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Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 12/12/2005 3:24:31 PM
Title: Wikipedia is a great idea, but...
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
From KAREN HEYMAN: Having spent ten years explaining that the Internet is not all pedophiles and pornographers, I sympathize with Louis Trager's desire to protect an online project. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that what John Seigenthaler accomplished was letting the cat out of the bag. Wikipedia is far from perfect and the complaints have been gathering for months, if not years. By showcasing an egregious instance in a high profile publication, Seigenthaler finally got the PTB at Wikipedia to take serious corrective action beyond, "Yeah, yeah, we know and we're working on it."

If you're looking at an entry on a technology so complicated only 2 or 3 people would care to write about it, Wikipedia can often hold its own against vetted, published sources. But many sci-tech entries are often nothing more than out-of-date conventional wisdom. This is particularly ironic, since keeping ahead of information in published texts would seem to be Wikipedia's strength. The problem is that the anonymous entries are often updated by people who know *less* than the original writer.

For example, a Nobel Laureate could take the time to write the very latest findings in her field. Only to have her entry overwritten by some kid who thinks he knows better because her cutting-edge entry didn't match the descriptions in his out-of-date textbook. (If the NL identified herself, it would likely only result in ongoing debates about whether or not she really is who she claims.)

A parallel problem is that if there's bad information out there, say because of a mistake in a popular book or a major newspaper article, those who think they "know," based only on that reading, will "correct" entries by adding the inaccurate information.

The argument is that bad information gets edited out. But does it? You're looking at a handful of people with up-to-date expertise versus hundreds who are merely well meaning. And those well-meaning folks get rewarded not for the accuracy of their contributions, but for the *amount*. After a certain point, an expert is likely to feel it's just not worth the bother.

Additionally, although some slants are obvious (ID vs. Evolution, Macs vs. PCs), some are far more subtle. Unless you already know a field, you can have no idea that an apparently definitive entry presents only one side of an ongoing fight between specialists. That it may be changed, and changed back again, hardly helps matters. This, btw, is the best explanation as to why simply sitting back and saying, "It's okay now, it's changed," ultimately would not have worked for Seigenthaler. Chances are high that later somebody would have come along to "fix" the correction.

Wikipedia is a fantastic idea, a wonderful service, with entries that often reflect great effort and care. Unfortunately, inevitably, as it's grown, the flaws built into its original design have become more obvious. Egalitarian editing may be a noble goal, but the reality is that if Wikipedia is to truly fulfill its promise, it needs a way to vet contributors, to let users know whether an entry on neuroscience was written and edited by a senior professor, a student who just took Psych 101, or a layperson who's paraphrasing an old issue of Scientific American. Certainly prankster Brian Chase's initial belief that Wikipedia was a joke site says a great deal about how some of its entries appear to the general public. If Seigenthaler's complaint actually leads to more accountability, far from hurting Wikipedia, he may ultimately have saved it. [Permalink}

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