Technology Review
The back-and-forth behind controversial entries could help reveal their true value.
Despite warnings from many high-school teachers and college professors, Wikipedia is one of the most-visited websites in the world (not to mention the biggest encyclopedia ever created). But even as Wikipedia's popularity has grown, so has the debate over its trustworthiness. One of the most serious concerns remains the fact that its articles are written and edited by a hidden army of people with unknown interests and biases.
Ed Chi, a senior research scientist for augmented social cognition at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and his colleagues have now created a tool, called WikiDashboard, that aims to reveal much of the normally hidden back-and-forth behind Wikipedia's most controversial pages in order to help readers judge for themselves how suspect its contents might be.
Wikipedia already has procedures in place designed to alert readers to potential problems with an entry. For example, one of Wikipedia's volunteer editors can review an article and tag it as "controversial" or warn that it "needs sources." But in practice, Chi says, relatively few articles actually receive these tags. WikiDashboard instead offers a snapshot of the edits and re-edits, as well as the arguments and counterarguments that went into building each of Wikipedia's many million pages.
The researchers began by investigating pages already tagged as "controversial" on Wikipedia: they found that these pages were far more likely to have been edited and re-edited repeatedly. Based on this observation, they developed WikiDashboard, a website that serves up Wikipedia entries but adds a chart to the top of each page revealing its recent edit history.
WikiDashboard shows which users have contributed most edits to a page, what percentage of the edits each person is responsible for, and when editors have been most active. A WikiDashboard user can explore further by clicking on a particular editor's name to see, for example, how involved he or she has been with other articles. Chi says that the goal is to show the social interaction going on around the entry. For instance, the chart should make it clear when a single user has been dominating a page, or when a flurry of activity has exploded around a particularly contentious article. The timeline on the chart can also show how long a page has been neglected.
Tracing information back to its source could help prove trustworthiness.
Why the online encyclopedia's epistemology should worry those who care about traditional notions of accuracy.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Isn't this somehow similar to IBM Research's "History Flow" from back in 2003?
http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/projects/history_flow/
We were somewhat inspired by the work done at IBM indeed.
I, along with millions of other Americans were taught things like "Columbus discovered America" or that "George Washington chopped down a cherry tree" which are false. Because it is updated daily, I would say it is more accurate than most sources. The inaccuracies relate to current political figures like Jerry Falwell or George Bush, hardly something to worry about.
Most of my college teachers think Wikipedia is the devil but I actually think it is because most of them don't know how to use it correctly. As this article says, they don't know how to check the sources or the edit history (or they don't care). Still, my experience with Wikipedia so far has been good. When I read an article I sense to be one-sided, I go back to the history and report it. I've found vandalized articles lots of times and I do take the time to fix them.
My aunt works on the Biology department at my college and instead of telling her students that wiki is satan, she encourages them to use it and fix it. The teachers at the department also took matters at hand and started fixing or completing many biology articles. Their involment with wiki has gone as far as donating money in the most recent donations drive. When I did work the courage to question my Literary History teacher regarding why didn't he correct in wiki what he considered to be "wrong", he didn't give me a straight answer. That's what makes me think that the truth is they don't know how to really use Wiki.
I agree with you, wikipedia is a tool that needs to be used with dexterity and wit.
I agree with your positive-oriented way of thinking about how to use Wikipedia. If you find an error, you should help to fix it. We can spend all day arguing whether it is a bad reference, the reality is that it is the 8th ranked site in the world. It is already being used as a reference, so it will help everyone to make it more accurate.
Wikipedia is dangerous... like Google. This is better observed on countries like China.
Wikipedia explains in 2-3 words a general idea about a subject. This is extremely dangerous because people understood what happen or what it is to know immediately. Take for instances "Watergate" scandal. 99% of people will believe it is about poisoned water, but if you go to Wikipedia you find out it is about CORRUPTION on higher level than god...
WP is a great source for disinfo
Wikipedia is a very good way to spread disinfo because it’s usually at or near the top in search results for a wide variety of terms. Many of its political entries are missing key information that was never added or was removed. Most people aren’t willing to spend the time necessary to get facts to stick if the other side is motivated to keep deleting it.
For an example, the entry discussed here is missing two key pieces of information:
http://wikipediabias.com/valerie-jarrett-obama-advisor
In the month of January, the WP page on her had almost 40,000 visitors. Depending on when they visited, some of those found out she was linked to Rezko, but most didn't. And, only the no doubt small number of people who went to the discussion page will have learned that most people - including those in the MSM - believe she's "Senate Candidate 1".
In other words, thanks to Wikipedia, thousands of people got a sanitized, inaccurate view of her. And, partly because people keep linking to Wikipedia, her entry and thousands more like it are at the top of search results.
I suggest taking a close look at WP's various rules and thinking through what they result in. Those rules basically force WP into tracking the coverage offered by the MSM: until the MSM covers an issue it's not likely to find its way into WP. And, those rules force WP into covering an issue into the way the MSM covers it.
If you think the NYT and WaPo are always accurate and always cover the things that are important, then WP is for you.
Re: WP is a great source for disinfo
Here is the relevant WikiDashboard for the entry:
Valerie_Jarrett
Another controversial area is how links and books get approved or not for an article. I prepare a daily meta-journal called Political Ecology (http://politicalecology.xyvy.info) that should be a perfect link from the article Political Ecology. I am a JD-MPA in Environmental Science and Policy and yet I cannot get the article 'Editor' to approve this as a link. The 'editor' seems to think that because I am the one proposing the link then that is self-promotion and therefore fatally suspect. So I then did what he advised, which was to leave a post in the discussion area for the page asking others to recommend the link. Since then nothing has happened so I guess neither the self-promotional nor the cooperative model works (unless one assembles a claque of apparently independent proponents).
I checked out your site, (politicalecology) it's a good read, no reason for it not to be listed.
Given that wikipedia editors are self-appointed volunteers they can be pretty arbitrary, that is the downside of wikipedia. There certainly are abuses.
The upside is that in my experience and that of many other people, the vast majority of wikipedi articles are excellent.
you didn't say which wiki page you wanted the link on. perhaps the editor considers it off topic? (which is what this post is in danger of becoming).
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.
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.
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?
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.
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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johnsonha143
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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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