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This discussion relates to Technology Review's article Who's Messing with Wikipedia?.

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  johnsonha143
  

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  02/06/2009 08:38 AM

  Faith in Wikipedia

  My kids have told me that their teachers advised them against using Wikipedia because it's sources are often in question.
  
  I tell them to take it for what it's worth. If you want a general idea on a particular topic, turn to Wikipedia. But if you want solid information that you can count on, don't consider Wikipeida the end-all be-all. Certainly, research on!
  
  HJ
  Waldorf, MD
  

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  protn7
  

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  02/06/2009 08:47 AM

  Hackers on wikipedia

  I had a biography talking about my scientific achievements on wikipedia. I do not personally know who wrote it but my admirers were accurate. Then some Internet hackers and stalkers that had a bizarre conspiracy to ruin my reputation hacked into wikipedia and changed some of the info there and that lead wikipedia to cancel my rights to publish on their web pages while letting the Internet stalkers publish a lot of slanderous garbage on my biography. Will somebody please tell the editors at wikipedia about this?
  I have told my local police about this and my state attorney general and they are investigating the conspirators.
  protn7@att.net

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  • 
    smithsomian
    

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    02/07/2009 02:54 PM

    Re: Hackers on wikipedia

    Apparently its this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Farbstein
    
    First google return for his email address: http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=22333
    
    Although I have no position in this matter, I do question what he means by "hackers" and why exactly the police or attorney general would be getting involved in a dispute over his wikipedia page.

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    • 
      N O M
      

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      06/02/2009 05:09 PM

      Re: Hackers on wikipedia

      I'm one of those that Neil is accusing. But no hack has ever been done on Neil.
      Farbstein has been banned from several websites,  for fraudulent spam and/or for abusive posting.
      It's curious that the ID that wrote Neil's wikipedia page is the same one that Neil is complaining that was later disallowed, yet Neil claims he doesn't know who wrote it.

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• 
  Daniel Tunkelang
  

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  02/06/2009 10:47 AM

  Wikipedia: not perfect, but still the best

  I understand that Wikipedia isn't perfect, and that a lot of folks enjoy kicking them around (e.g., Nicholas Carr, who is on Britannica's board of editorial advisors). But Wikipedia is the best information source in the world. Its accuracy is quite good for uncontroversial topics, and most topics aren't controversial. Its breadth is astounding--to the point where I'm shocked when I discover important topics that *don't* have Wikipedia entries.
  
  My primary concern with Wikipedia is that, because they chose a path of not requiring authors to robustly identify themselves, they set themselves up for controversy. Even though the actual abuses represent a small fraction of the entries, they loom large in public perception. This is the one thing (but the only thing) that Google's Knol project got right.
  
  More thoughts on my blog here.

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    edchi
    

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    02/12/2009 06:55 PM

    Re: Wikipedia: not perfect, but still the best

    Your POV exactly the motivation behind the work we did with WikiDashboard.  We believe, however, that you could achieve the same thing without having to go a more stringent authorship model by using a social transparency model.   The incentive model right now still encourages as much participation as possible, but at some point, the choice might be a tension between quality vs. quantity.

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  CStroliaDavis
  

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  02/06/2009 02:16 PM

  Not necessarily worse than other media

  I used to believe that the textbooks that I read in school were always accurate until later in life I had found instances where things that I believed to be true, simply because my textbook said it was, turned out to be incorrect. I can't remember the specifics now, but I do recall being embarrassed at least a couple of times.
  
  I think people need to realize that all printed media, indeed, any message, from any media can be suspect and could potentially be incorrect.
  
  One thing I have really liked about Wikipedia specifically is the back and forth, behind the scenes controversy. I feel like I get a better handle on the truth when I am able to go back there and see all the different sides of the story. How often can you do that with a textbook, magazine, newpaper or other article.
  
  Sometimes these sources are technically "correct", but don't really cover enough of the subject to really give you the true story.
  
  I have come to live by this philosophy. If the information is not critical for my life or profession and it does not defy what I feel certain is true, I generally accept it, however, I do not put any weight on that acceptance until I can prove that information out through my own experiences.
  
  All information is ultimately suspect. if it helps me live my life and adds positive value to it and others, then I use it. If it doesn't, I don't.

