Slashdot Mirror
Interview: Jimmy Wales Answers Your Questions
A while ago you had a chance to ask Jimmy Wales about the amazing growth of Wikipedia, and his role advising the UK government in making academic research available online. Below you'll find his answers to your questions.
Collaboration with National Libraries
by robcfg
I'd like to ask if there's the possibility of collaborating with National Libraries in scanning material (specially +25 year books) and let people access them. I know there's a lot of material just gathering dust and I see a potential for collaboration.
Wales: Our community, particularly through local chapters, is engaging increasingly in partnerships and collaborations with galleries, libraries, and museums, but there hasn't been very much work done to date on scanning per se. In general, we aren't necessarily the right partner for that sort of thing - we are a community of writers, editors, photographers, etc., rather than a hosting service for scanned materials. Having said that, fortunately there are some great projects who are working on this sort of thing. Take a look at http://archive.org/scanning as a leading exemplar.
Editing of Information
by sylivin
Wikipedia has become so large that students and youth in particular deem it the official truth. As such governments, companies, and individuals will constantly try to spin that to their own advantage.
Do you believe you will ever be able to reconcile with governments in regards to information they deem classified showing up on Wikipedia and private citizens that consider articles about them to be libel? Or, perhaps, is that just a fight you will need to struggle against for all eternity?
Wales: Human beings will never stop quarreling. It's part of the glorious nature of our species. Government will never cease being stupid and overstepping their boundaries. That, too, is part of the human condition.
The real question is: can open systems adapt and respond in mostly effective ways to deal with the worst of it? And the answer to that is clearly YES.
SPOF
by Anonymous Coward
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 redundant and de-centralized? Are there any ongoing efforts to change Wikipedia's model in this direction?
Wales: The Wikimedia Foundation is not a single point of failure. There are many people and organizations who do backups which are already redundant and de-centralized, and this is in addition to our own internal backup strategy. If the Wikimedia Foundation were to vanish tomorrow, anyone could take the archives (freely licensed!) and start again tomorrow.
This is one of the key reasons why I've been so firm over the years that Wikipedia must be freely licensed.
Certified articles?
by rjlouro
There's the notion that the information on wikipedia can be edited 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?
Wales: This is what I would consider to be a fallacious line of thinking. There's a notion that the way to get the very highest quality information is to have an expert certify it. But there's actually little evidence that this is true. There is far more evidence that the best way to get to high quality information is to have a thoughtful, open, public dialog and discussion and debate. To ask anyone with a concern to come forward and voice it reasonably. And to respond quickly and openly to errors.
So, no, I doubt if we'd consider stepping back to an antiquated way of thinking.
Game of Articles
by AmiMoJo
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?
Wales: Every aspect of this question is false. No major articles are "owned" by anyone. The rules of Wikipedia are designed to prevent this.
There is a bit of a war of attrition in some cases - but it is overwhelmingly the case that the good guys win.
All evidence is that the quality of Wikipedia has steadily increased over time. It is not perfect. It needs more work. There are problems, even problems with people trying to sit on articles. But the ongoing improvement of Wikipedia will continue.
As a side note, usually people who have this complaint fade into the background when asked to justify it, or show me an example - and in the vast majority of cases it turns out that the complaint is really "Why am *I* not allowed to own this article?"
Interactive tours and applications
by MassiveForces
Some of my fondest memories as a child was firing up the old 486 and playing through the interactive quests and games in Encarta. Some of them were timelines and guided learning experiences, others were programs that simulated things like gravity and orbits, and I liked playing with some software that could model particle behavior based on your parameters to describe gas diffusion and so on.
My question is, will Wikipedia ever be able to flex any interactive multimedia muscle, and create a more interactive and guided experience for young learners? People may be willing to devote their time writing out separate articles in the pages of an encyclopedia, but I imagine attracting multimedia development would be difficult (unless you can find whoever has been wasting their time writing a plethora of useless apps for browsers and mobiles).
