Is it fact, fiction or fantasy? Check under the bonnet before risking a Wikipedia citation!

26/04/2010 treanor 33 comments

by Janette Treanor, April 26 2010.

Since the early days of the internet and the world wide web, people have crowded to online communication channels, from email down the social media timeline through Usenet, IRC, Wikipedia, Friendster, My Space, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter … to the mobile communication technologies of today (idfive, 2006). Since its beginning in 2001 multitudes of people from all over the globe have swarmed to be part of the Wikipedia phenomenon, to experience the satisfaction of participating in something for the benefit everyone and to experience the gratification of seeing their contribution published instantly online. The popularity of Wikipedia has never been questioned. Initially Wikipedia’s content was compared favourably by some to that of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Giles, 2005), but murmurs currently circulating in the press and growing louder, are predicting Wikipedia, at least as it presents today, may be approaching the end of its lifecycle (Angwin & Fowler, 2009; Farrer, 2009; Frommer, 2009; Johnson, 2009; Subhasis, 2009). This paper argues that the quality of Wikipedia’s content has deteriorated over time and questions the authority, accuracy, reliability and completeness of Wikipedia content which is increasingly subjected to hoaxes, vandalism, political and corporate cleansing, self-promotion, and the abuse of power and the individual agendas of the site’s editors and administrators. The conclusions drawn counsel that Wikipedia should not be relied upon as a quality resource and warn that citing Wikipedia for serious academic scholarship is ill-advised.

Wikipedia is a derivative of the Hawaiian word wiki-wiki which means quick, and pedia, from encyclopedia. A wiki is a collaborative website where anyone can publish articles and edit existing content, at any time they choose. Wikipedia is a quick encyclopedia which, according to Morozov (2009), owes its existence to the Usenet discussion culture, moderated social sites like Slashdot, the wiki community, and the dotcom recession. Wikipedia was launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger with the mission of harvesting all knowledge from all people and making that knowledge freely available to everyone. The editing philosophy was about simplicity, relying on three rules; neutrality - a neutral point of view principle was the site’s only non-negotiable policy; verifiability – facts in entries needed to be easily checked; no original research – no original or unpublished thought could be included in entries (Morozov, 2009).

Wikipedia is a helpful training tool for school teachers who can use the resource to teach children about collaboration, publishing and editing, and the concepts of reliability and credibility. Children are set tasks to create new content and submit it to Wikipedia and then to edit each other’s submissions; or to research an existing Wikipedia topic and edit the content (Richardson 2009). Jimmy Wales himself is reported as stating that Wikipedia should be a stepping stone to other sources; a useful resource for young students but that academics should do their own research using academic sources (Coleman, 2007). Coleman (2007) also quotes Wales saying that the site “lacked the authority to be used as a citeable source for college-aged and university students”. The site has suffered so much controversy over accuracy and authority that Wales is again quoted as telling the BBC in 2005 that students who copied information from Wikipedia “deserved to get an F grade”. Coleman (2007) states:

Wikipedia’s founder, Jimbo Wales, once wrote that “incidentally and unintentionally, Wikipedia has became (sic) ‘a grand social experiment’” (Wales 2005). Let’s now consider how we can turn Wikipedia into “a grand teaching experiment”.

Wikipedia is often used by college and university students as a pre-search resource even when their lecturers warn them that the content cannot be trusted to be accurate or reliable, and it will not be accepted for academic referencing. At best, Wikipedia can be useful as a springboard to collect background information; to investigate the links in the articles which can lead to respected, authoritative sites; to find keywords to help search academic resources; and for the reference lists at the bottom of articles which can link to authoritative information (Rebecca, 2007). Mike Dickson, a university teacher, comments on Rebecca’s article that Wikipedia is not a primary source and students should use the “original, peer-reviewed, academic articles in journals” for research (cited in Rebecca, 2007). Findings of research conducted by Head & Eisenberg (2010) reveal that college students consulted Wikipedia because the interface is easy to use, to find topic summaries to get started on assignments, to find the meanings of terms, to figure out keywords, and for the citations at the bottom of each entry. Students’ perceptions about the quality of information available in Wikipedia were not high and they used it as a pre-search tool only.

These perceptions about lack of quality regarding intellectual rigour, accuracy, reliability, neutrality and completeness appear justified. Consistent criticism and controversy have badly damaged Wikipedia’s reputation. Wikipedia is criticised for its susceptibility to vandalism, its uneven quality and inconsistency, the systemic bias and tendency towards consensus and popularity over credentials (Priedhorsky et al., 2007; Leaver, 2009; Morozov, 2009; Santana & Wood, 2009). Wikipedia admits that its information can contain errors, be out of date and biased, and states that it does not claim to be authoritative or reliable. (Reliability of Wikipedia, 2010; Criticism of Wikipedia, 2010). Editors are able to contribute to the resource from diverse IP addresses and use multiple pseudonyms which makes it impossible to determine such things as hidden agendas, self-promotion, canvassing, conflicts of interest and malicious intent. The unregulated editing processes and the ability to freely submit content also results in many amateurish articles that are unauthoritative, incomplete and incorrect. There is no way to tell if the article is the result of research, hearsay, primary source data, a biased point of view, someone’s agenda, a complete hoax or an act of malicious vandalism.

There is no avenue for an author or editor to distinguish herself as a recognised expert in a particular field. Experts’ views are solicited, discussed and respected in academia. The credentials of scientists, scholars and others with specific subject knowledge are disregarded by Wikipedia and this disrespect has driven them away, taking with them their valuable knowledge. Experts have often been forced into senseless discussions with bureaucratic administrators who prefer hyperlinks over cogent argument resulting in non-experts holding the real power over quality content. Knowledge that experts would submit is treated exactly the same as knowledge submitted by Joe Citizen or Jonny from Year 1. Any community that blocks or obstructs critical reflection indulges in cultish behaviour and damages the essence of the community. According to Jo Freeman (as cited in Bauwens, 2008) “cultishness is quantitative not qualitative”.

