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

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  donnachadelong
  

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  02/16/2009 05:15 PM

  One problem

  Some of the most heated topics (such as Anarchism or Communism) have chased editors off Wikipedia (myself included). People who actually know about the topic decide that life's too short and give up. Thus, the level of edits decreases - not a sign of it being less controversial, just an example of how some of the most hardcore point-of-view pushers can take over the site. Check out the weight given to the incredibly marginal idea of anarcho-capitalism on the Anarchism entry.

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  Netizen
  

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  02/18/2009 04:16 AM

  Revising History

  As a child we may have played the game of forming a large circle of friends. Someone whispers a story into the ear of the person to their left, that person repeats the story to the person to their left, and so it goes around the circle. Often the story that gets back around to the original story-teller does not resemble the original tale. Now enter Wikipedia. Someone changes a seemingly insignificant fact here, and someone else alters a fact there. Without proper oversight the Wikipedia could become so hopelessly mangled with subtle inaccuracies that it could take many years for volunteers to fix the facts IF the effort is even viable. Will Marx suddenly become as endearing of an historical political figure as Kennedy, perhaps a champion of free enterprise fighting a hostile KGB and conservative regime? Will Kennedy morph into a traitor whom the CIA needed to assassinate to stop WWIII? Will a revelation surface about Hitler's secret opposition to the mass murder against the Jewish population in Germany, and ultimate assassination when it became known he was a Nazi traitor secretly working with the U.S. government to overthrow Nazism? The possibilities for bending history into pretzel shapes that conform to various idealogical agendas and extreme political views seems endless. Like a slowly forming cancer it could be happening one sentence at a time. I just hope a combination of backing up Wiki articles to write-only CD-ROMs and these software programs will create forensic audit trails to original Wiki articles sources, showing all subtle nuances in changes, and using linguistic algorithms to flag administrators through email alerts to changes in article meaning, content and substance. The ultimate reality check in the future might require vigilant information consumers to maintain traditional libraries of books on book shelves in their homes and offices (such as encyclopedias of various sorts) to test the legitimacy of information they find on Wiki before assuming the information is correct.

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  sr31jones
  

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  04/09/2009 09:24 AM

  New actors and mediation

  I have some questions and I'd like to know what do you think about it.
  Interesting to notice how an information's vigilant can emerge as a new actor in this scenario of "true or false" contents in wikipedia.
  Do you think this could be a solution even if it makes the publications slower?
  I was also wondering to know how the edition is done by wikipedia editors. Since they are all volunteers and the primary idea of Wikipedia is having no authors, which are the motivations to keep doing this job?

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  wrrock
  

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  04/21/2009 09:28 PM

  Academics

  Part of academics is going after the ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS to which an encyclopedia draws conclusions from. I do not think great teachers tell students to stay away because it is more inaccurate than other sources. Rather, there is scholarship in analyzing the original writings of Columbus and drawing similar conclusions or slightly different.
  
  To take Wikipedia at face value ignores the critical thinking element absent in much of the education students receive today. So I therefore applaud teachers that make such decisions.

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  lavrics
  

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  04/23/2009 08:07 AM

  Correcting Wikipedia...

  In my youth, I once had a senior person tell me, "If you see something that is wrong and do not take actions to correct it, you have just set the new standard". That point of view seems to be most appropriate for the wiki concept.

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