly, why bother with Wikipedia at all?
      --
      A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
    3. Re:Probably Not by mdwh2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      1) you can get on a plane to Egypt, hire an army of workers and conduct your own search and examinations at the site,

      2) At a regional rare-book library, you might be able to read the reports and papers of Abigail Q. Whorstenshire, who found the shrine in the 19th century and carried out the initial assays,

      3) At a local university library, you can read the subsequent analysis of (2) by third parties, or even more up to date data from the site,

      4) At your local city library, you can read summaries of the above in the latest editions of the peer-reviewed and fully referenced Encylopedia Erratica,

      4) You can go to Wikipedia, where random pimply-faced fuckwits invent any manner of nonsense on a daily basis, complete with "citations" and offer it to the world at large as the truth.


      Allow me to edit that for you:

      You can go to Wikipedia, where information from various sources is included, with references on where to find more information.

      I mean, how do you know which sources to go looking for in the first place? Since Britannica may contain errors also, you'd better be prepared to go looking for experts on the matter and primary sources (assuming again you magically know where they are).

  4. Why Wikipedia Works by localman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because despite our cynicism, and contrary to our oft stated negative perception of the world, good people far outnumber bad people. By a huge margin, actually. For the sake of argument I'll assume we all know what I mean by good and bad here. Sure, there are bad people, and they can destroy things and do so in a loud manner. But the fact remains that most people are content to just keep to themselves and do no harm unless provoked. It's why society works. It's why Wikipedia works. It's not because of laws or punishment or any of that. It's because most people don't want to be assholes unless they have to be. It's because being an asshole doesn't usually result in anything positive. And being a nice person usually does. It almost gives me some hope for humanity or something.

    Cheers.

  5. Re:I believe I speak for everyone when I say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So parent post is also Anonymous. Dig yourself out of that, "RsG". Using an alias on the internet is hardly different than posting as an Anonymous Coward.

  6. It works... and it does not by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It works for everyday use. If I want to know when someone was born that died recently, to check how old they were, or when I want to find some background information about a topic, the Wikipedia is certainly the first place to go. It's very useful, it's faster than looking it up in a book and it's most likely more complete than any kind of encyclopedia.

    It does not work for scientific purposes. Because of its very nature. Anyone could change a "fact". It could have been edited only once (because aside of me and the autor nobody cares about the subject), and he got it wrong. Not even maliciously, he just made a mistake. If it's a disputed topic, from religious to political matters, and of course to entries about companies, you can not rule out that you'll get incomplete or biased information. Even if you take the whole history and discussion page of the article into account.

    What you can do, though, even if you need the info for a scientific paper, is to check the Wikipedia for its reference section. More often than not, you'll find links to "scientifically acceptable" sources there.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  7. Only a false statement or two? by Moraelin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The German Wikipedia used to sport a whole article about cloning didgeridoos. Complete with a picture of little didgeridoos in test tubes, and pseudo-science stuff like whether they live longer or shorter than natural born didgeridoos. The thing stayed up for more than a year.

    It's stuff like that that put an end once and for all to my illusions about the value of Wikipedia to actually learn anything.

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
    1. Re:Only a false statement or two? by Riktov · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So you're rejecting everything in Wikipedia just because of some obvious joke articles?

      Imagine you had heard about those cloned didgeridoos not from Wikipedia, but rather from a friend or a family member or someone else you trusted. Would you believe it?

      Of course not. You have (I assume) the basic common sense to identify patent nonsense, and can do so whether the source is trusted or not.

      Or suppose you actually believe the story of baby didgeridoos because, after all, it was in an e-mail from your father. Then you find out later that it was a big joke. Do you stop trusting your father forever after that?

      Of course not. You have the the basic common sense to identify earnest, essentially true information.

      Certainly, there are areas in Wikipedia where the factual information can be incorrect, as shown in the Siegenthaler article controversy last year. But then that level of misinformation is probably no greater than that of the internet in general, the news media, or your friends and family.

    2. Re:Only a false statement or two? by Moraelin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem is that if such a joke can stay on Wikipedia for a year, what smaller mis-information can stay there just as well?

      And see my other post again: you can only judge something as a blatant joke or not, if you have the data on which to base that judgment. Didgeridoos are easy, but are you sure you'd immediately spot the joke if it were about history or quantum physics? I'm sure I could come up with a joke involving ancient Egypt or China or Messopotamia that wouldn't look like a joke to anyone who's not very familiar with the era. The thing was written with the wording and appearance of an actual article, so there were no other clues that it's a joke.

      And yes, don't take your info from casual chats with friends either. I've had the surprise in school to go on a long sorta parody on a history topic with a couple of people, and discover that one of them had taken that seriously. Cue, "Jesus Christ, that was a joke. Don't go and write that on the term paper or anything."

      Go get an authoritative and peer-reviewed source instead. Don't rely on what jokes your friends may have heard and taken seriously, nor on what some joker wrote on a glorified massively-multiplayer blog like Wikipedia.

      --
      A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
  8. Re:Better than Brittanica? by Alioth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No encyclopaedia should appear in your references for an academic paper whether it's Britannica or Wikipedia. However, there's nothing wrong with using one to START your research into a specific subject: encyclopaedias are great places to start but really shouldn't be used as a reference: not because it might be inaccurate, but because that's not what it's there for!