Not only is Wikipedia not welcoming to subject matter experts but new users now receive the same lack of welcome. CyberMedia News (2009) reported on the results of a study conducted by Ed Chi and colleagues at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in California which found that 60,000 articles had been added to the English language Wikipedia in 2006 but that number had declined to around a third by 2009. The research results showed a negative growth in monthly edits and the number of active editors. The research team attributed this to the less welcoming attitude afforded the new contributors. Results showed the balance of power had moved from casual contributors who made infrequent changes towards “active and established contributors” shutting out new users. Editors who made a single edit a month had 25 percent of their changes erased or reverted in 2009 in comparison to 10 percent in 2003, and editors who made two to nine changes a month had 15 percent of their edits reverted in 2009 as compared to 5 percent in 2003. New and occasional contributors and editors were thus deterred from taking part and the number of people to fix errors and deal with vandalism was severely reduced leaving control of the site in the hands of a powerful few. The PARC study found that infighting amongst the administrators was expending precious editing time. There are well documented complaints against Wikipedia that have badly damaged its reputation and credibility including false and defamatory entries in celebrity and VIP biographies, the cleansing of unfavourable information from government, political and company entries and the insertion of negative comments to opponents entries (Angwin & Fowler, 2009; Black, 2008; O’Neil, 2009; Read, 2008; Santana & Wood, 2009).

Much of the damaged reputation can be attributed to the fact that the Wikipedia editing community has shrunk to a small number of powerful administrators. These administrators operate hiding behind anonymity, without a distinct code of ethics or regular reviews and, as certain administrators grab power, they change the rules to protect and strengthen their position, pushing out the legitimate and dedicated wikipedians – persons who regularly contribute to Wikipedia. Administrators who have gained a thorough understanding of the language and rules of Wikipedia can become very powerful making it is increasingly difficult for a new person to be accepted as a Wikipedia administrator (O’Neil, 2009; “The battle for Wikipedia’s Soul,” 2008). According to Morozov (2009) wikipedians are 80 percent male with 30 percent under the age of 30, more than 65 percent are single and more than 85 percent have no children; certainly not a balanced cross section of the community. Wikipedians have become branded as the deletionists versus the inclusionists.

Wikipedia is no longer the dedicated community of volunteers who genuinely want to retain and grow the Wikipedia vision (Angwin & Fowler, 2009). It is now run by the powerful few deletionists and inclusionists. According to Schott’s Vocab (2009) and Finkelstein (2009), deletionists are editors who are quick to delete anything new or controversial. The deletionists’ motto is “Wikipedia is not a junkyard”. Deletionists seek tight control and hold rigorous standards about what information they consider suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia and believe obscure topics and celebrity information to be without true value. Inclusionists say “Wikipedia is not paper” and that there is no limit to the site’s space or the information it can host. Inclusionists maintain people want access to all kinds of unbounded information and that any article is better than no article. Inclusionists say badly written and referenced articles can be fixed later while deletionists say that is a waste of precious time. It has been a constant struggle for self-preservation between the two philosophies (“Battle for Wikipedia’s soul,” 2008; Kostakis, 2010; Schwartz, 2006).

As casual users continue to be excluded, it appears that the deletionists may have won the battle over the inclusionists (Johnson, 2009; Schott’s Vocab, 2009). An imbalance is formed as deletionists become more powerful. Deletionists who have an in-depth knowledge of how the rules and regulations work and how to manipulated those rules and regulations, can push through their interpretation of policy and promote hidden agendas resulting in information submitted by expert authors being edited by non-expert, privileged editors, thus promoting a malicious leadership with top-down governance (Bauwens, 2009). Wikipedia has fallen far from the flourishing example of peer governance of its early heydays. Bauwens (2008) defines peer governance:

The aim of peer governance is I think to maximize the self-allocation and self-aggregation by the community, and to have forms of decision-making that do not function apart and against the broader collective from which they spring. But we have to make a clear distinction between the sphere of abundance, where self-allocation is ‘natural’, and the spheres of scarcity, where cost-recovery requirements demand choices. For the latter, we need formal democratic rules. Rules and requirements that select for excellence and function against external attacks are legitimate, but processes that protect a privileged layer are illegitimate and destroy or weaken both the self-aggregation and the democratic procedures.

Wikipedia has gone from bottom-up self-organisation to top-down governance. Wikipedia’s peer governance has become dysfunctional and the current governance processes appear to be fundamentally wrong as the internal struggle between deletionists and inclusionists wages. Once touted as an excellent example of a self-governed community, Wikipedia has been reduced to governance by a trusted few, holding the power, akin a wikipedian cult, not a democratic environment. Controversies concerning governance policies and procedures are a major contributing factor to the damaged reputation, as are concerns at the lack of transparency, lack of community representation and of lack of differentiation between private business interests and community. There are complaints about lack of due responsibility, power holders, murky rules and regulations and the rejection of demands for transparency. Ingo (as cited in Bauwens, 2008) laments that Wikipedia is administrated by those who have “completely abandoned the core ideals” and quotes the Wikimedia chairwomen on transparency:

Indeed, what some of you are asking is radical transparency at the organization level. And radical transparency is not really suitable for us, in most part because we are in the eye-storm of the media interest …

Wikipedia’s core ideals appear to have been completely abandoned and there is misuse of power, power concentrated in one place and validation processes that do not require expertise. In fact, expertise is not welcome or encouraged, and a battle of wills ensues. The administrators appear more interested in amplifying their personal control and hold more power over content than expert subject matter authors (Lih, as cited in “The battle for Wikipedia’s soul”, 2008). An organisation whose processes allow a convicted felon to be elected as chief of operations at the Wikimedia Foundation is hardly credible (Bergstein, 2007). Work on maintaining and growing Wikipedia has slowed as infighting and power struggles rage. Some contributors, who have given much time and energy to the project, feel a certain ownership and believe they are owed and want something back so they seek out power positions and abuse that power by changing the rules and regulations in order to hold and grow their power and position. Wikipedia was a phenomenon that was at the height of it popularity between 2001 and 2005 but the “social networking and information sharing site” no longer resembles a true wiki and it appears to be is nearing the end of its lifecycle, no longer relevant in 2010 (Krapht, 2008). Krapht (2008) goes on to state that:

Wikipedia was revolutionary in it’s (sic) rapidly changing time. Like many revolutions, there were atrocities. Even as the list of flawed decisions, directions and actions grows to include felons at the helm and ugly domestic confrontations involving the founder aired as network news items, Wikimedia Foundation spokespeople, like many revolutionary leaders, infer “fog of war” in the standard claim that these news stories are about “non-issues.

