Slashdot Mirror
Interview: Ask Jimmy Wales What You Will
The last time we talked to Jimmy Wales Wikipedia had just reached the 300,000 article mark, and there was some question about whether it would be a viable competitor to World Book or Encyclopedia Britannica. Things have changed a little since then. Wikipedia now includes over 26 million articles in 285 languages, and Wales is advising the UK government on making taxpayer-funded academic research available for free online. Jimmy has agreed to answer your questions about internet freedom and the enormous growth of Wikipedia. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.
Why did you try to find Eric Snowdon's editor account, a clear violation of Wikipedia rules?
Why do you assume he is guilty, and thus worthy of outing, when you have not been privy to all of the evidence pro- or con- his actions (and whether they constitute a crime), since you are not sitting on the Jury at his trial?
Do you feel they are a problem? If so, what should be done?
http://milowent.blogspot.com/2011/03/wikipedia-deletionists-delete-article.html
Currently, Wikipedia Foundation is a single point of failure. It is not difficult to imagine various Alexandria Library scenarios in which Humanity looses crucial information.
Instead of begging people for monetary donations to Wikimedia Foundation, wouldn't it be better to ask for donations of storage and bandwidth to keep the whole thing reduntant and de-centralized? Are there any ongoing efforts to change Wikipedia's model in this direction?
There's the notion that the information on wikipedia can be editted for anyone, and referencing wikipedia sometimes brings a smile.
I always wondered why Wikipedia does not ask known experts for article certification. For example, you as the co-founder of wikipedia could certify that a section of the wikipedia wiki article (or the entire wiki article for wikipedia) was correct. Maybe you could even pay in some cases.
Has this ever been considered, or do you have any other ideas on how to get wikipedia to be received as a irrefutable source of information?
Make a legitimate edit on a controversial article that fails to indulge the bias of an admin and you'll learn all about the ways admins have to ostracize non-admin contributors. Are you aware of this and if so, what has been done recently or what is planned to moderate abuse by admins? How frequently are admin privileges revoked for abuse? I hope this is frequent because I know for fact the abuse is frequent.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
On a more serious note, I'd like to ask Mr. Wales why most Wikipedia "editors" are "Class A" douchbags. Especially the "Admins".
This will be modded "flamebait" but it's a serious question.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It seems like most major articles are "owned" by some editors who want to impose their own views and opinions on them. The rules of Wikipedia seem to be designed to facilitate this. The only solution seems to be for other editors to sit on the article constantly undoing the other editors edits.
It's a war of attrition and it seems like the bad guys mostly win. A lot of good editors have given up. I gave up, tried it again a few years later and gave up again. Many previously good articles are now full of industry shill references and obviously biased rubbish. The quality of Wikipedia is degrading steadily over time.
What is being done to reverse this trend? Can anything be done, or is this as good as a wiki gets?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Back in 2011 the AP reported that you commented that the ranks of Editors was slowly dwindling. "We are not replenishing our ranks...it is not a crisis, but I consider it to be important." What's have you and Wikipedia done to address that? Do you see problems do you think need to be addressed with the editor population? What do you think is working well with Editors? How hands on are you with the editor population?
I would like to know 2 things:
1) What and when is Wiki going to do something about data sets? By this I mean having easy to access, modular data sets which can be used across articles in a user understandable format (ie: a format users can interact with while maintaining the underlying structure needed for templates)
2) What is being done to simplify Wiki code? Here's an example of what a mess it can be:
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Approval?action=edit I created this template to do this: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Approval which should be simple but due to the convoluted mess that is wiki code it ballooned into something virtually unreadable.
3) Will citations ever evolve beyond "here's a generic link to a page on the subject"?
4) Is there an effort underway to clarify complex topic pages such as maths & chemistry which use abstract, unlinkable, symbols?
5) Will we ever see summary previews for links? ie: hover over a wiki link to get the summary of the topic instead of the tooltip.
6) Are their any plans for article perspectives? ie:
Instead of having the following articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_years_in_Canada
etc
etc
That you have a single article with tabbed perspectives?
Thanks for your answers!