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Wikipedia Gets State Funding in Germany
tmk writes "How can Wikipedia be improved? The German government started a project today to train experts to contribute to Wikipedia. The goal is to write or improve several hundred articles about renewable resources in the Internet encyclopedia. The project is funded by the German Ministry of Nutrition, Agriculture, and Consumer Protection. The German chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation is hiring a Wikipedian to coordinate the efforts. 'The challenge will be to motivate experts who have done good work in other projects to get involved in the community lexicon. As project director Florian Gerlach told heise online, "Such expert reports are usually written, edited, and published in the normal newspapers or even on other websites. But Wikipedia is radically different: articles there continually grow with input from numerous authors, who often remain anonymous. The end product is constantly changing, and third parties can publish their own texts or even change yours." The future authors will therefore receive some training to help them work with Wikipedia.'"
For the first time, the German edition of the open Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia will be receiving state funding. Germany will be setting aside part of its budget to improve information about renewable resources in Wikipedia.
Paying people to edit wikipedia does not count as donating money. Would we say wikipedia is 'receiving funding from Microsoft' if MS was paying employees to write about MS products?
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
mention the war!
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
The problem will be when the US government funds a secret energy task force to write entries about oil being the energy source for the foreseeable future. I predict a revert war between the US and Germany.
While this project does have good intentions, I can't help but wonder if it might do more harm than good for the green movement. I don't know how things are in Germany, but here in the States, global warming is considered by many to be disputable. As is Wikipedia. Right now one of the strongest things the global warming awareness campaign has going for it is the huge number of scientific articles which support the findings. That's pretty hard to argue against. But if they start pushing information onto anyone-can-edit-Wikipedia, some of the authority is lost.
I can hear them now:
"These pinko liberals would have us believe that the Earth is warming up, because of human activity! And what sources do they have to support this? Wikipedia! Oh, that's right, the website that ANYONE can edit! How convenient!"
Skype is too convoluted... Now I'm reverse-engineering the Kyoto Protocol.
Are there Wiki professionals out there that go around and train people on how to use a wiki? Outstanding! I knew my resume had a blank space that needed filling.
As for the US-based wiki, we may not be professionals but dammit we're a union. Now where did I put that union card anyway...
This will fundamentally change the wiki model, which grew rapidly because it did not require its writers to be accountable to existing standards. That made it popular, but also error-prone. Academia and government are going to take over wikipedia from within, by this model, and while this violates the fundamental ideal of wikipedia, it will improve the content vastly. Maybe there's something to learn here about the wisdom of accountability and peer-review standards that, while imperfect, evolved over time for a reason. It's a very generous move by the Germans, and one I hope others follow.
technical writing / development
Well, there was that tax on Zyklon-B...
*ducks*
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Would we say wikipedia is 'receiving funding from Microsoft' if MS was paying employees to write about MS products?
No, we'd call that "astroturfing."
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
That quote, like everything Ayn Rand, is too damn long
They will likely research what they write, write well and have it sh*t on by the general wikipedia trolls, or worse, people who think they know what they are writing about.
I realize you are being flippant, but you may have hit on a fundamental problem currently lurking in society: most technological and political issues (and especially techno-political issues like copyright) are simply too complex to even describe in less than a page. To say nothing of sound-bites, headlines, and .signature screeds.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
I. G. Metall has organized the new submitters and called a strike. Access to Wikipedia comes to a crashing halt.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
Having government agencies disseminate facts to the public through Wikipedia is certainly more cost effective than having them set up and maintain siloed sites like www.nutrition.com, www.consumer.gov, and www.usda.gov to do the same thing, the way the U.S. government does.