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    smithsomian
    

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    02/13/2009 02:13 AM

    Re: Not necessarily worse than other media

    the things that they teach us in school, especially history are very suspect and inaccurate.
    
    Heck, I graduated from high school thinking that Columbus discovered America.  What a pack of lies, he never got closer than Cuba.  There is no evidence that he ever realized that North America was here.  That's probably why it's named after Amerigo Vespucci instead of being called Columbia.  Not once did I ever hear anything taught about Amerigo when I went to school.
    
    So, if they are going to lie about something as basic as that, what else are they going to lie about??? 
    
    How about the origins of Thanksgiving which was a celebration alright, but it was celebrating how they had repaid the indians who had helped them to survive, by killing them and stealing their land.
    
    There are a heck of a lot of lies being taught by the official sources.  I'll take controversy any day.  At least then the disagreement is out in the open.
    
    WikiDashBoard sounds like a good idea.

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  nishant kumar
  

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  02/07/2009 03:26 AM

  The most accessible articles

  The Wikipedia encyclopedia is one of the most accessible in the world. Wikipedia itself signifies an important development in Internet browsing, by providing casual internet users like myself with quick available information on the topic we want to read about. Okay lets face it, Wikipedia is not perfect but atleast it contains broad information relevant to many of the important topics. It quickly gives us a perception and an idea of what the topic is about.
  
  A highschool student myself, my observations are that many of the educational topics on Wikipedia are quite accurate.By my standards Wikipedia is a free educational tool, as that is its main purpose, to educate.
  
  People would scramble for information prior to the creation of Wikipedia. Today information is available in a click of a button.It is the largest encyclopedia written by the public, for the public.
  
  However, I do agree that improvements do need to be made. As far as accuracy is concerned I do have a suggestion for Wikipedia. My suggestion is that they should have a relevance poll for each article, so people can vote how relevant the information in the article is. This will improve Wikipedia standards as people can judge by the polls how relevant the information is.
  

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  fiberman
  

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  02/08/2009 02:48 AM

  Better Alternatives

  Wikipedia might well have worked had its contributors been vetted and the submissions edited. Instead, it's about as trustworthy - and often as funny -  as YouTube but nowhere nearly as interesting.
  The Fiber Optic Association, the professional society of fiber optics, tried to contribute on some fiber optic topics with the notion that we could reference them for our members and students seeking our fiber optic certifications. Several times, we found contributions edited or replaced by obviously commercial entries. Such behavior is particularly bad since the sources remain unknown to readers. We concluded that Wikipedia was being used for viral marketing and not likely to be a trustworthy source of technical information.
  As a result, we have created our own reference website for fiber optics (http://www.thefoa.org/tech/ref/) that has a single editor and known reliable sources. We offer it to the public for general use at no cost.
  We recommend other non-profits consider similar action.
  

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  • 
    WikipediaBias
    

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    02/10/2009 01:15 AM

    Re: Better Alternatives

    Since this site is from MIT, I'm sure the ultra-bright MIT students have seen a major problem with your comment. Namely, that it isn't our "job" to fix WP entries. If WP is relying on the rest of us to fix their entries, isn't that an indictment of their whole concept? If we assume there are just 10,000 biased or inaccurate-by-being-incomplete entries in WP, even a hundred people would take months to make sure that the truth stuck in those entries, unless they gave up and those who were spreading disinfo won.
    
    And, all during that time period, the uncorrected entries would be spreading inaccurate information.
    
    If all you're interested in is science, WP is probably not that bad. But, the problem is that millions of other people are interested in topics like politics, and those who turn to WP for information on that topic are receiving inaccurate information.
    
    If you want large numbers of uninformed or misinformed people, WP is great.

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      fiberman
      

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      02/11/2009 01:54 PM

      HYPE-Re: Better Alternatives

      Most of the comments regarding the veracity of WP focus on politics and history but my concerns are about technology. Numerous people seem bent on using WP to rewrite history (The victors write history and the losers write fiction as someone said.) But many of the tech entries appear to be done by those with commercial interest and, while I have no problems with "White Paper" marketing, I do have a problem with technology articles purporting to be unbiased being advertisements. Unless WP identifies the authors, I consider the material untrustworthy.

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