    --
    Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
  9. Re:How Wikipedia Works by FirienFirien · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Handed? Offered. As you must know, adminship and so on on wikipedia are granted by nomination and acceptance, pending a majority of community trust. Anyone can turn down that nomination for any reason they want, including "I just don't want to".

    If you're reliable, trustworthy, competent, and are happy to wear those hats, you will get your hats. The reward for a job well done is the offer of another three jobs, which don't affect your current job if you decline them. It's not like a company, with an upwards hierarchy. When it comes down to it, an anonIP's edits are as valid as yours, with the only difference being that you've accepted other tools to handle the misedits and issues from other users. Adminship on Wikipedia is not glorious - it's a janitor role. That's embodied in the 'you have been entrusted with the mop and bucket'. Both that and the bunches of keys you get later with other positions are your own choice, and utterly rejectable if you don't like it. Don't make out like it's a chore that was forced onto you for doing good edits.

    --
    Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
  10. False positives by tom6a · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I've seen several discussions about how wikipedia works and in general I think it does work very well. There is one issue that I've come across recently that illistrates one of the flaws where a site IMO was improperly blacklisted. In this case, one user was trying to promote a site that he was an admin for on wikipedia. Unfortunatly due to his actions, the site (not the user) was blacklisted. It happens to be a site that has been featured on Slashdot several times:

    Crunching the Math On iTunes - http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/28/ 0616225
    A Look at Bootstrapping - http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/1 1/07/0351215
    The Math Behind the Hybrid Hype - http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/ 14/0623227
    More iTunes Math - http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/1 1/1822246
    Leaving Early May Cost You Time - http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/2 3/2045250

    It's a great site and I hate to see it banned from wikipedia. I brought this to the attention of wikihow about a week ago in their forum - http://www.wikihow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1296 wikiHow uses the same software and the same blacklist but it looks like they have removed the site in question from their blacklist. Anyone have any suggestions to get this site restored?

  11. Re:How Wikipedia Works by argStyopa · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Congratulations, that's not just how Wiki works. That's how the WORLD works.

    The corollary being that once you have accepted the expansion, you keep getting handed jobs until you cannot accomplish them - a variant of the Peter Principle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle

    You have two choices - you can become cynical, underperform, and pat yourself on the back how you're getting a 'free ride' on all the other stupid patsies, or, you can simply do whatever you can and not be afraid to say "sorry, I simply don't have time to take on that additional responsibility and continue to do all the other things I'm already responsible for". HOWVER, YOU MUST NOT THEN TAKE IT AS YOUR FAULT IT IF NOBODY DOES THE TASK AND SOMETHING COMES CRASHING DOWN (the most frequent consequence, in my experience).

    The first requires a certain moral flexibility. The second requires some psychological cojones.

    --
    -Styopa
  12. Wiki and the Web are NOT research by Gnostic+Ronin · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Better yet -- don't cite webpages and encyclopedias. You deserve to be marked down for not using good references. That means a book on the topic by an expert in the topic, or an article in a magazine, NOT some webpage that can be accessed and altered by anybody, and not a general use encyclopedia.

    For one thing, even with a more static webpage, you don't have any idea who wrote it. None. With Angelfire or Geocities or some other freeware webbuilding site, I could make a professional-looking webpage that proclaims that hyperdrive is physically possible. I could BS a theory based on quantum mechanics or string theory, and have a "schematic drawing" of an engine running on said principals. I could probably have a few references to Sci-fi to show it's a joke (no my name really is Cochrane). Wikipedia takes that and multiplies it times 200 -- because now it's not just some yahoo with internet access and free time, it's millions of yahoos with internet access. And if you're stupid enough to quote a webpage post-junior-high-school, frankly you deserve to flunk. Even reading one wikipedia discussion page will put you off trusting Wikipedia forever.

    And quoting the enycyclopedia has never really been acceptable for serious papers. Not even Britannica. All that shows the teacher is that you're too lazy to go to the library, or even to access Lexis-Nexis to find journal articles related to your subject. Chances are that the paper in question was assigned months ago. Fine by me if you chose to screw off on the project until the week before, but quoting an encyclopedia makes it obvious that you waited til the last minute.

    Long story short, the Web is probably ok for a starting point (if you have a good bullshit detector), or your topic is related to nerd popculture (redshirts from ST, Jedi fighting styles). it's not reliable enough for serious research.

  13. Re:Thanks for the link. by mdwh2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So what's the first thing you see when you hit her page? "This article may not conform to the neutral point of view policy. A Wikipedian has nominated this article to be checked for its neutrality."
    Which is all well a good (considering a sizeable number of us probably agree with the content), but how often do you suppose that happens?

    Isn't it good that Wikipedia openly admits when there is a POV problem, compared with "authoritative" sources which will do everything they can to deny any bias?

    Or worse, that it will be so common in the future as to be considered the norm.

    Pure speculation.

  14. Re:Encyclopedias by Haertchen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The discussion page is a life-saver. If you think "Hmm, this seems a bit NPOV." you can go see whether the discussion agrees or not. The discussion on the Roswell UFO Incident is a case in point. If you read the discussion page, it quickly becomes obvious that a UFO believer has been paying inhuman amounts of attention to the editing and sucesfully been stopping the skeptical viewpoint from becoming dominant.