The idea of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia with unlimited space, able to gather and publish all knowledge from all people, openly available for everyone to contribute and edit, operating under peer-governance, was a grand vision of the early, nerdy days of online communities and online social collaboration. Wikipedia grew rapidly and quickly gained prominence and promised a future where all knowledge would be freely available to all people. As the resource grew and struggled to maintain the grand vision, it became hampered by ineffective governance and, as people jockeyed for position and power in the administrative realms, legitimate contributors, editors and subject matter experts came to be disregarded and disrespected and began leaving in numbers (Angwin & Fowler, 2009). Sadly, lack of transparency, inaccuracies, vandalism, hoaxes, bias and personal agendas appear to be the current state of Wikipedia affairs. Wikipedia remains a useful teaching tool and pre-search source, but research demonstrates that the quality of Wikipedia content has deteriorated over time and cannot be regarded as a reliable, accurate, quality, peer-reviewed information. The conclusions drawn here counsel that Wikipedia should not be relied upon as a quality resource and warn that citing Wikipedia for serious academic scholarship is ill-advised. To quote Hartzog (as cited in Kostakis, 2009), “if you really want to understand why Wikipedia is doomed … read Tacitus and Plutarch … The past, as ever, is prologue”.

References:

Angwin, J. & Fowler, G.A. (2009, November 27). Volunteers log off as Wikipedia ages. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved April 20, 2010 from
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125893981183759969.html

Bauwens, M. (2008, January 7). Is something fundamentally wrong with Wikipedia governance processes? Retrieved March 19, 2010 from
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/is-something-fundamentally-wrong-with-wikipedia-governance-processes/2008/01/07

Bergstein, B. (2007, December 22). Former Wikipedia officer found to have a long criminal record. The Washington Post. Retrieved April 23, 2010 from
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/21/AR2007122102223.html

Black, E.W. (2008). Wikipedia and academic peer review: Wikipedia as a recognised medium for scholarly publication? Online Information Review, 32(1). Retrieved April 20, 2010 from Emerald database.

Bruns, A. (2008). Blogs, Wikipedia, second life, and beyon: from production to produsage. New York: Peter Lang.

Chesney, T. (2007). Empirical examination of Wikipedia’s credibility. First Monday, 11(11). Retrieved March 16, 2010 from
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1413/1331

Coleman, A. (2007). Students ‘should use Wikipedia’. Retrieved March 17, 2010 from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7130325.stm

Criticism of Wikipedia. (2010). Retrieved March 24, 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia

CyberMedia News. (2009, August 5). Is Wikipedia dying a slow death? Retrieved March 17, 2010, from
http://www.ciol.com/Global-News/News-Reports/Is-Wikipedia-dying-a-slow-death/5809123224/0/

Farrer, N. (2009, August 6). Wikipedia dying: thanks to its mad editors. The Enquirer. Retrieved April 20, 2010 from
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1496429/wikipedia-dying

Finkelstein, S. (2009, March 5). Inclusion or deletion? In the end, it’s actually about money. The Guardian. Retrieved March 23, 2010, from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/05/wikipedia-seth

Frommer, D. (2009, August 6). Chart of the day: Wikipedia’s growth tumbles. Business Insider. Retrieved April 20, 2010 from
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-wikipedias-growth-tumbles-2009-8

Giles, J. (2005, December 15). Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Nature, 438. Retrieved April 20, 2010 from Expanded Academic database.

Head, A.J. & Eisenberg, M.B. (2010). How today’s college students use Wikipedia for course-related research. First Monday, 15(3). Retrieved March 16, 2010, from Educause
http://www.educause.edu/Resources/HowtodayscollegestudentsuseWik/201568

Idfive. (2000). A (somewhat incomplete) time line of social media. Retrieved March 16, 2010 from
http://flowerng.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/social_media_timeline-779402.jpg

Johnson, B. (2009, August 12). Wikipedia approaches its limits. The Guardian. Retrieved March 23, 2010 from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/12/wikipedia-deletionist-inclusionist

Konieczny, P. (2007). Wiki and Wikipedia as a teaching tool. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 4(1). Retrieved March 18, 2010 from:
http://itdl.org/Journal/Jan_07/article02.htm

Kostakis, V. (2010). Identifying and understanding the problems of Wikipedia’s peer governance: the case of inclusionists versus deletionists. First Monday, 15(3). Retrieved March 16, 2010 from
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2613/2479

Krapht, W. (2008). Is it time to go beyond Wikipedia? Retrieved March 20, 2010 from
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/is-it-time-to-go-beyond-wikipedia/2008/11/11

Lanier, J. (2006, May 30). Digital Maoism: the hazards of the new online collectivism. Retrieved April 20, 2010 from
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html

Leaver, T. (2009). Wikipedia: what’s in it for teachers? Screen Education, (53), 56-60. Retrieved March 16, 2010 from EBSCOhost Database

Lih, A. (2010, February 22). Can Wikipedia survive popular success and community decline? [Video file]. Retrieved April 20, 2010 from
http://www.blip.tv/file/3260104

Morozov, E. (November/December, 2009). Is it the end of Wikipedia? Retrieved March 19, 2010 from
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR34.6/morozov.php

The great sock hunt: wikipedia.org. (2009). In M. O’Neil, Cyber chiefs: autonomy and authority in online tribes (pp. 147-168). New York: Pluto Press.

Priedhorsky, R., Chen, J., Lam, S., Panciera, K., Terveen, L. & Riedl, J. (2007). Creating, destroying, and restoring value in Wikipedia. Proceedings of the 2007 International ACM Conference on Support Group Work. Florida, USA. Retrieved March 24, 2010 from
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1316624.1316663

Rebecca. (2007). 4 ways to use Wikipedia (hint: never cite it). Retrieved March 17, 2010 from
http://gearfire.net/4-ways-wikipedia-needing-cite

Reliability of Wikipedia. (2010). Retrieved March 24, 2010 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (2nd ed.). California: Corwin Press.

Santana, A. & Wood, D.J. (2009). Transparency and social responsibility issues for Wikipedia. Ethics and Information Technology, 11(2). Retrieved April 20, 2010 from SpringerLink Contemporary database.

Schott’s Vocab. (2009, November 26). Deletionists. The New York Times. Retrieved March 23, 2010 from:
http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/deletionists/

Schofield, J. (2009, November 25). Have you stopped editing Wikipedia? And if so, is it doomed? The Guardian. Retrieved April 20, 2010 from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/nov/25/wikipedia-editors-decline

Slashdot. (2006). Why Wikipedia articles vary so much in quality. Retrieved March 18, 2010 from
http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/06/1917223/Why-Wikipedia-Articles-Vary-So-Much-in-Quality

Subhasis. (2009, August 6). Will Wikipedia end before long? LittleAbout. Retrieved April 20, 2010 from
http://www.littleabout.com/news/27556,will-wikipedia-long.html

Swartz, A. (2006, September 7). Who runs Wikipedia? Retrieved March 20, 2010 from
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whorunswikipedia

Swartz, A. (2006, September 7). Who writes Wikipedia? Retrieved March 20, 2010 from
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia

The battle for Wikipedia’s soul. (2008, August 3) The Economist, 386(8570). Retrieved April 20, 2010 from Business Source Premier database via EBSCOhost.

