Tech & Biz

Wikipedia grows up, changes editorial policy

by smkovalinsky | August 25, 2009 at 05:05 pm

217 views | 42 Recommendations | 5 comments

From San Fransico Business Times, August 25, 2009:

The popular and ubiquitous online encyclopedia Wikipediaplans to change the way people contribute to some of its entries.
The site, run by theWikimedia Foundation in San Francisco, will limit changes to articles about people who are still living. Any changes to such articles by readers will have to be approved by an “editor” – likely a trained volunteer – before they appear on the page.

Wikipedia, started by Jimmy “Jimbo” Wales, was originally intended as a site everyone could add to or change. But early on the business found out it had to lock some of its articles, particularly pages on popular lightning rods like George W. Bush, since angry people kept defacing them.. . .

Besides the obvious problem of mischief makers, Wikipedia also cites its own maturing and evolving . From News Factor Business Report:

A Maturing Wikipedia
"By creating a two-tiered editorial control infrastructure, Wikipedia is not going to hurt the site. It's only going to make it better," said Brad Shimmin, an analyst at Current Analysis. "Wikipedia is not the free-for-all it was three or four years ago. What we are looking at now is a maturing of Wikipedia in terms of the breadth of content that's up there leveling out a little bit and the control that's imposed on that content."

Shimmin said industry watchers have always been surprised that Wikipedia is as deep and accurate as it is. He credits a number of interested individuals for that success. But there have been admitted issues with people posting inaccurate and even spiteful information.

"Even for a short period of time, you can't think it's OK to have bad content on a source that's trusted," Shimmin said. "You can't make that assumption anymore. The service is too valuable to too many people to post an article saying someone is dead when they are not dead and wait a couple of days until somebody figures it out."

There have been other issues at Wikipedia as well: a divide, among volunteer editors , if paid editing should really be punished by banning the account, when it is clear that once the content is published, anything biased - presumably the paid editor is biased toward the paying client - within the post would be automatically subject to the same neutrality editing as in any unpaid post.

0 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon

recommend This comment thread is now closed

generaldecay

at 23:37 on August 25th, 2009

This really is about time. I've not come across some of the inaccuracy/ in fighting that I hear others talk about but I welcome a tighter editing policy nonetheless.

Colonel Boyle

at 00:02 on August 26th, 2009

Wikipedia is constantly being misused, trust me! I had an interest in a couple of entries that had a commercial kind of angle and it was just a constant fight against people trying to turn it to their advantage somehow (trying to link to their companies, mentioning themselves in the article, removing negative coverage etc etc etc).

I then also found myself embroiled in semantic arguments with people for whom the sanctity of their contributions was clearly some kind of religious issue and eventually I gave up the ghost and stopped contributing a year or two ago.

I don't know what the answer is, because without the principle of open authorship, Wikipedia is nothing :)

smkovalinsky

at 03:29 on August 26th, 2009

Ah, yes, i have known people who have experienced the same, and left for those reasons.

Bavard

at 03:40 on August 26th, 2009

Undoubtedly a great resource but hugely overused by many who fail to dig deeper for alternative sources of "facts" and information and take everything that appears in wikipedia as "gospel" and "proof".