Columnist Jacqueline Gonzalez resigned after an investigation "found information, taken from Wikipedia, a free Internet encyclopedia, was published in the Watchdog column on Page 2B of the Metro section Dec. 25. The information that was not attributed concerned the origin of Dec. 25 as the birth date of Jesus Christ."
Reports on software developed by Alexander Wissner-Gross, a physics student at Harvard University, which builds reading lists based on the information held in the way Wikipedia articles interlink. Quote "Increasingly, a net user who wants to learn more about a subject will read its Wikipedia page," .... "However, for further depth in the subject, there has been no system for advising the user which other Wikipedia articles to read, and in which order."
"Our apologies to the people of Qatar," Gerard said on Wednesday. "It was a mistake. We won't do it again - unless somebody slips up, in which case it will be remedied quickly."
Discusses the practice of controversial figures editing their own biographies on Wikipedia, or getting their "hip young PR agent" to edit them. It refers in particular to Patrick Holford, with whom Ben Goldacre has a dispute over his qualifications and approach. He refers to edits by User:Clarkeola on 22 December.
"Using Wikipedia, Technion researchers have developed a way to give computers knowledge of the world to help them “think smarter,” making common sense and broad-based connections between topics just as the human mind does. The new method will help computers filter e-mail spam, perform Web searches and even conduct intelligence gathering at more sophisticated levels than current programs."
Summarizes some views on Wikipedia by physicists/scientists, including Nobel Laureate Philip Anderson ("I wouldn't dream of reading Wikipedia for physics. Nor would I trust it if I did.") Paper version (Physicsworld, Volume 20, Number 1, page 27) states "75% of respondents use Wikipedia for physics information. However, only 5% regularly contribute to the online encyclopedia." Mike Peel11:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"My Wikipedia article was deleted. I am not delusional. Even though the online reference tool bills itself as "the free encyclopedia anyone can edit," there must be some control over Wikipedia content or some jamoke with nothing better to do in Altoona, Pennsylvania would get his jollies by adding his very own special thoughts to pages referencing orgasm (you know what it is) or cleft of Venus (look it up for yourself)." O'Brien also notes claims in the articles John O'Brien (novelist) and Leaving Las Vegas which she calls false (these statements are also contained in the corresponding IMDb entries) and says "I tried to edit out the erroneous statements on both sites, but some Kiss-the-Hem-of-my-Purple-Robe Wikipedian Lord apparently usurped my efforts." However, the edit histories of both articles show no such edits.
This piece of citizen journalism is subtitled "Online encyclopedia riddled with bias in matters of the heart." The author finds the marriage article "offensive" because "as I clicked on the links ... I was never taken to love" and "I had to type [the word 'love'] into Wikipedia's search engine to find it" (in fact there is a prominent link to love in the "close relationships" sidebar of the marriage article). She then comes across a series of articles which she finds "eye-opening and jaw-dropping" including men's movement, allegations of domestic violence, blame, emotional abuse, hysterics, penis envy, annulment, divorce, and so on.
"... the Wikipedia Issues with SPAM and the discussions about the use of NOFOLLOW for ALL external Links from Wikipedia. It was done, finally. As of now are all outbound links from the english Wikipedia Site using the NOFOLLOW attribute, no exceptions."
Article about students' difficulties in adequately assessing information found on the Internet when doing research mentions, in passing, "the widely publicized errors found on Wikipedia.com." Not only is the wrong domain used, a commenter notes the article itself inaccurately describes a state computer initiative.
In this widely reprinted Associated Press report, Microsoft is accused of offering payment to blogger and "technical standards aficianado" Rick Jelliffe in order to "correct" Wikipedia entries, revealed in Jelliffe's original blog posting (but not this report) to be ODF and OOXML. "Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer and offered to pay him for the time it would take to correct what the company was sure were inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles on an open-source document standard and a rival format put forward by Microsoft." Microsoft and Jelliffe "had not determined a price and no money had changed hands — but they had agreed that the company would not be allowed to review his writing before submission". Jimmy Wales is quoted as being "very disappointed to hear that Microsoft was taking that approach".
