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Is Wikipedia Failing?
An anonymous reader writes "A growing number of people are concerned about where Wikipedia is heading. Some have left Wikipedia for Citizendium, while others are trying to change the culture of Wikipedia from within. A recent essay called Wikipedia is failing points out many of the problems which must be solved with Wikipedia for it to succeed in its aim of becoming a reputable, reliable reference work. How would you go about solving these problems?"
... is that they're too busy nominating webcomic articles for deletion to bother updating anything else.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
of course having people work specifically on wikipedia requires money. It cant be free and have employees at the same time. The amount of money raised right now is hardly enough. I guess this is the point where idealism meets the real world.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Wikipedia's job is to let people look something up quickly. Need to know who the 23rd vice-president was? It's Adlai Stephenson.
"But someone could edit that page and change it!"
Oh, right. Now I've linked to the static page.
That part seems rather hard for some people to grasp, considering how many times I've seen that used as a justification for "thou shalt not cite" bullshit.
However, in some cases, "thou shalt not cite" is correct, not just based on reactionary BS- Wiki articles are sourced. If you cite a sourced statement from a Wiki article, you should really be citing it from the original... which is conveniently linked at the bottom of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia isn't failing at this. It's doing this remarkably well. The failing is in reactionary academics who feel threatened by Wikipedia, and the perception these people cause.
Care about privacy? Read this!
I actually suggested this several times to them, each time it was shot down because apparently consensus is better than expertise. What happens when you have 1000 laymen hack on an article and not one of them is an actual expert is you get a close approximation of fact diluted by bias and misunderstanding.
Well, since I have to create an account with Citizendium just to look at the articles, I'm not too worried about it overtaking the Wikipedia just yet.
-CGP
IMHO, the time has come for wikipedia to return to its origins before it's too late. What made it work was its openness, now people think it can be "saved" by closing it up?
In truth, the biggest problem with wikipedia has nothing to do with wikipedia. The problem is us, especially our greed. Article after article has become slanted by those with a special, i.e. greedy, interest. Many controversial issues have already been editoralized into one-sided oblivion.
Top down is not going to help, so I say avoid the temptation to let the "experts" decide what we should be able to freely consider.
Words to men, as air to birds.
20 Reasons not to edit Wikipedia
This is what I've come up with after a very short period of editing Wikipedia.
1. Endless arguments on Talk pages. Apparently more work on Talk pages than actual pages.
2. I'm most able to write about what I'm an expert in. That's also a conflict of interest.
3. Reverts may undo useful changes. There are no merge-based undos, no simple application of a diff between two revisions.
4. Improving free and open source software is both more visible and important.
5. Publishing articles in peer-reviewed venues is more important, although less visible.
6. Lack of a good, canonical, reference and citation system like BibTeX.
7. Popular topics end up better written than unpopular topics. Many entries on fictional worlds.
8. My work might get deleted altogether.
9. Wikipedia is generally not citable itself. Not reviewed, and contents are not constant.
10. There is no correspondance between the different language versions of a page.
11. GFDL is possibly not the best license. I doubt most people have read it.
12. Software screenshots must be low resolution unless the software is open source.
13. Certain topics are taboo, e.g. Encyclopaedia Dramatica
14. If I'm an IP address, nobody cares. If I use my real name, I have to be careful what I write. If I use a pseudonym and hide my identity, it carries less weight.
15. Decentralization. It is doubtful that even a fraction of people take the time to read the relevant guides on editing.
16. Same problems that USENET, mailing lists, and forums have.
17. Neutral point of view confounded by fact that most people here are fairly left wing.
18. Most people editing don't have any formal training in writing beyond high school. Most articles and topics need work.
19. Vandalism, and pseudo-vandalism.
20. Almost every other leisure activity I can think of is more rewarding; Wikipedia is just addictive.
2 reasons to use Wikipedia
1. It's generally better than a Google search.
2. If you're a cultural anthropologist, here's a minefield.
2 reasons to edit Wikipedia
1. It's a great place to practice your translation skills.
2. Most anything you write here appears near the top of a Google search.
Meanwhile, most people with a clue have heard about Wikipedia, but not about these others. Wikipedia is now an established brand. That status, more than any functional superiority (or even competence) defines Wikipedia as the success. Its problems will be solved (or not), but it's got its audience.
Even if the competitors are superior, they will have to compete with Wikipedia's brand. Their superiority will have to be more easily communicated than Wikipedia's (eg. a better name, like "Google" vs "AltaVista") to actually beat them. It's a meme pool, and swimming counts more than smarts.
