Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is not really in the news business. Yet, as the
Associated Press noted in an internal document earlier this year, the two organizations do compete for readers when news breaks.
The AP focused intently on Wikipedia in a document describing its "Protect, Point, Pay" digital strategy, noting, "Its pages are designed to catch traffic, provide key information and then send users on their way to deeper engagement on the subjects they're interested in."
So the AP wants to create something similar:
"news guide" pages that appear high in search results and direct users to its content. The idea is that people will come across these pages and use them, rather than Wikipedia, as "a focal point for discovery of authoritative sources of news."
Considering how much thought the AP has given to Wikipedia in assessing its own digital future, I wondered what Wales thought of this "news guide" idea.
Wales discussed why people use Wikipedia to learn more about news events and what would probably happen if the AP created a "news guide": Wikipedia contributors would probably link to them, too.
I caught up with Wales by e-mail. Here's our exchange, edited lightly for AP style (which, I realize, is kind of funny in this context).
Steve Myers: From reading the memo, it appears that AP views Wikipedia as a competing news source. Do you see Wikipedia and AP as competitors?Jimmy Wales: Only in the highly attenuated sense that everything on the Internet competes with everything else. We very consciously avoid doing original reporting, and we are very strong in our insistence on linking to original sources.
At the same time, the most insightful portion of the "AP Protect, Point Pay" document is the part that recognizes that consumer behavior around news does not very well match the outdated structure of most news Web sites (including both the AP and AP member Web sites). Creating authoritative canonical pages based on the latest from the AP sounds like a good idea they should have implemented years ago.
How would you describe the relationship between Wikipedia and newsgathering organizations?Wales: Wikipedia is not the place for people to break news. As the document points out, our editors were very careful to disallow reporting on the Michael Jackson death until it was confirmed in reliable news reports. We, as all members of open societies, depend critically on newsgathering organizations.
The AP memo says, "The Wikipedia model of standing, authoritative pages could be challenged." What's your reaction to that?Wales: Sounds like something they should have done years ago. This is the most insightful portion of the document.
Nothing in this document couldn't have been written by someone actually savvy in the Internet culture five years ago. The AP is, again, five years late. (And in their talk of changing copyright law in ways that would disrupt the freedom of speech, they are 200 years too late and completely insane if they think that's going to happen.)
Do you see Wikipedia as a news destination? Do you know how much of your traffic is based on news events? If so, how much?Wales: People do often come to Wikipedia when major news is breaking. This is not our primary intention, but of course it happens. The reason that it happens is that the traditional news organizations are not doing a good job of filling people in on background information. People come to us because we do a better job at meeting their informational needs.
AP has described plans to create "landing pages" (or a "news guide") that would be similar to The New York Times topic pages or Wikipedia entries (but without the user-generated content and editing, of course). The news organization hopes that these topic pages, which will have a great number of inbound and outbound links to AP content (and perhaps that of its members), will rise to the top of search results and thus act as funnels that direct users to its content -- and not Wikipedia. Do you think that will work?Wales: In a way, yes, and in a way, no. If these pages are scattered among the hundreds of Web sites of their members, then they will not be widely linked by bloggers and news outlets and Wikipedians. If they have a single canonical set of URLs that anyone can easily remember, like:
http://www.ap.org/topic/Thomas_Jefferson
then everyone can find them, link to them, and they will start to rise in the search rankings -- if the pages are any good.
If AP did that, would you view it as a competitor to Wikipedia?Wales: No, I would not. We are an encyclopedia. We are a charity. We exist in order to provide a free encyclopedia to every single person on the planet. We don't care if we are first in the Google search results, or second. That's not how we look at the world.
We care about the quality of what we are doing, first. As long as we are doing work that we find satisfying, we hope that other people are doing things that they find satisfying too.
Would Wikipedia entries link to these topic pages?Wales: That sort of thing is up to the editing community, so I can only hazard an experienced guess. And the answer is: yes. If the AP had high-quality pages on tens of thousands of topics, updated with the latest news (but not randomly changing every time news breaks, because links need to be to something stable and reliable), then I'm sure people would link to them.
There is a fair amount of news content that isn't easily available online (hidden behind pay walls, for example). Would you consider any kind of licensing agreement that would enable Wikipedia to link to AP or other publishers' content that is now unavailable?Wales: No. Never. If it's unavailable, we will just write it ourselves and make it available. We're here for the next thousand years. We are the public. We don't consider anything so precious that we can't build it ourselves. We have more minds working on the problem of sharing knowledge than the AP will ever muster.
AP believes that its content has suffered from hypersyndication. Part of AP's plan is to create a hierarchy of its content, ranging from "utility" news (commodity information, probably headlines, that is available anywhere) to unique content that would be available on a much smaller scale. What do you think of such a setup?Wales: I do agree that they have a problem of hypersyndication. AP content appears everywhere, so it never gets a critical mass of links in search results. Perhaps they should stop selling online news to every little newspaper in the country.
I have no strong opinion about the hierarchy model. It might work for them in some respects, and fail in other respects.
Photos are not Wikipedia's strong suit. Do you see an opening for AP in posting photos on its topic pages?Wales: No. I don't think this will drive traffic to them -- I don't think people will really care.
The decision to restrict editing on Wikipedia pages of living people is a move toward more accountability. It also strikes at one of the complaints that traditional journalists levy against the site -- that the difference between their sites and Wikipedia is that their information is vetted and sourced by professionals. Will we see further changes in this direction? How does this affect the relationship between organizations that do primary reporting and Wikipedia?Wales: There is no move to restrict editing on Wikipedia pages of living people. The rest of your question is negated by this fact.
The ongoing trend in Wikipedia continues to be towards more openness, not less. We have explained this many times in many venues, but the media has a one-track mind about it. To the media "more accountability" always means "restricted editing." That's not true. Openness is not the enemy of quality.
For the past several years, you have been unable to edit the page on George W. Bush until you logged in and went through a waiting period. Soon, you will be able to edit it without even logging in. Instead of not being able to edit at all, your edits will be held in a queue until a more experienced editor reviews it.
How does Wikipedia's popularity in news events impact Wikinews? If people go to Wikipedia for news, what role does Wikinews play?Wales:Wikinews has struggled for years, and you identify one of the key reasons for it. Wikinews remains an experiment which has yet to fulfill its potential.
Do you think the AP memo conveys an understanding of the way the Web works? Is it different from how you think it works?Wales: It conveys a basic understanding from five years ago, yes. It's nice to see them finally wake up a bit. :-)
I've never known Wales to be truly forthright and compassionate...