This article focuses on the interaction between Jimmy Wales and Gregory Kohs, founder of MyWikiBiz with emphasis on the Wikipedia:Reward board: "Why is it so bad to pay someone to write something on Wikipedia? The 'free encyclopedia that anyone can edit' requires articles to have a 'neutral point of view.' But most contributors surely have some personal motivation to dive into a subject, whether it's adoration of 'Star Trek' or a soft spot for geraniums."
Article on restrictions by the Middlebury College history department on students citing Wikipedia. Many comments by educators on the uses and reliability of the site.
The 'No Follow' issue and the use of Wikipedia articles as a footnote "to avoid a digression from their discourse" is discussed. Is "Wikipedia now in the same league" as Google as a web source?
Reports on the dispute over Microsoft's editing, containing some details from the Associated Press and some additional reporting. It is angled as a debate raging on the internet: "Some are calling it "Wikigate 07". Others see it as a storm on a mouse mat." The piece observes "The software giant has been accused of breaching the spirit of Wikipedia" and recants previous examples of deliberate conflict of interest editing.
In an annual survey of "3,625 branding professionals and students", brandchannel.com asked "Which brand had the most impact on our lives in 2006?". Wikipedia came fourth, behind Google, Apple and YouTube. Starbucks was fifth.
Discusses efforts by National Institute on Drug Abuse employees to edit the article to make it favorable to the agency and ensuing edit war. Jokingly encourages readers to get back at NIDA by vandalizing and adding made-up negative information about NIDA.
Focuses on the multilingual nature of Wikipedia. Articles "are available in languages from Esperanto to Hawaiian to Navajo, gaining considerable ground on English, German, French, Polish, and Japanese, which remain the most prevalent languages on Wikipedia. 'It started in an organic, ad hoc way,' says Samuel Klein, one of hundreds of administrators who monitor multilingual content for Wiki sites. 'New people who are multilingual see the community exists, they find the existing pages, and they join in,' Klein adds."
"A simple search of published court decisions shows that Wikipedia is frequently cited by judges around the country, involving serious issues and the bizarre". The writer doesn't appear to know that one can create links to specific page versions in the history to make a stable reference.
"comScore Networks, a leader in measuring the digital age, today reported the top worldwide Web properties for December, ranked by unique visitors." Number six on the list with 164,675,000 "unique visitors" is "Wikipedia sites", behind "Microsoft sites", "Google sites", "Yahoo! sites", "Time Warner network" and "eBay". Only "unique visitors" over 15 years of age were counted, and the list "[e]xcludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes and access from mobile phones or PDAs". These numbers presumably come from comScore's "massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behaviour". How the "Web properties" were defined (for example, whether YouTube counts as a "Google site") is not explained.
Interview with Jimbo Wales after Davos. Jimbo is reported as stating, "I talked to Bill Gates there—the first time I’ve met him. Lately there’ve been reports in the media about Microsoft versus Wikipedia, which we think is really silly because we’re not battling Microsoft. It was a very brief chat—he said he liked Wikipedia."
"He's inundated with offers, people turn out to see him, and journalists dog his every move: Jimmy 'Jimbo' Wales has all the hallmarks of a rock star. Except he isn't one. He's the man who founded Wikipedia, the vast online encyclopedia used by millions every day. Wikipedia employs just five full-timers, yet it already has 1.5 million articles written by users in a growing number of the world's languages. A diehard core of 400 online volunteers help to keep vendettas, vandals and crazies at bay. So what gave Wales his big idea? Can the open Wikipedia ethic survive in a world dominated by corporations? Paul Marks caught up with him recently after he gave a lecture to a packed hall at the London School of Economics."
"A few Yale professors are adamantly opposed to the use of Wikipedia for academic work, though many of their peers said it has not caused problems at Yale and students said they continue to rely on the encyclopedia for help with their schoolwork." Also mentions a fake entry for emysphilia created by a Yale student.
"Wikipedia is addictively usable. I've just used it, for example, to research Wikipedia. It combines new, interactive, information technologies with an extraordinary economy of effort and speed of delivery. It's run, incredibly, by five people for pennies, and offers itself to the logged-in millions for free." Mentions the Middlebury College incident; praises the Robert Louis Stevenson article but criticizes the John Sutherland entry.