Wales: I really hope we'll see more of this in the future. One problem that we've had is that for a significant period of time, Adobe Flash, which was a Frankenstein's monster of horrifically stupid and broken and proprietary technology, sucked the wind out of efforts to do interesting open multimedia. The ongoing and glorious demise of Flash is going to help a whole new generation of developers do more interesting things, in a freely licensed way. At least: I hope so.
Editors Dwindling
by Kagato
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?
Wales: Things have mostly stabilized. It's still not a crisis, but I still consider it to be important. One of the most exciting developments is the visual editor, which I hope will bring in a whole new class of editors who were turned off by the complexities of wikitext. As I put it: there are lots of geeks who aren't computer geeks.
Wikicurriculums & Wikitextbooks
by PortHaven
When can we see this be developed? I know there is a start with Wikitextbooks. But they seem sporadic. I think we could create an entire curriculum and support library (textbooks) to accompany said curriculum. And have it freely available for all...
Wales: I agree, but it's a really big job. :-) I think it will come in due course, but leadership is needed. I hope something awesome emerges, possibly from the fast-growing MOOC movement.
by robcfg
I'd like to ask if there's the possibility of collaborating with National Libraries in scanning material (specially +25 year books) and let people access them. I know there's a lot of material just gathering dust and I see a potential for collaboration.
Wales: Our community, particularly through local chapters, is engaging increasingly in partnerships and collaborations with galleries, libraries, and museums, but there hasn't been very much work done to date on scanning per se. In general, we aren't necessarily the right partner for that sort of thing - we are a community of writers, editors, photographers, etc., rather than a hosting service for scanned materials. Having said that, fortunately there are some great projects who are working on this sort of thing. Take a look at http://archive.org/scanning as a leading exemplar.
Editing of Information
by sylivin
Wikipedia has become so large that students and youth in particular deem it the official truth. As such governments, companies, and individuals will constantly try to spin that to their own advantage.
Do you believe you will ever be able to reconcile with governments in regards to information they deem classified showing up on Wikipedia and private citizens that consider articles about them to be libel? Or, perhaps, is that just a fight you will need to struggle against for all eternity?
Wales: Human beings will never stop quarreling. It's part of the glorious nature of our species. Government will never cease being stupid and overstepping their boundaries. That, too, is part of the human condition.
The real question is: can open systems adapt and respond in mostly effective ways to deal with the worst of it? And the answer to that is clearly YES.
SPOF
by Anonymous Coward
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 redundant and de-centralized? Are there any ongoing efforts to change Wikipedia's model in this direction?
Wales: The Wikimedia Foundation is not a single point of failure. There are many people and organizations who do backups which are already redundant and de-centralized, and this is in addition to our own internal backup strategy. If the Wikimedia Foundation were to vanish tomorrow, anyone could take the archives (freely licensed!) and start again tomorrow.
This is one of the key reasons why I've been so firm over the years that Wikipedia must be freely licensed.
Certified articles?
by rjlouro
There's the notion that the information on wikipedia can be edited 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?
Wales: This is what I would consider to be a fallacious line of thinking. There's a notion that the way to get the very highest quality information is to have an expert certify it. But there's actually little evidence that this is true. There is far more evidence that the best way to get to high quality information is to have a thoughtful, open, public dialog and discussion and debate. To ask anyone with a concern to come forward and voice it reasonably. And to respond quickly and openly to errors.
So, no, I doubt if we'd consider stepping back to an antiquated way of thinking.
Game of Articles
by AmiMoJo
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?
Wales: Every aspect of this question is false. No major articles are "owned" by anyone. The rules of Wikipedia are designed to prevent this.
There is a bit of a war of attrition in some cases - but it is overwhelmingly the case that the good guys win.
All evidence is that the quality of Wikipedia has steadily increased over time. It is not perfect. It needs more work. There are problems, even problems with people trying to sit on articles. But the ongoing improvement of Wikipedia will continue.
As a side note, usually people who have this complaint fade into the background when asked to justify it, or show me an example - and in the vast majority of cases it turns out that the complaint is really "Why am *I* not allowed to own this article?"