The myth of Wikipedia democracy. (2009, December 5). The West Australian. Retrieved March 16, 2010 from Factiva database.

Waters, N.L. (2007). Why you can’t cite Wikipedia in my class. The online encyclopedia’s method of adding information risks conflating facts with popular opinion. Communications of the ACM, 50(9). Retrieved March 20, 2010, from Business Source Premier database via EBSCOhost

Wikipedian. (2010). Retrieved March 25, 2010 from
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wikipedian

Is it fact, fiction or fantasy? Check under the bonnet before risking a Wikipedia citation! by Janette Treanor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

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Comments

Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Jason,

What about your closest university library -you can always use the resources and save to USB, email to yourself or at least photocopy? I find I get free access to most of the full-text articles from the public access computers. Only some licences are restricted. Universities have an obligation to serve the public too!

Information should be shared and freely accessibly but there is always someone trying to make a buck however they can, true? And as you say those holding the power will not let go easily. The authors are the ones who need to start publishing their work freely and not tying themselves into tight contracts with the powerful publishers.

The musicians are starting to get their work out there for free, scholars can do it too!
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Unfortunately – no responses thus far. Very disappointing.
I also email a university journalism school – same -no response!
I will find how – however
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Thank you for your comments, AnaMaria,

It is a shame that Wikipedia has not lived up to its promise.
People will learn from the mistakes made and take what is good and use it for new ventures.

I would certainly not use it for serious academic research because you just never know if the information is true.
Written by AnamariaR about 2 years ago.

Hi Janette,

A very interesting paper.

What a shame that a website that allows people who truly want to contribute to information on different subjects, now works against them due to some administrators being more interested in personal control and power over content than true valuable content being added to the site.

I have used the site in the past for quick information on celebrities and a starting point for study, but don’t trust the information as being all-true. Your paper has opened my eyes and changed my opinion on whether to use the site again. It makes me think twice about visiting the site due to the control some have over the information published on the site, giving them personal gain and satisfaction. It makes me questions how much or if any of the information is even true.

Thank you for an interesting read.
Written by JasonK about 2 years ago.

Cost and lack of quantity of articles are precisely the reasons why I don’t go out and buy the Britannica DVD. I know that I could go down to the local library as you mention and get all the material from there, but the problem with that is that I doubt my library has over 3.2 million articles. Also, it is not in electronic format, which means that searching for the information would be painfully laborious.

There are plenty of free resources on the Internet, but if you have used Google Scholar, than you have come across the block some academic sites wanting membership fees to access their data. Finding academic papers is not easy especially if we are expected to pay for it.

It’s a shame that Wiki has so many problems, resulting in contributors leaving.

It is always said that information wants to be free, and I’m sure it does, but there are those who know that information is power, and they want to control the flow of information as well as accessibility.

It reminds me, that not too far in the past, only the Catholic Church had access to Bibles and the public did not. This was changed in time so that the Bible and other books became accessible. Recently, Google has been scanning in books and providing them online causing a large outcry by people such as publishing companies and authors. Many hoped that Wiki would be the free, publicly accessible database rivaling Britannica. Sadly this is not to be, but I wonder if we will ever have free access to information or whether there will always be an agenda to control it?

Your article definitely sheds light on this predicament. Hopefully Wiki will evolve like its designers wanted to and become something better than it is now.
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Hello Jason,

Thanks for your comments. I agree that it is so easy to use Wikipedia references and they can appear so convincing. And some of the articles look quite good – but which ones and are they really accurate and who wrote them?

Cost is certainly an issue which is why I use the closest library collection. I don’t want to pay for the Britannica DVD as you say – it only holds so many articles and the DVD needs updating when information is revised (and corrected). There is always going to be some human error.

I have found that I can find most of the information I need from reliable, reputable sources and for free – or cost of petrol to get to the library to use their collections.

I used the Criticism of Wikipedia reference because all the criticisms I found in different sources had been collected together by Wikipedia and made available by Wikipedia. … they point out their inherent weaknesses and set up pages of criticism that is aimed at them.

Research seems to demonstrate that once the aspect of peer-governance began to diminish and control was taken by the powerful few, genuine contributors were no longer interested in being involved in Wikipedia.

Information I have read recently reveals that many different organisations are creating wikis around specific topics or disciplines and collaborating in these online spaces. Maybe this focused, subject specific approach is a more positive use of the wiki. This development could be attributed as a positive outcome of Wikipedia. These specific wikis can take what is good about Wikipedia and learn from what did not work, and create collaborative, online working environments. One of the changes to these specific wikis is that authors will be named and this can only be a good thing and add to the quality and reliability of the information. I am guessing that there will also be rules and regulations and checks and balances to keep the contributors ‘honest’.
Written by JasonK about 2 years ago.

A very interesting and relevant article on the dangers of using Wikipedia as a reference in academic circles. I always had my suspicions about the credibility and accuracy of some of the information presented in Wiki, yet it is was just so easy to use and access information as opposed to using Google Scholar or other academic sites to obtain data.

Another reason why I used Wiki in the past is because I didn’t want to pay money to buy a proper encyclopedia like Britannica. Even though it doesn’t cost much ($39) it has only 100,000 articles on its DVD whereas Wiki has 3,292,943 articles (Main Page 2010 ; Britannica 2010 Ultimate Reference DVD). Yet, the points you make about bias, and the case of the deletionists vs the inclusionists, means that we have to make a choice about quality vs quantity. Quality wise, Britannica wins as it is authoritative and trusted, however it loses in the quantity of accessible articles. Quality wise, Wikipedia has been cast into doubt but wins with the quantity of articles.

It’s really amazing that the proponents of Wiki would shoot themselves in the foot so to speak by pointing out its inherent weakness as stated by Chesney(2007) who states,

“Proponents of Wikipedia have hit back by pointing out that the site does not claim to be authoritative or reliable but realises that is it “possible for biased, out of date or incorrect information to be posted.”