"Florence Devouard, chairwoman of the Wikimedia Foundation, told the Lift07 conference that the outfit might join the Everywhere Girl and disappear from the Interweb. ... Sandy Ordonez claimed that Devouard's comment was taken out of context and Wikipedia will not be closing any time soon."
Profile of Florence Devouard, new chair of the board of Wikipedia. " "What got me hooked was the idea of being able to write articles that left nothing out," she explained from her home in Malintrat, a village of 900 souls outside the city of Clermont Ferrand - a region better known for its extinct volcanoes and pure spring water than its Internet start-ups."
"Here's the newest from Sen. Ted Stevens, the man who described the Internet as a series of tubes: It's time for the federal government to ban access to Wikipedia, MySpace, and social networking sites from schools and libraries." Stevens is sponsoring legislation to require schools to ban students from using interactive web sites. It is not clear whether the proposed law would actually ban Wikipedia.
"It’s like the classic scene in Woody Allen’s 1977 film Annie Hall, when Alvy Singer imagines how he would like to reply to the know-it-all standing behind him in line for a movie and pontificating about Marshall McLuhan. Now, instead of pulling McLuhan out from behind a poster to scold, 'You know nothing of my work,' Alvy could just pull out his BlackBerry and shove the Wikipedia entry in the guy’s face." Relates how an HBO executive used Wikipedia's article on the Immaculate Conception to settle a dispute in a restaurant.
That I even know of Kropotkin comes courtesy of the Wikipedia entry for the "gift economy," the current term of art for this altruistic approach. Wikipedia is, of course, a prime example of the gift economy at work. Argue about its inaccuracies all you want, but the volunteer-authored online encyclopedia is on its way to becoming (if it isn't already) the world's dominant reference resource.
February 16 2007
Raivio, Jarmo (16 February 2007). "Wikipedia juhlii". Suomen Kuvalehti (in Finnish).
The Finnish edition of Wikipedia reached one hundred thousand articles on Sunday, 11 February.
"And SEO's wonder why a lot of wikipedians don't think too nicely of SEO's and are sometimes even hostile. Here is why. Things like this happen every minute at Wikipedia. Whole teams, tools and bots were created to fight it. It's not 100% bulletproof, but the best option there is at the moment. The other option would be to disallow edits by the public, but that is against the basic idea and foundation Wikipedia is build on."
"When half a dozen students in Neil Waters’s Japanese history class at Middlebury College asserted on exams that the Jesuits supported the Shimabara Rebellion in 17th-century Japan, he knew something was wrong[...] The obscure, though incorrect, information was from Wikipedia, the collaborative online encyclopedia, and the students had picked it up cramming for his exam."
"Pro golfer Fuzzy Zoeller is teed off over what he calls defamatory statements about him on Wikipedia.
"But instead of suing the popular online reference site, Zoeller is taking a swing at a Miami company. In a lawsuit filed last week in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, Zoeller -- suing under the name John Doe -- alleged the statements were posted from a computer belonging to Josef Silny & Associates."
Comments by Sorin A. Matei, assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Purdue University."Matei recommends Wikipedia be used as a search engine that acts as a springboard to other resources and that it never be cited as a primary source of information."
Oberlin College students in Elizabeth Colantoni's class on ancient Rome are not just encouraged, but required, to use the controversial online encyclopedia Wikipedia for their research this semester. That seems contrary to the backlash against the Web site, which uses entries written by users of the site regardless of the writer's expertise on the matter. And that's Colantoni's point.[1]
Jimmy Wales is interviewed by Fortune's David Kirkpatrick about Wikipedia and his commercial project Wikia, and why the world needs an open source search engine.
February 26 2007
Moss-Coane, Marty (26 February 2007). "Radio Times". WHYY-FM. Retrieved 2007-02-26.