If you tried selling me on the concept before it launched, I would have said it was a nice idea but impossible, like the 19th century utopian societies that collapsed on themselves. While Wiki does have flaws, what it gets right far outstrips what it gets wrong. Color me thoroughly impressed. Before someone goes and says "but it doesn't stack up compared to professionally edited encyclopedias and newspapers and books," let me point out that those sources have just as many flaws. New York Times and Iraqi WMD's anyone? I believe Chariots of the Gods was also a published book, same as Mein Kampf. And didn't I remember hearing about the Million Little Pieces guy totally fooling Oprah with his fictional autobiography? Readers are encouraged to use their own intelligence when assessing the validity of claims made in printed material. Official sources can get it just as wrong as Wiki but they lack the discussion pages for people to hash out the truth.
The best suggestion I've seen is that Wikipedia can go the way of Linux distributions. For those who are willing to do their own fact-checking, they can get the straight dope from Wiki, warts and edit wars and all. For academic distributions, editing boards can decide what to accept from the live articles. It naturally won't be all of Wikipedia, just what pertains to the topics that the editing team think are appropriate for the distro. MIT may pull in a ton of science articles and leave out the articles about countries, TV shows, music, etc. Harvard Business School may concentrate on business history, applicable case law, and other subjects encompassed in the curriculum but find the material MIT covers to be factually correct but outside the interest of the course. These distros can then filter edits through a peer review process to make sure they agree with what's entered. The reputation of the editing board is on the line in these distributions and factual inaccuracies here would incur as much shame as if the error occurred in a peer-reviewed journal.
To extend the comparison to open source, one could consider the academic distros to be the stable fork, straight wiki would be the beta version. The respect and prestige accorded to the various editing boards will be a matter of public opinion. Because the board members are not just anonymous yahoos on the net but people with careers and reputations, the overall quality of work should be higher. And, seeing as all of this knowledge is "open source," original research appearing in an academic distro can always be ported into the real wiki.
I do not think any of this is starry-eyed optimism or unrealistic hippie idealism, I think it is quite realistic and the hard parts have already been demonstrated for the skeptics.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Well the sad thing is about Ayn Rand is that her ideas aren't that complex and sure as hell didn't justify John Galt's 500 page marathon rant. That book went from "Who is John Galt?" to "When the hell will John Galt shut up?" pretty quick.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I'm excited to hear this, but -- wouldn't the Citizendium be more appropriate, given that the experts could actually be recognized as experts, and the work could go towards a recognized polished page?
wikipedia is of course full of smears, propaganda, lies, errors, partisanship, etc. but at least it's a democratic model of such, so you can expect it from all sides: a random cacophony of background noise. your average person's healthy critically minded bullshit meter can weed the useful from the unuseful
;-(
but by linking the government, any government, to wikipedia, now your cacophony has a louder strain of establishment rhetoric and bureaucratic agenda. instead of your bullshit meter going off here and there, now your bullshit meter is on orange alert all the time: those with an agenda aren't random riff raff, now they have dug themselves deeper into the lifeblood of the entire site
there is no such thing as a neutral unbiased source of information. but a site unhinged from corporate ownership or governmental oversight or funding accountability is pretty much as close as you are going to get. involving any outside entity with an agenda, no matter how innocuous the agenda nor how limited the scope of the involvement nor what the model of involvement is, it taints everything about how you must perceive the site if you have a healthy bullshit meter
a shame, just a bloody awful development because i love wikipedia, but now i love it a little less
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The obligatory Ayn Rand quote that I feel is applicable here: One of these words does not belong with the rest.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Yeah, like the "free market" will be unbiased. If you leave it to those people all you get is a brochure of product ads and loads of spam, even if it means the death of Wikipedia.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
This issue is ideal for a soundbite. "Government stipends for thinkers? Sounds good for thinkers who are the politicians' lap dogs, producing their propaganda for them".
-- Support a free market in the field of government
When calling other people stupid, it's best to use big words like "too" and "she" correctly.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
You'd think in Germany they might be especially wary of 'consensus' history projects, especially within a political context. And about privacy laws too, for that matter (cf. the Google/Gmail story from Saturday).
Then again, maybe not...
=======
Science -- Sealed, Delivered.