Considering that Wikipedia is essentially flawed, what purpose does it serve other than to be an avenue for people and organizations to self promote and skew information in their favour? You said in your paper that,

“The unregulated editing processes and the ability to freely submit content also results in many amateurish articles that are unauthoritative, incomplete and incorrect. There is no way to tell if the article is the result of research, hearsay, primary source data, a biased point of view, someone’s agenda, a complete hoax or an act of malicious vandalism.”

These flaws in my opinion should signal the end of Wiki and your research seems to suggest that with articles submission now in negative growth, that this is occurring.

One thing is funny in your paper, is that although you are arguing the inaccuracy and flaws Wikipedia, you are using a source from Wikipedia to back up your argument (Criticism of Wikipedia. (2010). Retrieved March 24, 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia).

A very informative and well written article and I will definitely not be relying on Wiki anymore for anything.

Britannica 2010 Ultimate Reference DVD, (nd). Retrieved from http://www.britannicastore.com/Britannica-2010-Ultimate-Reference-DVD/invt/042110800dm

Chesney, T. (2007). Empirical examination of Wikipedia’s credibility. First Monday, 11(11). Retrieved March 16, 2010 from
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1413/1331

Main Page (2010). Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Written by CheaTeingYea about 2 years ago.

Hi Janette

Did you get any responses from the journalists?

I read through the paper. Interesting but I don’t think it covered journalists citing wikipedia. At least I don’t think it did. But thank you for the link. I really liked it. =)
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Hello

I found this piece of research you might be interest to browse.

Why Do People Write for Wikipedia? Incentives to Contribute to Open-Content Publishing.
Andrea Forte and Amy Bruckman
Georgia Institute of Technology, College of Computing

http://www.andreaforte.net/ForteBruckmanWhyPeopleWrite.pdf

Abstract.
When people learn that we have spoken to individuals who spend up to 30 hours a
week volunteering their time to research and write for an open-content encyclopedia, we often hear the same question: “Why do they do it?“

The fact that this encyclopedia does not provide bylines to credit authors for their hard work makes the scenario still less fathomable. Two rounds of interviews with 22 volunteer encyclopedia writers in the fall of 2004 and spring of 2005 revealed that, in some respects, the incentive system that motivates contributions to the open content encyclopedia Wikipedia resembles that of the scientific community.

Like scientists, contributors to Wikipedia seek to collaboratively identify and publish true facts about the world.

Research on the sociology of science provides a useful touchstone for considering the incentive systems embedded in the technology and culture of online communities of collaborative authorship.

In this paper we describe some of our findings in the context of Latour and Woolgar’s
seminal work on the incentive systems that motivate publishing scientists. We suggest that minimizing reliance on “hard coded,“ stratified user privileges and providing indicators of engagement in desirable activities can help support the growth of incentive economies in online communities.
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Hey Jarrad,
Thank you for your comment.

I have not researched Google’s search algorithm but I from what I have read, I would say you are spot on.

I also do not have any traffic stats though I am aware that many people believe that it is fine to quote the resource. Because of this general belief and the fact that Wikipedia scores so heavily in the web search results, I would say that traffic is steaming ahead.

I enoyed this tongue-in-cheek quote from Srinagesh:
The name Wikipedia comes from the Latin root “pedia,” meaning “book of arcane facts” and the ancient German root “wiki,” meaning “potentially altered by any idiot with Internet access.”
Srinagesh, S. (2006, August 11) Teen’s warning on the gospel of Wikipedia. Retrieved May 14, 2010 from
http://news.cnet.com/2010-1038_3-6104446.html

You might be interested in this Wikipedia article traffic statistics finder:
http://stats.grok.se/

cheers
janette
Written by Jarrad Long about 2 years ago.

It’s like Lord of the Flies, wiki-style!

This is a brilliantly written paper Janette – readable, interesting and obviously well-researched.

Regarding speculation that Google unfairly favours Wikipedia, I’d tend to think not – I think Wikipedia simply ranks highly anyway, due to the number of other sites linking to it. Although Google’s search algorithm is a tightly guarded secret, the number of external links linking to a site is widely thought to be one of the most heavily-weighted criteria.

Your paper forecasts a pretty grim future for Wikipedia but has any data surfaced yet to suggest a drop in traffic? I’ve found that regardless of the quality/reliability of something on the web, once it becomes widely known and begins to choke Google’s results, it’s almost impossible to slow down, with users oblivious to the reliability of the information presented. If you believe Wikipedia’s own stats (and I realise the irony in that) there’s been a strong, steady increase in the site’s popularity over time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Awareness_statistics

I’m sure a lot of users just assume (wrongly) that if something appears on Wikipedia there’s a good chance it’s correct, because if it wasn’t, someone would’ve corrected it. Thanks for opening my eyes!
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Hello Kaye,

Thank you for your comments.

Wikipedia is hard to ignore with its search results clogging the top of web searches and it looks so professional.

There is speculation around that Google favours Wikipedia but it is appears that ranking algorithms are just picking up the external links in the Wikipedia articles.

However, Google did give Wikipedia a $2million donation earlier this year so it makes you wonder.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/google-donates-us2-million-to-wikipedia-20100218-ofni.html

I agree with you that we should use seek information from trustworthy, peer-reviewed sources.

I am going to have a quick browse of the conference reference lists now to check out those Wikipedia references

cheers
jt
Written by KayeE about 2 years ago.

P.S. – I have even seen people in the comments of this online conference make reference to Wikipedia as a reputable source.
Written by KayeE about 2 years ago.

Hi Janette – fascinating article! Who knew that there was such controversy and duelling in Wikipedia! The deletionists vs. the inclusionists – I had no idea that such a battle was going on! As someone who teaches information literacy in an academic Library I have always taught students to not trust Wikipedia and I believe that you are absolutely correct in saying that it should only be used as a ‘pre search tool’. With the wealth of so much academic, peer reviewed and trustworthy information available to us on the Internet and in Libraries I rarely find the need to use Wikipedia (although I have used it). It will be very interesting to see what the future holds for Wikipedia and whether it will continue to evolve or whether it is indeed ‘doomed’.
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Hi Louise,

Thanks for your comment. I have tried unsuccessfully to access Wikipedia several times to do a little edit but the IP is continually blocked!

From the research I understand that being a wikipedian becomes a little addictive especially if you feel you are adding value for someone else’s benefit. It appears that when people add information they are keen to see if and how others might edit their article. If the topic is important to the original contributor, s/he may feel a certain ownership and feel that s/he has the right to revert any edits they consider incorrect/inappropriate.