Why one of the internet's most popular internet encyclopedias is also considered unreliable. We'll talk with NEIL WATERS a professor at Middlebury College, who discovered an obscure but incorrect fact on his students' exams. It turns out they all got it from the same source Wikipedia. Then we'll hear from VIBIANA BOWMAN a librarian at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey about how Wikipedia and the internet in general is changing how we get information and we must adopt new standards for vetting it. Bowman is also author of The Plagiarism Plague in which she argues that the internet has made plagiarism an even bigger problem. First broadcast 26 February 2007 11:00 am UTC-5, Podcast
Stutzman, Fred (February 26, 2007). "Wikipedia's Expansive Influence in Candidate Search Results". Retrieved 2007-09-27. Wikipedia entry ranks higher than the election web presence of that particular candidate for 25% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans.
Compares google ranks wor the following websites for each 2008 election candidates: main site, election site, and wikipedia article
Timothy Noah makes several criticisms of Wikipedia's Notability policy after his own entry was nominated for deletion. "Wikipedia's stubborn enforcement of its notability standard suggests that Veblen was right. We limit entry to the club not because we need to, but because we want to."
Is Wikipedia's ticket to "notability" the writing of one published article about … Wikipedia?
Wikipedia is viewed seven billion times a month and could've made a fortune through adverts. But that just wouldn't be right. Wikipedia is built on the hard work of a core of volunteers and contributions from, well, all of us - so the dynamic of the whole thing just wouldn't work if someone was buying Ferraris off the back of that.
"The July 31, 2006, piece on Wikipedia, “Know It All,” by Stacy Schiff, contained an interview with a Wikipedia site administrator and contributor called Essjay [...] He was described in the piece as “a tenured professor of religion at a private university” with “a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law.” [...] Essjay now says that his real name is Ryan Jordan, that he is twenty-four and holds no advanced degrees, and that he has never taught."
"Internet site Wikipedia has been hit by controversy after the disclosure that a prominent editor had assumed a false identity complete with fake PhD. The editor, known as Essjay, had described himself as a professor of religion at a private university."
"Wikipedia is facing one of its biggest crises after a twentysomething student from Kentucky posed as a professor of religious studies and made more than 20,000 alterations to controversial topics on the online encyclopedia."
"Wikipedia, the controversial online encyclopedia, is planning to ask its army of faceless Internet editors — known as Wikipedians — to verify their credentials after one of the most prolific of their number was exposed as a fraud."
"Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, has been plunged into controversy after one of its most prolific contributors and editors, a professor with degrees in theology and canon law, was exposed as a 24-year-old college drop-out."
"...As a non-profit-making organisation the parent company, Wikimedia, trusts its contributors and editors. But a mischievous 24-year-old student has abused that trust by claiming to be a professor and arbitrated disputes about the validity of information on the website. It may be depressing that such abuse has occurred, but it is hardly surprising."
"Three groups of researchers claim to have untangled the process by which many Wikipedia entries achieve their impressive accuracy. They say that the best articles are those that are highly edited by many different contributors." and
"In effect, the Wiki community has mutated since 2001 from an oligarchy to a democracy. The percentage of edits made by the Wikipedia 'élite' of administrators increased steadily up to 2004, when it reached around 50%. But since then it has steadily declined, and is now just 10% (and falling)."
MSNBC.com reported that Hillary Rodham Clinton had been incorrectly listed for 20 months in her Wikipedia biography as valedictorian of her class of 1969 at Wellesley College. (Hillary Rodham was not the valedictorian, though she did speak at commencement, giving rise to the inaccuracy.) The MSNBC article included a link to the Wikipedia edit, in which user LukeTH added the incorrect information on July 9, 2005. After the MSNBC report, the inaccurate information was removed the same day, with this edit. Between the two edits, the wrong information had stayed in the Clinton article while it was edited more than 4,800 times over the 20 months.
"It has been attacked many times in its short life, most notably by a former aide to Robert F Kennedy and the editor of Encyclopaedia Britannica. But now the online reference site Wikipedia has a new foe: evangelical Christians."
Interviews with three Wikipedia editors, Charles Matthews a 52-year-old former Cambridge academic, Sarah a 17-year-old student and Angela Beesley of the Wikimedia Foundation. "But who are we actually relying on when we use Wikipedia? Little is known about the small army of regular volunteers who dedicate themselves to editing the site. I am here because I want to find out who they are — and why they do it. "
The Kleeman article is followed by a note entitled "The fact it, it's rubbish" signed by Richard Dixon, "Chief Revise Editor" of The Times. It includes these thoughts: "My default position is that every article on Wikipedia is rubbish. When, for example, I need medical information, I go to a reputable medical site, such as the British Medical Journal or The New England Journal of Medicine."
