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If Wikipedia is Open Source, Who is Red Hat?
There has been so much written about the "character assassination" of John Seigenthaler Sr. in the false Wikipedia entry about him that alleges, among other things, that he was involved in the real assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy.
It has led a number of people to suggest that the Wikipedia model is badly flawed. I know a number of people who have gone to wikipedia and were stunned to see that there was an entry about them and then horrified to find out that it was all false. Character assassinations in Wikipedia are not new.
But the reality is that Wikipedia suffers from the same curse that all user geneated content services face, and that is when something is truly open, people will abuse it. The Internet itself is the proof that that.
So I believe that Wikipedia is a great resource and is one that should remain open in its present form. Many others have blogged the same thing in the wake of the Seigenthaler fuss.
But the most interesting idea coming out of this fuss comes from Jeff Jarvis. He suggests that someone can build an edited version of Wikipedia on top of it and make it commercial. I wonder if Wikipedia should be the "open source" encyclopedia and if there should be a Red Hat like company that builds a "commercial version" of Wikipedia that has advertising on it, but also has editors who vet all the entries. It's an interesting idea and I like it.
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Posted December 5, 2005 in Venture Capital and TechnologyComments
He suggests that someone can build an edited version of Wikipedia on top of it and make it commercial.
I think you've misunderstood Jeff's post (or, at least, your wording is ambiguous) -- Wikipedia is far too big for any one organization to vet thoroughly. Rather, organizations could compile lists of articles on which they have particular expertise and vet (versions of) those.
Posted by: Ben Yates | Dec 5, 2005 10:04:42 AM
Sometimes historical facts can also be untrue and just never corrected in Wikipedia. The Wikipedia note on Augustus (the Roman Emperor) claimed that he had a Bar-Mitzvah, implying that he was Jewish. For sure not a bad thing, but simply impossible at the time.
I feel bad for the kid who happened to do his book report on the wrong day and copied that note.
In my opinion, the most interesting thing about Wikipedia is that over time it will allow us to see how people's perception of history changes, how history is re-written, and by whom.
-r
Posted by: Anonymous | Dec 5, 2005 12:07:22 PM
i get so bored about how wikipedia is sposed to be a poor source.
there are famous published writers that deny the holocaust, no wikipedia required. David Irving is now in an austrian jail
http://news.google.co.uk/news?q=david%20irving%20austria&sourceid=mozilla-search&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&sa=N&tab=wn
what about the encyclopedia brittanica making up bullshit entries about nature in central europe
http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=1798603
finally i worked on the Grove dictionary of art - a signifcant proportion of it is made up - it was my job to check bibliography and biography.. .many entries didnt exist
authorative sources like the NY Times. spare me.
Posted by: james governor | Dec 5, 2005 12:32:49 PM
Stuff like this really makes look forward to the day we resolve the whole identity and/or reputation things. It's not that we need to know who placed an entry, but where there are liability issues that are raised by openly malicious and harmful entries, there needs to be accountability. It's nice to play in an anonymous space, but too many people see it as a license ruin it for every one else. This is the case in social networks and dating sites, on Wikipedia, and frequently in transactional matters.
While I support people's ability to be pseudononymous in their communications, I also believe that if they violate the rights provided to them behind a pseudonym, they should also be held accountable for those actions as they would be in the meatspace (no more, no less). On various social networks, when a person gets kicked off, they will frequently simply rejoin the service w/a new name using a different e-mail address.
It's unfortunate that a few bad apples sometimes spoil the batch :-(
Posted by: P-Air | Dec 6, 2005 2:58:56 AM
In today's Boston Globe- Wikipedia Tighens Rules After False Entry About Assissinations. An author of an article must now register. That cerainly won't make a difference. As a recepient of some really really stupid bad publicity, I take every T.V. news show and article in the newspaper with a huge rock os salt. One reporter in the Globe received misinfomation and the AP picked it up and my life got crazy for a week. It was horrible. Everyone gets a feed from the AP and it is not even questioned. Once something is published people feel it has to be THE TRUTH.
Posted by: ellen | Dec 6, 2005 9:57:40 AM
Steve,
That's a fantastic idea. And it could also sell access to premium content. For example, there is a lot of great math and stats pages on wikipedia. But you might be willing to pay for more once you were there (online courses, textbooks, problem sets, advanced topics, etc.)
I hope it doesn't kill the goose that lays the golden egg, though.
- Mike
Posted by: Michael Weiksner | Dec 6, 2005 11:52:27 PM
The whole Wikipedia concept is fatally flawed. The notion that one can produce an authoritative encyclopedia without any kind of editorial control is patently ridiculous.
There is a far greater and more insidious threat to Wikipedia than simple character assassination or falsehood. It can broadly be labelled “infomercial content” (i.e. content that purports to be informative but has a commercial bias). A good example is the entry on Barcelona (Spain). The whole article reads like a tourist brochure and any reference to the city’s pollution problems is swiftly removed by an army of self-appointed censors. There are strong indications that the Barcelona Tourist Board (or its army of acolytes) has effectively hijacked the site. This kind of thing is going to become more prevalent as Wikipedia becomes better known. Basically, there is nothing that can be done to stop this corporate take-over of Wikipedia without editorial control yet such control runs counter to the whole Wiki ethos.
The idea that “a community of users” is going to apply some common sense criteria regarding content is a mistaken one. In the case of the Barcelona entry, the influence of Catalan/Spanish speakers on both content and style is all too evident. The locals seem eager to “sell” their city to the wider world and to show off their appalling English. Wikipedia not only lacks the control mechanisms to stop them, it also wilfully fails to recognize there is a problem.
Posted by: Helen Masters | Jun 26, 2007 5:33:15 AM
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