Then there are those who just enjoy seeing how far they can vandalise the information and how long it takes for someone to realize and correct the information …. Only to have it vandalised again

Shame Wikipedia no longer appears to be a true wiki. Wikipedia results certainly dominate the Google search results list.

cheers
jt
Written by Louise about 2 years ago.

The apparent hierarchy in Wikipedia is a bit of an eye opener, especially since it’s touted as something that we can all contribute to. I do wonder what motivates people to become such frequent contributors, while mot of us are content with adding little or no information. Is Wikipedia part of their daily Internet use, in the same way that I would automatically go to Facebook or Gmail when I go online?
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Hello Jo,

Thanks for your comments.

This paper is argues about the English-language Wikipedia, as you note. I looked at Wikipedia in other languages but decided against including a discussion here due to the word limit … and the time limit.

The German-language resource which is the second largest in size after the English version. If I can find any relevant data before Friday, I will post here, about any of the other languages

Cheers
jt
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Hi again …

I have not been able to devote as much time as I would like thus far to investigating the Wikipedia and RNA Biology collaboration. It is still on my to-do list.

Here are a couple of mentions.

Cheers
jt

Wikipedia and RNA Biology
by Nat Torkington | @gnat | comments: 11

http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/12/wikipedia-and-nature.html

I love the RNA Biology journal’s new guidelines for submissions, which state that you must submit a Wikipedia article on your research on RNA families before the journal will publish your scholarly article on it:
This track will primarily publish articles describing either: (1) substantial updates and reviews of existing RNA families or (2) novel RNA families based on computational and/or experimental results for which little evolutionary analysis has been published. These articles must be accompanied by STOCKHOLM formatted alignments, including a consensus secondary structure or structures and a corresponding Wikipedia article. Publication in the track will require a short manuscript, a high quality Stockholm alignment and at least one Wikipedia article; Each centered around the RNA in question.
As my source for this points out, Nature (the publishing organisation behind the RNA Biology journal, and co-producer of Science Foo Camp with O’Reilly and Google) the publishers of RNA Biology already synchronise a database with Wikipedia. Apparently there’s a core of scientists who do most of the edits, but also a lot of other scientists who pop in sporadically to fix or add information.
Kudos to Nature the publishers of RNA Biology for doing something imaginative to increase the commons. Journals wield a huge amount of power in the scientific world, and it’s wonderful to see them using that power to incentivize good.

Rfam, RNA Biology and Wikipedia in the news
February 20, 2009
http://xfam.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/rfam-rna-biology-and-wikipedia-in-the-news/

Some of you may have noticed the recent attention that the unholy alliance between Rfam, RNA Biology and Wikipedia has been receiving recently. I thought it might be worthwhile posting a more detailed overview of how this happened, what we’re planning and dealing with the major criticisms.
Written by JoG about 2 years ago.

Hi Janette,

I agree that “Wikipedia should not be relied upon as a quality resource” nor be used “for serious academic scholarship”. However, I think that this has always been the case regardless of its possible decline. As you and others have mentioned, Wikipedia is useful as quick grounding in a subject but just like an encyclopaedia, which is after all just a compilation of information, it is always best to go to the source material. That being said, I enjoyed your well-researched exploration of the gap between Wikipedia’s earlier stated goals and the position it is now in. I am assuming that the articles cited are referring to English articles, do you know if the phenomena you described are also occurring for the newer non-English speaking Wikipedia articles?

Cheers,
Jo
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Dear Emelia,

Thank you for your comments.

As you say, Wikipedia is a good place to start getting ideas about a topic and some of the article references and links are to excellent, external sources.

I have not been able to get into Wikipedia to play Every work computer I try to access it from, has the IP blocked – so, of course, it is the organisation’s IP address blocked. Crazy.

I compare your comments about being uncertain about editing an article to those who jump in and change information whether it be malicious vandalism, cleansing of corporate or political articles, changing information for the hack of it, or simply submitting information but not having the full facts nor incorrect facts.

I agree that the feelings of a cooperative, collaborative and trusting community have disappeared from Wikipedia. And, true also, commerce and business have infiltrated every corner of the web.

Regards
janette
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Hello Keith,

Thank you for your comments. I enjoyed doing the research. I have often heard the topic of referencing Wikipedia bandied around – it is not acceptable to reference, it is okay to reference …

Wikipedia can be a great spring board into excellent sources. It comes up so often in a web search it takes courage to avoid and keep drilling down the results.

Good question about the profile of contributors to peer-reviewed academic journals. I will see if I can find you an answer but don’t hold your breath….

I would hope that there are many more women of all ages and men of all ages and all experiences involved in publishing for journals.

A more even distribution of the sexes, ages, marital status and people with children has often been attributed with delivering more fair and true outcomes and decisions. History is witness that decisions taken a group of young males, in this case, arguing about what will be or will not be included in the Wikipedia resource, might not produce the best outcomes/decisions Sometimes winning is the end game?

It would be a shame to have good information excluded because of a power struggle. A thirty year-old, single male with no children would have a completely different set of values and life experiences to a fifty year-old grandmother, and both set of values and life experiences are equally valuable.

However, this parallels with the argument about court judges – would a woman judge reach the same verdict as a male judge; does what a judge have for breakfast affect the decision taken; does an argument with a spouse the evening prior, affect the decision reached ; does gender, age, sexual preference, political views, etc., affect judgment; interesting, eh.

Thanks again, Keith.
Written by ESutton about 2 years ago.

A really interesting paper!
Way back when wikipedia was just starting out, we were told never to trust it, never quote it and never use it. From all the lecturers and tutors we heard the same thing, over and over again. However times have changed and while most lecturers make it clear they won’t accept wikipedia as a reference or source of quotes they do seem to understand that students use it as a resource. Personally I find it incredibly useful as a guide to what a topic is about, or who a certain person is.

In one of my last subjects I was lucky enough to have to edit a wikipedia article and watch it for a bit to see what happened to my edits. If not for that I don’t think I ever would have dared to touch an article. This is one of the problems with wikipedia, most people wouldn’t think to edit a page. They don’t have either the confidence in how to edit a page or they don’t quite know if they are allowed, if their contribution will be accepted. It is incredibly an off putting and scary thing to do. I have followed wikipedia’s ups and downs in the media and your paper has reminded me of another reason why I wouldn’t edit a page previously, I didn’t like the way the site had changed from a friendly social initiative to a corrupt, vandalised website that really didn’t seem as open and as friendly as it had done. All the media attention and the side serves of wikimedia, wikiquote, wikiversity etc. made the initiative seem more corporate than co-operative, more commercial than community.
A very well written paper, thanks you!
Emelia
Written by Keith Law about 2 years ago.