The founder of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, will visit Australia next month as a key speaker at a series of seminars on the future of knowledge.
Reports on postgrad students editing Wikipedia as part of a University of East Anglia course. Politics lecturer, Nicola Pratt, says using Wikipedia can develop students' research skills. "The Wikipedia-based Middle East course counts for an eighth of the students' MA assessment." .. "They're assessed on their ability to improve the quality and balance of the article and they demonstrate they have done that through additional reading around the topic for that week.
"Wikipedia - banned by some academics as a source for student essays - has been made compulsory reading (and writing) for a new course at the University of East Anglia."
"Something had been taken away as well — the Southampton blog listing. We checked on the deletion with the blog’s creator Rolf Laub and found his link had been removed for “not conforming to Wikipedia protocols.” Like us, Laub said he wasn’t sure what that meant."
Reports on a user placing a blog link at the article "Southampton, Houston" and got reverted.
"So how useful is Wikipedia? Entries on uncontentious issues—logarithms, for example—are often admirable. The quality of writing is often a good guide to an entry’s usefulness: inelegant or ranting prose usually reflects muddled thoughts and incomplete information. A regular user soon gets a feel for what to trust. Those on contentious issues are useful in a different way. The information may be only roughly balanced. But the furiously contested entries on, say, Armenian genocide or Scientology, and their attached discussion pages, do give the reader an useful idea about the contours of the arguments, and the conflicting sources and approaches."
An interview with Jimmy Wales, "Why do you think the rate of growth has slowed on the Japanese Wikipedia compared to other languages?
I don't really know. That's what I'm here to find out. Maybe it needs more promotion. But it's very difficult to say. Some of it is the Japanese Wikipedia used to be larger than the French, and there were twice as many editors working in the French Wikipedia. So we used to joke that "there's more French but the Japanese work harder." (Laughs):
Asks four celebrities to assess the accuracy of their own Wikipedia articles. Peter Hitchens - " But in the end, I'm in favour of Wikipedia. It seems to me that most users and contributors are trying to reach the truth in a reasonable manner. And that can never be a bad thing." Edwina Currie - "So don't take this 'encyclopedia' seriously. It's less accurate than most gossip columns." Craig Murray - "But the result is fair and authoritative - I am proud of my entry." Peter Tatchell - "My advice? Use Wikipedia as a resource, but check controversial claims with other sources. As my entry shows, Wikipedia is open to abuse." The Standard states the incorrect information about Essjay was publicized "when a magazine published an article on Wikipedia two weeks ago" -- Stacy Schiff's New Yorker article was actually published in July 2006. The article in Evening Standard is also mirrored here.
Uses Wikipedia as an example of how new media are transforming public discourse: "What is so exciting about Wikipedia isn’t just the generation of new information, but the creation of active publics around the creation of knowledge for publics. People who have certain entries on their watch lists are part of a public in which there can be vigorous disagreement but shared interest in addressing an issue."
Journalist Alex Beam on how he got his Wikipedia entry improved. "...a friend slipped me a magic phone number that rang in the office of Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig, the Learned Hand of the Internet bar. His helpful assistant relayed my complaint to Wales, who sits on a board with Lessig. Soon afterward, the offending paragraphs were removed."
Wiki gains a place in the OED.- "If you think "wiki" doesn't sound like English, you are right. But it's English now. This word born on the Pacific Island of Hawaii finally got an entry into the latest edition of the online Oxford English Dictionary along with 287 other new words." ... "The most famous example is the popular Internet encyclopaedia Wikipedia."
Gene Weingarten on how he tested Wikipedia by editing false information into his own entry to see if it was spotted. It was removed 3 days later by User:Subwayguy.