Interactive tours and applications
by MassiveForces
Some of my fondest memories as a child was firing up the old 486 and playing through the interactive quests and games in Encarta. Some of them were timelines and guided learning experiences, others were programs that simulated things like gravity and orbits, and I liked playing with some software that could model particle behavior based on your parameters to describe gas diffusion and so on.
My question is, will Wikipedia ever be able to flex any interactive multimedia muscle, and create a more interactive and guided experience for young learners? People may be willing to devote their time writing out separate articles in the pages of an encyclopedia, but I imagine attracting multimedia development would be difficult (unless you can find whoever has been wasting their time writing a plethora of useless apps for browsers and mobiles).
Wales: I really hope we'll see more of this in the future. One problem that we've had is that for a significant period of time, Adobe Flash, which was a Frankenstein's monster of horrifically stupid and broken and proprietary technology, sucked the wind out of efforts to do interesting open multimedia. The ongoing and glorious demise of Flash is going to help a whole new generation of developers do more interesting things, in a freely licensed way. At least: I hope so.
Editors Dwindling
by Kagato
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?
Wales: Things have mostly stabilized. It's still not a crisis, but I still consider it to be important. One of the most exciting developments is the visual editor, which I hope will bring in a whole new class of editors who were turned off by the complexities of wikitext. As I put it: there are lots of geeks who aren't computer geeks.
Wikicurriculums & Wikitextbooks
by PortHaven
When can we see this be developed? I know there is a start with Wikitextbooks. But they seem sporadic. I think we could create an entire curriculum and support library (textbooks) to accompany said curriculum. And have it freely available for all...
Wales: I agree, but it's a really big job. :-) I think it will come in due course, but leadership is needed. I hope something awesome emerges, possibly from the fast-growing MOOC movement.
One of the features of the academic world is that we students sweat over our essays, only to see them read 2 or 3 times before never being seen or heard of again. If teachers got their classes to write essays on areas needing a Wikipedia article but presently lacking it, there is the potential for good quality new items to enter Wikipedia. And of course once started, additional material, references and corrections can easily made. And the original author gets a sense of ownership of the topic.
If not, I'll just edit it and no-one will be any the wiser...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Over the years, my love for Wikipedia has grown and grown. This is really one of the most beautiful examples of international collaboration over the internet, sharing universal knowledge with the whole planet. Thank you, Jimmy.
Waiting for reply from AmiMoJo :D
The answers were mostly disappointing, and I thought he was more than a bit evasive when it came to any of the operational questions relating to editors. It's pretty clear to me he's quite fine with how the current lot of editors carry things out on a day to day basis. While the WYSIWYG editor is LONG overdue I think they are diluting themselves if they think it's going to solve the dwindling editor issues.
"There's a notion that the way to get the very highest quality information is to have an expert certify it. But there's actually little evidence that this is true."
Certain areas of human knowledge are advanced and enhanced by an open forum leading to something approximating the truth. But there are other areas, especially technical ones, where I don't see this being applicable, not by a long shot. How many people apart from an expert would be qualified writing an article on quantum optics or c++11? Really no one but experts should be writing these articles. I think the fully open nature of wikipedia is a potential weakness, but perhaps through what Wales refers to as a 'war of attrition', it usually gets sorted out for the best.
Still, when it comes to performing open heart surgery, do you want a comittee of concerned citizenes, or a so-called 'expert' heart surgeon?
I see many articles delete because of various reasons rhyming with "Not notable" But this seems to be randomly applied. The smallest details of some 3rd rate TV episode might get an entry but then some small town hero is deleted. Seeing that the entire back and fourth of creation and deletion is stored why can't articles be marked as "Not notable" but then left in place. If the local pizza place puts up an entry it certainly isn't notable but the data is probably factually correct and useful to a few.
I get this feeling that certain editors are way way out of control on some pedantic mission often with an axe to grind.
Okay Jimmy, here is some evidence for you. Look at the Nuclear Power article.
It's been heavily spammed by two editors who own the article. Whenever anyone else tries to improve it their edits get reverted. Boundarylayer is particularly bad, inserting loads of industry shill references. I tried to improve it but eventually gave up, and now it has degenerated into a poor quality article with lots of very obvious bias and weasel words.