Wikipedia is no different from any other large Website: its success is defined by its scale of users, not its quality. As if you couldn't tell that by looking at Slashdot.
--
make install -not war
Okay, maybe I missed some major shift over at Wikipedia but a little over a year ago, Slashdot reported that Nature magazine's comparison of a sample of 42 Wikipedia and Britannica articles found on average, Wikipedia had 4 errors per article while Britannica had 3, but on average, Wikipedia articles had 2.6 times as much content.
So, from that point of view, I hardly see Wikipedia as a failing endeavor. There have been other studies that show Wikipedia to generally be quite accurate. There are exceptions, particularly in controversial topics which has been covered here a number of times, and maybe that needs to be fixed, but "Is Wikipedia Failing?" What is this? Fox News?
There is of course room for other slightly more reliable web encyclopaedias, but in the end all of them have to be verified by the reader to be trusted.
I predict that WIKI will become more of a 'pop-culture' database. Forget reading properly researched and documented articles on 'global warming' or 'evolution'. Rest assured though, crazed fans will document every nuance of Babylon 5 or Star Trek info that exists. Want to know how many PIPs Data has on his shirt in the last season of stng? Go to wiki!
There are about 1,300 featured articles. There are also about 1,700 good articles. However, there are currently 1,637,703 articles on Wikipedia. This means that slightly more than 99.8% of all the articles on Wikipedia are not considered well written, verifiable or broad or comprehensive in their coverage.
This to me seems like the old most-blogs-are-terrible argument. I would wager that those 3,000 good/featured articles make up the bulk of what people who go to wikipedia read about.
-CGP
A Slashdot-like karma system where editors with high karma can block those without from editing thei stuff?
I actually really like this idea... A system where expertise can have a karma ranking system through either qualifications or community mediated promotion through contribution. This would allow experts in their fields to contribute without fear of having their contribution savaged by those who may not know what is going on.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This essay seems to be fixed on featured articles and big entries. To me the real advantage of wikipedia seems to be the huge number of small, concise leaf articles that aren't featured, and maybe rarely accessed, but provide a short, in-depth punch about a particular topic, typically an obscure one. You can look up obscure topics like the Dry Tourgas or As Easy As and get the gist. Typically, small articles are written by an expert and ignored in terms of editing, but very useful for research. If you type certain strings into google, you get the wikipedia entry and not much else worthwhile. Wikipedia is sort of a common repository of knowledge. I'd rather have an article written by someone who knows something about an obscure topic than nothing. No one can grasp or deal with the entirety of wikipedia. There's too much there. But if you need to look up something obscure, you can go directly to that article.
What bothers me the most is all the web sites which clone wikipedia articles and add advertising. Ususually a google hit for a wikipedia entry turns up three or four other sites that just include the wikipedia article. This poisons the search engine, crowding out other hits. There ought to be a GPL version for wikipedia that allows people to mirror it only for nonprofit purposes. Down with leeches!
Actually, most scholars contribute their writing for little or no direct compensation. In fact, some scholars pay journals to publish their articles. Instead of payment from the publishers, scholars are usually funded by their sponsoring organizations (e.g. universities, corporate research centers, etc.) to do high quality scholarship, which is funded by a variety of sources (e.g. student tuition, endowments, research grants, product profits).
Publishing high quality work is simply part of the package of being a successful scholar. So the key to getting top notch scholars to work on wikipedia is to generate appropriate reputation feedback. If it is CV-able that I wrote the definitive wikipedia article in my field, there will be competition amongst scholars to do it.
In my current field of biblical studies, scholars donate literally decades of work editing the critical editions of ancient texts, generating modern translations, writing commentaries, etc. without any additional compensation beyond their base pay. In my previous fields of physics, computer science, and computer-human interaction, the vast majority of top scholars receive very little direct compensation for the many articles, books, and reference book entries that they write. But they do receive scholarly acclaim for doing so -- and there is tremendous pressure from their sponsors to produce documentably important output.
In my experience, professional drive, fame, and dedication to the scholarly field generally drive scholars more than money, after the basic bills are paid.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
But is there anyone here who can name one source where we would not be able to find a glaring error or even something that would be considered a flat out lie by a lot of people ?
I mean even stuff like the BBC, that used to be the definition of reliable has been shown to flat-out lie about some topics. So maybe the problem is not with wikipedia, but with people demanding reliable sources.
There aren't any reliable sources. Wikipedia, like the Britannica, like the Bible, like Muhammad's sayings like Shinto's roll's and like anything else is just a human's opinion. It is fallible, corruptible, incomplete, and potentially for sale.