Good answer. :)
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Her ideas are complex, and have many interesting ramifications - just like Karl Marx. Now I realize that in most ways she was the antithesis of Karl Marx, but IMNSHO she makes the same fundamental mistake as Karl Marx - she appears to place too much faith in her fellow human being. Of course, I've only read one book (Anthem) by her, so I'm definitely no expert on her thinking. I'm basing this mainly on that book (recently read), but I'm also basing it on how her "supporters" describe her philosophy (which largely agrees with what I got out of the book).
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
The neo-Nazi party, the NPD - and others - are not banned. In parts of Germany they have elected members and considerable power and influence. They differ only slightly from the Nazi party - and that is only because aspects of what they believe in are censored by German Law (The censorship laws are actually part of the problem - they drive neo-Nazi's underground and mask their true numbers). In my experience, as one who is not German but has lived in Berlin for many years, the rise of the neo-Nazis is much greater than the average German in the street realises. There is a significant and growing problem with extreme right wing behavior modern Germany. The Nazi's seem to be smarter this time round. They are making legal changes much more slowly this time, but it is happening.
Seemingly small things, like the decision to mark the site of Hitler's bunker, or the decision to remove the Palast Der Republik in favour of a rebuilt Schloss, are all giving the extreme right more power and influence.
Modern Germans need to wake up to this before it is too late -- again.
Specifically to the Wikipedia thing though - yes, there is a real danger, nay likelihood, of neo-Nazis hijacking that. However, that is simply a function of the fundamental problem with Wikipedia -- cabals rule all. In this, Germany is no different to Microsoft, to Scientology, to the Ayn Rand lovers in the WikiFoundation itself, or indeed to any and all with an agenda and resources.
The fundamental problem with Wikipedia is its delusions of authority, and its designs on the same. If people stopped taking it seriously it would be one hell of a lot more useful and authoritative.
The late, great Anne is invoked:
You might have a point, if this were anything more than a efficiency motivated form change. The experts are already spending their time writing the same material over and over for newspapers. Contributing source material to Wikipedia instead does nothing but save time.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
> That book went from "Who is John Galt?" to "When the hell will John Galt shut up?" pretty quick.
I once attempted to read Atlas Shrugged at a local Barnes and Noble with the assistance of a B-vitamin injection and an intrepid Sherpa guide with a BA in English literature.
We got as far as the fiftieth page of the John Galt monologue, and then I had to abandon the effort after poor Lobsang went mad and hurled himself into the espresso maker at the Starbucks next door.
Ayn Rand wrote:
Have you ever wondered about the mentality of those who advocate government financing of intellectual and artistic pursuits, in the name of intellectual independence and creative freedom?Actually, I'm quite sane Ms. Rand; thanks.
I wrote (#19300097):
There are some things that monopolies, like governments, can better provide than many smaller competing companies; infrastructure and technology research are two of the most important ones. The simple reason for this is that monopolies can be relatively sure that they will be around in many years' time to reap the benefits of their investments, whereas in a hypercompetitive market, risk is higher and the "rational" investor will focus on smaller, shorter-term investments; this maximizes his expected return.You see: if government doesn't fund research, who will? Gone are the days of Bell Labs.
Also, Ms. Rand, you forget: The absence of civic government does not imply the existence of individual freedom. Quite the contrary: Civic government is a necessary check on corporate government.
You mention...
Ayn Rand wrote:
the fear, the intrigues, the rigid censorship, and the abject bootlicking in which and with which the recipients of governmental favors have to live moment by precarious moment. Are you so naive, Ms. Rand, to think that politics is unique to organizations run by the State?Anarcho-capitalist "libertarianism" is no recipe for freedom.
Ayn Rand wrote:
How can today's intellectuals fail to know it? ...which -- funny thing, this -- is also my question, exactly.> Again, whether that is a good or a bad POV is not, actually, relevant.