Janet, you have obviously gone to a great deal of effort in your research and have produced a very thorough argument.
I have used Wikipedia for accessing open source images for inclusion in academic works and websites. Not all images are open source but there are a lot that have no copyright restrictions. And as you say it can be useful to identify sources from the citation lists.
I was particularly interested in your quote: “ According to Morozov (2009) wikipedians are 80 percent male with 30 percent under the age of 30, more than 65 percent are single and more than 85 percent have no children; certainly not a balanced cross section of the community.” As you say it is not representative of the community but I’m not sure that contributes to the accuracy or otherwise of the content. Would contributors to most peer reviewed academic journals have a similar profile? I suggest that they also would not be “a balanced cross section of the community”.
Your conclusion can hardly be disputed. “The conclusions drawn counsel that Wikipedia should not be relied upon as a quality resource and warn that citing Wikipedia for serious academic scholarship is ill-advised.”
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Hi Yannick,

Thank you for your comments.

It is an interesting dilemma. I also believe that initially subject matter experts, scientists and scholars enjoyed contributing to Wikipedia but, sadly, times have changed.

I understand that the Wikipedia vs Britannicia face-off was somewhat skewed as the comparisons between the two resources were based on scientific and technological disciplines which deal more in facts and figures as compared to the humanities, linguistics, poetry and the arts which require study, research and expert opinion.

West, K. & Williamson, J. (2009). Wikipedia: friend or foe? Reference Services Review 37(3). Retrieved March 25, 2010 from Emerald Group database.

Butler and Huss et al delivered their paper in 2008 – possibly written in 2007 – which is a long time in the life of Wikipedia

Most of the wikipedian in-fighting seems to have developed more recently which appears to be the major contributor to the bad press Wikipedia is receiving. The deletionists vs inclusionists and the mass walk out of regular contributors and experts who are tired of the petty games have contributed to Wikipedia losing credibility.

I read the Butler article, Publish in Wikipedia or perish, and found the comments to the article most interesting.
The majority appear to be negative, suggesting that publication of the RNA information should be directed towards more scholarly sources.

One of the positive outcomes of Wikipedia is mentioned in this article:

RNA wiki which is a subset of the WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology…. scientists are also increasingly using wiki technology to get scientists to help curate other biological databases.

Here are some recent articles that support my article:

Bradley, D. (2010, February 25). How to fix Wikipedia. Retrieved May 9, 2010 from
http://www.sciencetext.com/fixing-wikipedia.html

Unfortunately, Wikipedia has not turned out to be the perfect alternative to traditional sources of facts. It is often criticized for inaccuracies, bias and vandalism of high-profile pages. In an effort to address such problems, the site’s owners are testing new rules that still allow contributors to write what they want, but require an experienced and registered site volunteer to verify any edits a user may make ….
Sharman Lichtenstein and Craig Parker of the School of Information Systems, at Deakin University, Burwood, Australia suggest that this approach will not result in any significant improvement to the “information quality” on Wikipedia…

and they outline the reasons why….

Wikipedia, Notability, and Open Source Software. (2010, March 17) Retrieved May 9, 2010 from
http://ubuntard.com/2010/03/wikipedia-notability-and-open-source-software/

Insightful article with insightful comments …

One does not succeed at Wikipedia by adding content. One succeeds by reverting un-sourced edits, and nominating pages for deletion. They even have a group for this, the Association of Deletionist Wikipedians, who, in their utter lack of logic, seem convinced that adding content to Wikipedia dilutes it. This is despite the fact that the other side has realized that Wikipedia is not paper and thus is not constrained to the limits of a paper encyclopedia. Of course, the Association of Deletionist Imbeciles have their little size breakdown, which implies it’s difficult to find what you want when more content exists. Clearly, these people have not heard of search algorithms.

Vaknin, S. (2009, August 28). The Wikipedia’s Sins Revisited. The American Chronicle. Retrieved May 9, 2010 from
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/116481

The Wikipedia is the massive, structured blog of an online cult. The cult is dedicated to the agglomeration of information and disinformation (i.e. data) and its classification (in the form of articles). It also revolves around the personality of Jimmy Wales and his “disciples” and, in this sense, it is a personality cult and a pseudo-religion. The only thing the Wikipedia is not is an encyclopedia.

Encyclopedias are authored by people who are authorities in their respective fields; whose credentials are transparent and vetted by their peers; and who subject themselves to review by equally qualified people. The Wikipedia is authored and edited by faceless, anonymous writers and editors. The fact that they are registered means nothing as the vast majority of them still hide behind aliases and handles. Some of them have been proven to have confabulated biographies and fictitious self-imputed academic credentials.

Most Wikipedia articles sport references. But references to which material? Only experts know which books, articles, and essays are worth citing from! The truth is that the Wikipedians – many of them teenagers – cannot do the referencing and research that are the prerequisite to serious scholarship (unless you stretch these words to an absurd limit).

I am following up to see if I can discover if RNA Biology Journal has, indeed, done as they said.

If Wikipedia does fade into oblivion, it has served a good purpose with communities creating focused wikis for sharing of specific information within scientific and scholarly boundaries, as the RNA team has done.

Thanks again and have a great day
janette
Written by yannickb about 2 years ago.

Hi Janette

Thanks for the very interesting and engaging read. I am an avid user of Wikipedia (not as a contributor) and I generally use it as an introductory to any topic. I would be interested to hear other students experiences, but I have in the past been given Wikipedia links as part of my course material in my undergraduate course.

Your argument is a real eye-opener and I must admit that I had only know about the more positive literature around the use of Wikipedia, specifically the Nature Journal blind study that reported similar error rates between Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica (Giles 2005). You have inspired me to want to research this further.

I still think there is a bright future for Wikipedia through a shift in academia’s approach to the platform, which could revitalise and address some of the issues that you have highlighted. RNA Biology Journal is actively involved in shifting its approach to Wikipedia by requiring any authors who submit material to the journal to also agree to it being published on Wikipedia – following the peer review process. The journal believes that through this process they can encourage a more collaborative approach to RNA research and has developed a Wikiprojects site to help facilitate the active engagement of scientists in the field (Butler 2008; Huss, Orozco et al. 2008).