"This study examines the degree to which Wikipedia entries cite or reference research and scholarship, and whether that research and scholarship is generally available to readers. Working on the assumption that where Wikipedia provides links to research and scholarship that readers can readily consult, it increases the authority, reliability, and educational quality of this popular encyclopedia, this study examines Wikipedia’s use of open access research and scholarship, that is, peer-reviewed journal articles that have been made freely available online. "
'People with money, reputation, and control over public information have historically used their power to retain control over the means of producing knowledge[...] Professors can no more undo the public sphere of the Internet than the embattled experts of the early modern era could undo the coffee houses[...] Articles need to cite "reliable sources," which are those that use "process and approval between document creation and publication." In other words, academic work: Wikipedia is on our side..'
On how both state and other interests might want to influence the slant of articles on Wikipedia. "Wikipedia, like Switzerland, wants to be neutral. But the new bankers of the Net's knowledge face foes invested in partisan points of view. "
"When Mike Scott of the Waterboys looked at the Wikipedia entry on himself, he got quite a shock". A very favorable piece, after being reverted Mike engaged in dialogue with other editors, provided citations which led to some factural corrections. Mike thought his article was better than most other bios he had read.
"When I read the othe day that the history department at Middlebury College had "banned Wikipedia," I immediately wrote to the college's president, Ronald D. Liebowitz, to express my concern that such a decision would lead to a national trend, one that would not be good for higher education. "Banning" has connotations of evil or heresy. Is Wikipedia really that bad?" ...."Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia. It is a knowledge community, uniting anonymous readers all over the world who edit and correct grammar, style, interpretations, and facts. It is a community devoted to a common good — the life of the intellect. Isn't that what we educators want to model for our students?"
A piece that concentrates on efforts to stop vandalism. "Theresa Knott is one such devoted Wikipedian. A member since 2001, she visits the site daily, often editing at 5.30am before she leaves for work as a London primary school teacher. Her efforts have been rewarded with regular abuse from vandals and kudos from her Wikipedia peers, who elected her to the position of administrator in 2003."
Reports on the continuing dispute between Wales and Sanger over the significance of Sangers part in the founding of Wikipedia. "The Wikipedia entry on Wales also holds that Sanger played a sizable role, even giving Wikipedia its name. Without a doubt, Sanger was an early community leader on Wikipedia. But Wales insists that Sanger was a subordinate employee of his, and by that measure, 20 other people would deserve co-founder status."
One of many to fall victim to false Wikipedia entries is the former governor-general of Australia, Peter Hollingworth. Mr Hollingworth called in to the ABC radio program Australia Talks last week, as it was interviewing Mr Wales.
On the problems faced by Wikipedia on April Fools Day. "Spare a thought for Wikipedia editors this Sunday. While most of us are leafing through the newspapers and enjoying a long lunch, they will be stationed in front of their computers, bracing themselves to defend the site against the annual onslaught of April Fools' hoaxes."
"The great lesson of Wikipedia in my mind is that there is always more to know, every bit of knowledge is up for debate," explains Jason Mittell, a professor at Middlebury College. "Wikipedia contains the most current thinking on any topic. As the world changes, Wikipedia will change faster than any other press out there." Mittell, who teaches film and media culture, describes it as "potentially transformative."
"Your entry in Wikipedia says that your work has inspired many students to begin careers in computing and artificial intelligence." "I have no interest in computers. The entry is filled with inaccuracies, and it kind of depresses me." "So fix it." "The next day someone will fix it back."
"If you can't beat Wikipedia, join it. Jill McKinstry, of the University of Washington, commented that her colleagues have begun to populate Wikipedia entries with links to the university library's previously underused collections of digitized photographs. "Needless to say, our usage skyrocketed," she commented. A search on Wikipedia shows that 235 entries include images from the University of Washington"
Reports on Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales and Tim O'Reilly's proposal for a civility code of conduct for blogs. "Some of the suggested rules include banning anonymous comments, taking responsibility for abusive postings, pointing out when visitors are acting badly, trying to move tension-filled dialogue offline, and not saying anything online that you wouldn't say in person."
