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Jimmy Wales: AP's 'Landing Pages' a Good, if Late, Idea
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Wales is at it again
Posted by
Gregory Kohs
11/16/2009 10:32:47 PM
I've never known Wales to be truly forthright and compassionate in either his public or private dialogue. In fact, having watched him closely si...
I've never known Wales to be truly forthright and compassionate in either his public or private dialogue. In fact, having watched him closely since August 2006 (about the time he told me in a telephone conversation to "be quiet for a minute, and you might learn something"), it is very rare for him to take an ethically uncompromised position, or if he does he doesn't hold to it for very long.
It is humorous to find him taking a mocking "welcome to 2004" tone with the Associated Press, being that his much-ballyhooed Wikia Search project was such a fast failure.
Wales should bone up on evolution ...
Posted by
Alex Dering
11/16/2009 1:30:44 PM
Wales is in for a surprise. The reason Wikipedia went from its previous state of anyone can edit any article at any time to its...
Wales is in for a surprise. The reason Wikipedia went from its previous state of anyone can edit any article at any time to its current state is because the Internet "got civilized."
One small example is that case of the two German guys who murdered an actor. The names of the two are on the English version of wikipedia, but not on the German site because it violates German law. This can only become more and more complicated. What if I'm using a computer in America that routes through a server in Canada but has a backup server in Germany? Can I have the page with the two names?
The kind of expertise that is required to answer these sorts of questions won't stay free.
As the Internet continues to evolve into a thing that is mostly driven by business-for-profit forces and more and more controlled by and subject to codified laws from many jurisdictions, wikipedia's going to find it harder and harder to keep all the plates in the air if it stays in its current form.
Nonsense
Posted by
Dave Brooks
11/16/2009 11:52:23 AM
Speaking as Wikipedia fan who has edited on the site since 2003, and who gave Wales an admittedly fawning interview more than five years ago,...
Speaking as Wikipedia fan who has edited on the site since 2003, and who gave Wales an admittedly fawning interview more than five years ago, I must say that he is being disingenuous here.
The original point of Wikipedia was that anybody could edit any article in any way at any time, and it would be visible to everybody immediately.
Now, for certain articles, some people will have to wait for another person to OK their work before it is visible.
Regardless of the existence of protected and semi-protected articles - under which certain people can't edit certain articles at all - this is a form of "restricted editing" which didn't exist before. That term is fair and accurate.
The change is a good thing, by the way: Wikipedia has gotten so powerful that its wild-and-woolly approach needs to be constrained in some circumstances. Wales shouldn't be defensive about it.
So it's annoying to see him hide behind "the media is stupid because it doesn't t describe things the way we think they should be described" - a mantra trotted out by lame politicos and hacks since the Linotype was first developed.
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