Who doles out karma? It's fine here on /.. Over on wikipedia, just because you happen to know more about a subject that anyone else that is contributing, doesn't make you an expert. In fact, there are certain subjects (think: medical field) in which someone who believes that they know what they are talking about are causing more damage than they are really helping. Since no one else in wikipedia is more qualified in the subject, it's possible for wrong information to remain in the article for prolonged periods.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
If I were to write hundreds of innane, but interesting, articles on fluffy pop-culture bits to build up my 'cred', I could then weigh in on a serious topic & expect my earned credibility to carry over? Alternately, if I'm a newcomer and all the 'low-hanging fruit' have already been picked up, how am I supposed to get my initial reputation in order to lend any sort of permanence to my writings?
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
OK so?
These people need to grow up, ether support your precious community so it can remain the way it is or move on and let someone who can take your place. I'm sorry but if it "pisses you off" that it requires money to run a huge public website project (that some treat as there personal playground I might add) then maybe you can make up for the money.
Besides ads on Wikipedia, given the usual high search results on Google, would be worth quite a bit of money so I doubt they would even need to put up that many.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
On the other hand, on the other end of the spectrum are the categories History and Society. Wikipedia is horrible at such articles. You have two conflicting sides fighting over an article. Let's take a look at the current protected pages. "2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict" and "Taba Summit" are both protected. Semi-protected is "1972 Summer Olympics", "Zionism" and other similar articles. Israelis and Palestinians are shooting each other over there, and such a thing spills over onto Wikipedia. It even spills over onto Slashdot - the last time I said this about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on Slashdot, in a pretty neutral and moderate tone, someone lambasted me for "taking sides".
Jimbo Wales is not politically neutral. He ran the Ayn Rand mailing list for years. His appointees to the Arbitration Committee are people like JayJG, who could not get voted in and who had over 100 votes against them during elections (including me). He says he uses Friedrich Hayek's theories as a model of how to run Wikipedia. He has personally harrassed people like Secretlondon. He is not a fanatic, or Wikipedia would have never taken off, but he is biased, and his bias is reflected. The Wikipedia "cabal" is sort of cultish - check out the Criticism of Wikipedia page and how obsessed the "cabal" is with criticism they can not control. Dozens of people have tried to link to the Wikipedia Review web site and the link is removed over and over. It is really cultish behavior, the idea that criticism of Wikipedia can happen which they can't control drives them crazy.
I know the society and history articles will always be crap, unless it's something like 1755 Lisbon Earthquake or something which no one cares much about any more. But by and large they are junk and not encyclopedic. The solution I think is for these types of articles to move onto other wiki encyclopedias. This has already happened. I've written a number of articles elsewhere that people put back into Wikipedia. Some of the ones I have done I know could never be put back because they are of the "Taba Summit" type. There is only one wiki encylopedia now, which makes sense, but this will not continue and in fact Wikipedia already has some minor competition in Demopedia, dKosopedia, Internet Encyclopedia (Wikinfo), Red Wiki, Anarchopedia and so forth. This trend will continue.
Wikipedia is at best flawed, at worst dangerous.
It rejects "experts" in favor of consensus. Finding facts is not a democratic process. It is often an intrusive and offensive process. "Facts" have to be protected from people with ulterior motives.
Most people think they are safe in a car from lightening because of the rubber tires. General consensus where critical thinking and science are involved is typically wrong.
Ultimately any such decisions are in the hands of the Wikimedia foundation, and I don't pretend to speak for them. I do believe when your entire catalogue of products is produced by a set of volunteers, you do have to consider the opinions of said volunteers on matters like this. The users who declare their stance either for or against ads on Wikipedia are ensuring that the Foundation knows their feelings on the matter, leading hopefully to an informed decision. I don't see why people "need to grow up" for contributing what they can to this process.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Ratings could be something like
5. I'm a generally recognized expert working the field 4. I work in the field 3. I've studied the field at university/college level 2. I'm a generally interested bystander, having done self-study of the field to some depth 1. I'm a generally interested bystander having tried to follow the field for a few years
Comments could be something like what sources you have checked against, or a deeper description of qualifications.
Ratings like these would allow us to do a lot of stuff. We could turn users that seem to do a good job of voting in their particular areas (and staying off voting in other areas) into an officially sanctioned editorial board retroactively, for instance - by just giving their ratings weight. Or we could let people look at "Last version of article vouched for by a 5-authority", or show the differences from that version, or whatever we feel like.