If you look at Boundarylayer's edits he has a history of doing this sort of thing, along with several others he associates with (or may even be). The situation is the same every time: attack an article and keep going until they either win and take control of it or get driven away by bans and other sanctions.
To pick another total unrelated example look at the naming fiasco for Japanese manga/anime related articles from a few years ago. A group of editors decided to troll by renaming them all to the western version names. We ended up with, for example, the article on Detective Conan, one of the longest running and most well known series ever, being renamed to "Case Closed" because some shitty American company re-wrote a few episodes and dubbed them into English. I really do mean a few, compared to the 500+ that have been produced. A lot of editors objected but in the end the trolls won and drove all the good guys who added all the well referenced and well written information in the first place away. Unsurprisingly the articles then stagnated and degraded.
Being in denial doesn't help. Wikipedia is supposed to be a community, but actually it's just factions playing some kind of MMORPG by conquering as much of it as possible.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I've corrected spelling errors where there is no possible debate. Literally added one letter or removed an apostrophe. Those edits get reverted by the article's owner within minutes. Fuck Wikipedia and fuck this faggot Jimmy Whales who boldly states this is no problem at all. People like me "fade into the background" because there is no point in wasting any time contributing to this ivory tower bullshit. About 20 seconds is all I'm going to spend correcting something like this. And since Jimmy Whales and the "community" at Wikipedia don't welcome my contributions, I'll not bother wasting anymore time.
Boy, this son of a bitch must really be full of himself. The best question on there asks about this problem, and the asshole says, "all of that is false". Harrumph! Harrumph!
I guess the first clue was how the photo of himself keeps getting bigger and bigger each year.
You wrote:
Those edits get reverted by the article's owner within minutes.
What may have happened: Those edits get reverted by an editor who is acting like he is the article's owner within minutes.
What did happen: Those edits get reverted by another editor within minutes.
--
Dear Slashdotter:
The proper place to complain about other editor's on-wiki behavior is almost always either in a private conversation with them or to do it on-wiki, either on the editor's talk page, the article's talk page, or in one of the project ("Wikipedia:...") pages created for this purpose. Slashdot is not the proper place.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
There's a notion that the way to get the very highest quality information is to have an expert certify it. But there's actually little evidence that this is true.
Basically he's claiming (perhaps unintentionally) that peer review is worthless. That's a pretty bold claim and he doesn't really back it up. While peer review certainly has its flaws, I don't think it can be dismissed out of hand like Mr. Wales is doing here.
Pedantic versions of material seem to win over plainly written material. I have often turned to Wikipedia for some math help. Yet you might take the article on the parabola. At first it would make for great homework help for a student in grade 10. But in a snap of the fingers it has jumped into university level and then is pushing into graduate level in no time. Much of that material could have been better explained. But instead it is filled with specialist notation with plain English diligently excluded. Math by its nature needs to be precise but precision can co-exist with easy to understand. But if you were to dare to edit such an article so as to add plain English explanations you would be shot in the face by some OCD math twerp in under 5 minutes.
My recommendation is that you gut the power of these editors. If I make a change and some editor disagrees, then it should be put to a vote of the users. I am not saying voting on facts but the presentation of the facts. Also there needs to be a way to neuter some of these OCD editors. Again a vote would be one way. If you find an out of control editor you could make a case, put it to some kind of jury and then boom, they are gone.
Jimmy,
You really couldn't tell Clark Kent is just Superman with glasses?
A sense of ownership over articles is one of Wikipedia's most cited problems. It's one thing for it to devolve naturally, but these are people who are by and large going to be naturally defensive of their work to begin with.
Comments are generally not deleted in Slashdot. Maybe you were browsing with a score threshold high enough and your questions were already downmodded.
HTH did the "Certified articles?" question get enough upvotes to warrant an answer? Anybody with even a cursory knowledge of the history of Wikipedia knows the answer to this. (Hint: Its been tried before. That's how we got Wikipedia in the first place)