wikipedia co-founder criticises wikpedia

Stuart · 25-10-2005, 22:17

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10...ality_problem/

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has admitted that there are quality problems with some of the articles on wikipedia.

It seems to me that the strength of wikipedia (the fact that it can be updated by anyone) is also it's greatest weakness because there is no real peer review system in place.

Peer review is a system where fellow "experts" in a subject question what is published in papers, in an effort to refine those papers.

25-10-2005, 22:46

Hmm yeah somebody changed the definition of my college on there to 'an extermination camp in Northern England'

punky · 25-10-2005, 23:20

I must admit, I don't tend to find a problem with quality. Constistency maybe... Because are articles are written by different authors, it isn't as consistent as say the Encylopedia Britannica or something, but being updated by anyone seems to help it.

On paper, Wikipedia shouldn't work... but somehow, it just does.

Matth · 25-10-2005, 23:28

Precisely - I'd say it's crazy that anyone can edit without joining, when most forums have been forced to limit guest postion to at most a tiny "can't login" corner, moderated with an iron boot.

Though maybe not so crazy, since that means the regulars will have much less trust of ip-address tagged, non-member changes, wheras if every ******* vandal was forced to log in, they would be harder to spot.

The main problems are:
1. Vandalism - adding junk, deleting entire pages or sections.
1a. Incompetence vandalism - saving test junk instead of previewing.
2. Link spam
3. Well meaning, but wrong - adding information that requires a few tweaks is forgivable, messing up previously correct information is not.

The "good people" are the content creators and the helpful wikifiers - you do sometimes find a near symbiotic pair, where the raw input from one gets a dust-over by the other, though it helps if the content creator gets better at wiki wrangling, though if you know that "X" always makes good and sensible edits, then you don't feel the need to crosscheck.

The saddest thing is when you get two people in something that falls one step short of a full scale edit war.

There is also a different dynamic in articles that are already way down the multi-edit, multi-contributor line, and those which are being maintained by one person - NOT really ideal for a wiki. In fact, if you are the only contributor on a topic, wiki is far from ideal.

punky · 25-10-2005, 23:50

It must be quite rare, instances of those things happening. I use Wiki quite a lot, and never noticed anything like that. I do double check a lot of things, and they always appear accurate.
__________________

Let's not forgot though, Wikipedia is more than an encyclopedia. They developed a free content management system (which powers Wikipedia itself). Even without wikipedia, the backend content management system alone deserves a hearty pat on the back.

Stuart · 26-10-2005, 00:49

Actually, I wasn't having a go a wikipedia. I quite enjoy reading it myself (although I don't use it as my only source of info).