That is a nice way to muddy the waters of our very existence. Taking your approach leads down the road of questioning even the most basic and well established theories and facts about life, the universe and everything. Nothing in their funding stipulates the advancement of a certain POV, they are essentially funding scientists at large (within Germany anyway) to contribute whatever their professional views are to Wikipedia, which can eventually lead to a sort of peer reviewing process in a public forum. Nothing prevents dissenters from disputing any material presented on a Wikipedia page, the hope is that over time these battles of authority will result in a more authoritative Wikipedia, and will perhaps also let them refine an authority-based editing system. The only ones that should be afraid of a rational discourse in a public forum should be those without a rational basis.
...and, will they allow anyone to edit these articles? That's the spirit of a Wiki, right? It's all fine to hire a bunch of smarter monkeys to write for you, but when your "editor" is the rest of us (relatively by comparison) retarded monkeys, I don't see how paying for the initial content makes a difference.
"Such expert reports are usually written, edited, and published in the normal newspapers or even on other websites. But Wikipedia is radically different: articles there continually grow with input from numerous authors, who often remain anonymous. The end product is constantly changing, and third parties can publish their own texts or even change yours." The future authors will therefore receive some training to help them work with Wikipedia.'"
The last person to try recruiting people to edit Wikipedia for money got banned, and his reputation besmirched by the screaming idiots who administer Wikipedia. Fortunately he doesn't care now
There's only one problem with editing Wikipedia as an expert - you'll be buried by the hordes of ignoramuses who know better than you because they've got Google and there's more of them than there is of you.
If you're of a classical bent, you'd call it a Sisyphian struggle - but if you're on Slashdot you'd call it "shovelling shit against the tide".
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
What exactly gave you the impression that the POV of someone who is paid is less valid than the POV of someone who isn't? Note also that scientists already publish as part of their jobs, just not in such an accessible forum. They also seem to be quite concerned about their reputations in their fields of expertise, almost as if their sources of funding were tied to the quality of their work and their publishing history.
The only problem I see with this idea is that not enough people who fund scientists are promoting it.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
As a contributor to Wikipedia, the idea that a foreign government is targeting Wikipedia to "improve" articles to reflect its point of view and policies (make no mistake, despite whatever they're calling it, that's what this is) makes me deeply uncomfortable, and I'm not even certain this is legal under current Wikipedia rules and practices.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Rumor has it George W. is going to fund a rewrite of the entry on evolution.
...think this is a very good way to spend money. If money is put into school system, it might be to build new gyms, give teachers a 20 cent raise, maybe a few more computers; if money is put into writing articles for wikipedia, money goes straight to making information available to the public. Very truly making it a 'free encyclopedia' and a reliable compendium of knowledge. I think it could also be beneficial to mark wikipedia articles written by certified professionals on the subject, or something similar.
I'm more or less familiar with the arguments about this decision and I think the decision's both wrong and wasteful, but how do you figure it empowers the extreme right?
PenguiNet: the (shareware) Windows SSH client
It is not hypothetical. Here is a testimony of one such person.
As long as the people are paid to improve the quality per Wikipedia standards, rather than to promote a particular POV, I consider such "hired editors" for a contribution.
Every time I go to a public showing of the nazis (yes, the courts have to allow it unless there's a very good reason not to; right of public assembly is sacred after all) there are at least 10-50 times as many people demonstrating against them as there are nazis. That feels good. No actually it's terrible that there's even just ONE nazi standing there, shouting seriously stupid things. It breaks my heart that yound and old people are among them. The old one will die out naturally, but the young ones are just desperate, which really is a shame. At least the government has quite some money put into projects to show kids what happened in the 3rd Reich and to root out the cause of frustration. Not enough in my opinion, but they don't stop with it at least.
Germany has not forgotten. Not at all. Come over here and you will see. Ask Jews who live here now, even they will tell you that. We have many, many museums, pieces of art, historic sites and whatnot treating the 3rd Reich critically, none of which try to glorify anything that happened back then - it's the brutal truth.
As to Wikipedia: No, there's no danger of Nazis hijacking it. Firstly, it's not at all in their area of interest (why would they care about environmental issues?) and secondly there are about 83 million Germans who are no Nazis (out of 83.x million) who will report/fix any hijacked site.