The important thing is to start collecting the data. And that can be done NOW, trivially.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
I'm sorry but if it "pisses you off" that it requires money to run a huge public website project (that some treat as there personal playground I might add) then maybe you can make up for the money.
Ads in themselves don't piss off the users, but it is the fact that many of them have already donated money in order to keep Wikipedia alive without commercial sponsorship.
Imagine the outcry if NPR or PBS started having 5 minute commercial breaks even after they had all those annoying fund raisers they do.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
It's a community project. If wikipedia pisses off too many of its contributors, the project will die. Some people would see that as a bad thing.
Do they?
For one thing. the allegation that wikipedia is failing is far from proven; there may not be a problem to fix. For another, the wikipedians opposed to advertising are probably not the ones voicing doubts about the project's long term viability.
It's also worth pointing out that the author of TFA seems to define failing as not achieving excellence as fast as he or she would like. So there doesn't seem to be any terribly compelling reason to make an unpopular change, while there are good reasons for leaving it as it is. "If it ain't broke..."
In which case, I'd expect answers.com to be making Google scale money. They're keeping awfully quiet about it if they are.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
The trouble is that wikipedia articles arent' "authored". They are "edited", by several wikipedians. Having written an excellent article, it can be unrecognizable a few months later. Academics that want CV-able material *could* continue to monitor their article forever, reverting harmful changes, and actively participating on the discussion page. However, this takes a lot of time, and is better suited for unemployed wikipedians. If you want to improve your CV, it would be better to write your articles only once, and be done with it. This can be done by writing real journal articles, real magazine articles, real books, real websites, or even real blogs.
Except, if Wikipedia asipres to be a "real" enyclopedia, having advertising would adversely affect the objectivity (or percieved objectivity) of the site.
As a long time NPR listener (and donator), they *do* have commercial breaks. Lots of them. I even bought some of them to advertise a speaker on our campus. Others are bought by local companies, or people who like to mention birthdays, anniversaries or the like. They tend to be low key- speech only by the announcer, no music, no screaming and I suspect that they are edited for taste, but they are most certainly ads.
Do I like it? Of course not. But the alternatives on one side (no cash = no NPR) or the other ("Y'ALL GET DOWN TO JIM BOB'S TRUCK EMPORIUM RIGHT NOW!") are so bad that I'm happy to put up with it, even though I *also* donate money every year. Rational people know that running an enormous website or paying the electricity bill for a 50k watt transmitter costs real money and that you have to find some way to pay. If the bulk of Wikipedias find this idea distasteful they are welcome to try and find some other way of getting the money, but don't be surprised if you simply can't raise enough donations.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Wikipedia needs to realize that it's not going to be a reputable source, ever. There is just no way you can be a good source of research and maintain public user submisssions. Not gonna happen.
There is nothing wrong with that though.
Wikipedia right now is a great resource that you have to take with a grain of salt, that is fine. It's great the way it is. If I want to know some bit of trivia then Wikipedia is the place, if someone makes a reference to something I'm ignorant about in a conversation for instance, or if I'm just mildly curious about something I read in a news article, I can at least find out what's going on with a quick check to Wikipedia. These are things that in the past I might have to search Google for and then possibly wade through a few pages of the things before I get to the bottom of it, now with Wikipedia my questions are usually answered much faster, easier, and more in depth than if I had just used Google.
Now I realize that what I'm reading might be biased, someones opinion, and in a lot of cases just flat wrong, but that's okay because that would have been even more true with Google searches. I realize that if I really need hard information about a subject then Wikipedia is little more than a lead to actual references at best, but it still serves a purpose.
If you ask me, the thing Wikipedia can do to improve would be to stop deleting articles because they aren't "notable enough". Seriously. Why the hell should there not be an entry for my local highschool in there? I know few people would want to read it, but so what? If Joe Johnson down at Johnsons gas station wants to write about the history of his family gas station, let him! Who is it hurting? Besides, I might know Joe and be interested in reading it.
Sigs are awesome huh?
Not if you go to the library... how many people do you know that have a personal collection of encyclopedias in their household. Encarta doesn't count...
I got nothin'
A lot of the Wikipedia bashers and nay-sayers have one unique problem: they don't get it. They want academic rigor and precise accuracy in something that is not edited exclusively by academics, experts and elites. Wikipedia is a look in to the hive mind of humanity - and reflects the daily winds of change in the common consensus and the fact that people perceive reality differently.
Wikipedia isn't broke and I hope it stays donation supported for a long time.
-- $G
Why not have an option to view adds. Then it's sort of like I'm donating my willingness to view a few adds on the site rather than sending in cash.