References

Giles, J. (2005). “Internet encyclopaedias go head to head.” Nature 438(7070): 900-901.

Butler, D. (2008). Publish in Wikipedia or Perish. Nature (online news). Retrieved May 1 from http://www.nature.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/news/2008/081216/full/news.2008.1312.html

Huss, J. W., III, C. Orozco, et al. (2008). “A Gene Wiki for Community Annotation of Gene Function.” PLoS Biol 6(7): e175. Retrieved May 1 from http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060175
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

I have egg on my face about wordpress but Ted sorted it out

I emailed a couple of journalists who present at conferences asking their comments but I have yet to receive a response.

I also emailed a university journalism department to enquire – no response. I will email UQ shortly to see if I can get a response.

If we are searching around the web and come across a reference (or multiple references) from Wikipedia – which will most probably the case as Google and Wikipedia seem to be best friends – it is advisable to dig deeper and consult other reputable, academic sources to find out if the information is, indeed, true, accurate and complete, before using it to support a serious piece of work.

I agree with you that it is a good starting point and the references and external links from articles are sometimes excellent. I understand that the external links are the reason that Wikipedia comes up so much on a Google search.

I don’t believe the wiki interface is an issue. I believe that initially, some of the material in Wikipedia was of a high standard.

Research suggests that the issue with reliability now is because anyone can write and edit articles. The site is often hit by vandalism and because the current governance of Wikipedia has narrowed down from genuine peer-governance to a fistful of powerful administrators who have the last say about what is published. These administrators, who are not subjects experts, argue with actual subject experts about content and, because of this, the subject experts are no longer interested in participating in Wikipedia. As a result, the value of the resource has diminished considerably and can no longer be trusted as a realiable resource.

I will post back here is I get any responses from journalism departments or journalists.
Written by Michael N about 2 years ago.

That’s ok the nature of WordPress

You will likely find that in Journalism academic and training schools it is acceptable to quote documents of the internet. I do not know why in 1998 and 1998 at UQ they did that but they changed their policy in Semester 2 when I undertook the third of my compulsory and only Journalism course called Journalism Research. Maybe it was just the thing at the time.

I do not know the evolution of Wikipedia but in some ways even if they changed the rules, the interface or anything would it change its reputation for being unrealiable? I think also it depends on the academic, the school, the tutor, the journal editor or anyone in authority, even your boss, if to use it because I have seen it used in high level academic journals as well as other journals and trade papers. That is something to be sorted out, I just do not believe in using it myself as a source but I do not tell others they cannot. The point is it is a starting point but maybe some are too reliant on it.
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Hey Michael,
Thank you for commenting on my paper.

I thought a few times as I was beginning to research ‘maybe I should be arguing for the others side’ but further research confirmed that Wikipeida is not a resource to be cited in academic scholarship. The information cannot be trusted and basing an argument on that data might leave one with the proverbial egg on the face…

Your comments about your journalism lecturers are interesting. I am attempting for find out what journalism lecturers require for citations currently.

For what it is, Wikipedia has been a wonderful experiment of peer collaboration. I think the pre-search use of the tool is a valuable springboard.

Research has revealed that others are evaluating the resource, and planning to create similar resources by taking what is good and learning from the mistakes made.

Larry Sanger has created Citizdenium, the citizen’s encyclopedia – described as an “expert-led, public participatory, wiki-based project to sum up human knowledge” which will offer a forum for experts who will be named, to review content. (Wikipedia and academic peer review: Wikipedia as a recognised medium for scholarly publication? By Erik W Black).
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Citizendium

Ed Chi of PARC researched Wikipedia in order to build better collaborative software:
http://www.parc.com/about/people/35/ed-h-chi.html

Friedman founded Copyright, an open access peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of copyright in the Internet Age. Copyright seeks a balance to allow access to all users but the information will be vetted by experts for accuracy and completeness:
http://www.wharton.universia.net/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1099&language=english

Google has started Knol …”a new, free tool that we are calling “knol”, which stands for a unit of knowledge. Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it.”
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/encouraging-people-to-contribute.html

Matt Thompson’s Wikipedia research:
http://www.rjionline.org/projects/thompson/stories/wikipedia-ing/index.php

In the end, however, if we don’t try out new things, we won’t discover anything new or how to improve on what exists.
Written by Michael N about 2 years ago.

Janette, interesting and thought provoking arguement, which I concur with.

First a couple of personal notes. In 1998 my IT course required some electives, one of them being introduction to Journalism. The lecturers would not allow any internet sources to be used. In 1999 the School of Journalism backed down. Nevertheless, I concur that Wikipedia should not be used for assignments but maybe for reports at work. I do not believe in using it but others do. Academics insist on sources that are credible so I do not believe Wikipedia is credible, but I have had to read papers where it is quoted even in journals, so that arguement will go on for some time.

Second, I believe you when you and others state it may be reaching the end of its revolutionary time, but I think as a starting point for anything and finding trivial facts it is not reached that yet. I do believe you when you say it is inclusionist and controlled by a few editors precious about content. I have been trying to change the Brisbane Airport wiki page with one inaccuate line and I have evidence the wiki entry is wrong, but it is turned down with no reason each time, so I gave up. Perhaps that is what the issue is though I understand not using wikipedia as a dumping ground arguement.

Overall, your paper has argued well and was great to read thanks for that.
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

oops
here is the link to the article:
http://informationarchitects.jp/iA_future_of_newspapers_v05.pdf
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

I have been searching around for some articles about journalism and citing wikipedia. I have emailed a few journalists and I am waiting for responses.
I found this interesting 2007 paper titled: The future of news.
Answers your question somewhat.
I’ll be back when I get more info …
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Dear CheaTeingYea,

Your comment prompts me to think of citizen journalism.

Sounds like another interesting reseach topic …
Written by CheaTeingYea about 2 years ago.

I find it confusing/interesting (some part of me annoyed as well) that there are newspapers citing Wikipedia in their articles. This occurred in an article in a local English daily in Malaysia (even if it was a feature story).

Link: http://rage.com.my/writeups/story.asp?file=/2010/4/7/features/20100406193316&sec=features

If you shouldn’t cite Wikipedia in academic scholarship, what makes newspapers/journalists more superior that they need not heed this ‘advice’?

Comment Pages:

Online Conference on Networks and Communities

Is it fact, fiction or fantasy? Check under the bonnet before risking a Wikipedia citation!

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