And it's great that our government does this - others should do the same. Knowledge for the people for free in an accessible form. Great!
Wikipedia seems to be run entirely by science geeks who never figured out that highschool and TV are brainwashing tactics. How sad for a bunch who supposedly take pride in using their brains that they should have been so easily tricked.
Thus, in Wikipedia, if it doesn't fit with conventional wisdom, it isn't in there.
This is fine if I need to look up how jet engines work or what the capital of Sweden is, but if you want to look up anything which hedges into areas which are controlled, then you might as well forget it. You'll just get loads of false wisdom spat at you with cult-like vehemence.
The genius of the New Big Brother is that Thought is self-policed these days. Who needs Orwell?
Congratulations, humanity. That paper bag trap is going to baffle you for a long time yet.
-FL
It would, but Larry Sanger is kind of a joke, and nobody cares about his sour grapes over leaving Wikipedia with a "you'll be sorry!" and seeing it flourish without him.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
They're German. They're going to be editing the German Wikipedia, which is, unless you speak German, not the one you've been editing.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
One of the nice things is that nobody gets paid to do Wikipedia, no matter how highly respected they are, or how much work they've put in. How does someone who has the official imprimatur of the Foundation compare with them in terms of prestige or authority? With a retired person who spends eight hours a day fixing typos and essentially being one of the little gnomes that makes everything run smoothly?
The Essjay incident should have put the kibosh on credentialism; users should be evaluated by the work that they put in and nothing else. I fear that this sort of sponsored participation will lead the paid contributors to think that they're more authoritative than the folks who just do it for the love of the project.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
More train articles on Wikipedia.
(I completely misread the point of the article from the linked text).
Only two people are paid. They coordinate the efforts of the experts and organize Wikipedia trainings.
I know the parent is off-topic but so are all those uninformed comparisons to Germany's past.
Maybe you should remind yourself from time to time that there was more to the war than just who won it and who lost it.
Germany's past is not a fscking joke. It should be a lesson to everyone.
(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
Obligatory Rand quote? I expected something more like "blood and bloody ashes!" or "I am the Lord of the Morning!"
...what?
Paying people to edit articles on Wikipedia raises questions of bias and propaganda. What's next? Is the German government going to pay people to have its view on taxes, education, religion, etc. edited into Wikipedia?
If the German government wants to support Wikipedia, they should donate hardware and bandwidth.
I'd really like to see more of university student's contribution in wikipedia(s). There's a lot of work being done all over the world by millions of students every year. Tapping into that source would really help wikipedia to grow. With professors and lecturers checking their work anyway, they'd be already peer reviewed by the experts. I wouldn't have minded if some of my work would have been shared to the community - instead of just being buried within my backups. Even lower level schoolwork could be beneficial. Reports on this famous person or that small town could really be useful to someone.
We've had one US President for 6 years now. In 6 years, how many CEO's have been fired? How many companies have failed, or have lost revenue or value while their competitors have grown?
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Comparing apples to oranges. You must compare ONE company to one government, or all companies to all governments:
In 6 years, how many prime ministers in the world have been dismissed? How many countries have changed government, or have lost power or influence while their competitors have grown?
There, corrected for you.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Even by that metric I think corporations win. Except the US government has vastly more power in and of itself than all US corporations put together (this is why corporations try to control the government)--so if you go by quantity of power, comparing one government to several companies is correct.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
I assume the articles in German will be written. But to the invention of web language digester Babelfish giving thanks, entire Worldsurface from this gift benefit can. Among others I wish our new machine translated feudal barons to welcome!
Paid-for studies are one thing, but virtually every scientist has to compete for outside funding, whether that be for jobs at a major corporation, or grants, or access to special facilities. Yet we rarely question scientists research, unless it says "our products are incredibly good" or "our competitors products are bad". Yes, there are the exceptions of global warming, etc., where there is a vocal minority who disagree. Peer review compensates for this, and I think you'll see a fair number of reviews from the public if anything subtle or egregious gets submitted to wikipedia.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Global warming is neither science, nor politics. It is a religion.