On Tue, Jul 19, 2005 at 10:28:50AM -0400, smitty wrote:
> Steve Litt wrote:
> >
> >Take the following with this caveat -- I don't use wikis, and so have no
> >first hand experience...
> >
> >I've never understood the attractiveness of wikis. There's only so
> >authoritative something can be when *absolutely anyone at any time for any
> >reason* can materially change the stated facts. True, I know nothing about
> >its social mechanisms, but there's no technical way I know of to keep
> >erroneous info out.
>
> The wiki model is an open source model where the participants are
> selectively responsible for the content. Anyone can participate, but most
> do not. Erroneous information is removed by interested and informed
> participants, who can document the correct information.
Indeed. To expand upon that a touch:
Malicious and otherwise undesirable activity is controlled by peer
review and, in Wikipedia's case at least, quite well. Often, any
mistaken, malicious, or POV-biased content is edited or reverted within
mere seconds of initial inclusion. That's where the social mechanisms
come into play. The more people there are that use Wikipedia, the more
authoritative and reliable the contents become, much as how with open
source software development you get better development as more people
become involved.
You (Steve) mention that "there's no technical way [. . .] to keep
erroneous info out." This is true. The same is true, in a different
way, with more traditional encyclopedias, though, and they resist
"fixing" a lot more than Wikipedia. In the case of a traditional
encyclopedia, you have very limited manpower, and ultimately all final
editing decisions are made by individuals with biases, and as such stuff
always ends up slipping through the cracks. With Wikipedia, you have
far better controls on POV bias because Wikipedia's NPOV (neutral point
of view) policy encourages everyone involved to edit biased language out
of an entry, and to include any bias they feel like including in the
form of a neutral-language reference to the existence of such a bias.
Rather than getting a dry recounting of facts, sometimes with a biased
spin on it, you get a comprehensive recitation of facts with all biases
in common circulation listed and explained.
That's the theory, anyway, and in practice it pretty much adheres to the
theory. As a result, Wikinews (managed by the Wikimedia Foundation,
which also handles Wikipedia) is quickly becoming my favorite news
source: it is quite good at avoiding presenting the world with biased
reporting. The major news agencies with which we're all familiar (CNN,
Fox, BBC, AP, MSNBC, et cetera) all seem to have given up on any attempt
at unbiased reporting a long time ago. It also helps to see that
Wikinews is beginning to come up with news faster than the major news
agencies: it had more in-depth reporting of the London bombings faster
than the various major news agencies did. People who were close enough
to know something about what was going on became reporters for Wikinews
in no time flat.
Hopefully that helps to explain how the social mechanisms affect things
like accuracy and neutrality. In all, it seems to be working
beautifully.
Note: I may be biased. I work for the Wikimedia Foundation.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
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