A report on a speech by the UK Education Secretary, Alan Johnson, to the National Association of Schoolteachers and Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Mr Johnson described the internet as "an incredible force for good in education" for teachers and pupils, and singled out Wikipedia for praise saying "Wikipedia enables anybody to access information which was once the preserve only of those who could afford the subscription to Encyclopaedia Britannica and could spend the time necessary to navigate its maze of indexes and content pages". The article however goes on to focus on a critical response to this view by Larry Sanger who is quoted as saying "While Wikipedia is still quite useful and an amazing phenomenon, I have come to the view that it is also broken beyond repair."
Another article on Alan Johnson's speech offering a positive view of Wikipedia. The article reports comments from the NASUWT general secretary, Chris Keates that the Wikipedia article on the union has had scurilous content in the past and that she would not herself recommend this website to pupils as their only source. The article, on the Guardian website, misprints the NASUWT acronym, and spells "students" as "studnets". Larry Sanger is also quoted, but in less detail than in The Times article. The Guardian (dated 10 April) reprints the full text of Johnson's speech here (scroll to about the mid point of the article to see what was said).
Following Alan Johnson's speech endorsing Wikipedia BBC TV news ran a video report on Wikipedia's accuracy with clip from Ian Grant of Britannica and Wikipedia editor David Gerard.
Martin Ward, deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, disagrees with Larry Sanger, recommending Wikipedia as a "valuable resource" where children can learn "how to be critical and sceptical of what they read just like they would be with any other medium, be it newspapers or even school text books".
Discusses public relations company Verve Communications spamming Wikipedia with articles about Non-Notable subjects such as Verve Communications, Lorraine Langham, Rockpools and Hamish Davidson (all related to Verve). Interestingly, Private Eye makes the case that Lorraine Langham herself may be notable, but only to comment about her past actions.
Interview with Jimmy Wales (originally published April 9, 2007 in Spartanburg Herald-Journal[2]). The article talks about Wikipedia's strengths and weaknesses. Among the weaknesses, the articles mentions grammar and spelling mistakes. Among the strengths, it mentions the scope and breadth of articles which are not found in any other place. It gives two examples, Inherently funny word and 1989 Census in Transnistria.
Article by Williams and six contributors about errors in Wikipedia on coverage of Long Island. The article mentions the rise of Citizendium. The sidebar discusses specific problems with Wikipedia articles on Long Island. Among the mistakes cited was Montauk Point Lighthouse which the article says Wikipedia lists "having been completed in 1792, which Newsday stories show was finished in 1796." A review of the The Montauk Point Lighthouse Wikipedia history shows that the Wikipedia article has always correctly reported the 1796 date and that Newsday is incorrect in the assertion.
Report of an interview with Jimmy Wales at a digital freedom conference in Cape Town, South Africa, looks at future funding options for Wikipedia given that it will continue to eschew advertising. It mentions paid for trivia games and quiz programs as possible acceptable revenue raisers.
Conley, Darby (April 20, 2007). "Get Fuzzy". Archived from the original on 2007-04-23. Retrieved 2013-10-28. Bucky Katt: Hey, scroll down to the bit about where I won Wimbledon.
The Turkish scholar Taner Akçam has been a victim of wholly false claims that he is a terrorist in his Wikipedia biography article, which is reported as being frequently vandalised. This resulted on February 16 2007 in Akçam being detained at Montreal Airport on the basis of this claim and US Homeland Security operatives at the airport recommending that he does not travel for the time being. Fisk referred to Akçam's experiences in the wider context of the internet being a vehicle for the transmission of hate.
Largely a promotional article covering recent current controversies surrounding Wikipedia, and promoting upcoming appearances by Jimmy Wales in Sydney and throughout Australia.
Discusses how Wikipedia was widely used as a place to find information about the Virginia Tech shootings. Due to the policy on no original research, it is not the original source for this information, but it does bring it together in one convenient place.
Reports on a paper on the demographic spread of people who use Wikipedia conducted and published by the Pew Research Center. See the full report at the Pew Internet & American Life Project (pdf). More than a third of American adult internet users (36%) consult it. 50% of those with at least a college degree consult it. This was also widely reported in at least 80 other news sites.
"The Denver Post asked five scholars in Colorado to review the Wikipedia entries on Islam, Bill Clinton, global warming, China and evolution. The results? Four out of five agreed their relevant Wikipedia entries are accurate, informative, comprehensive and a great resource for students or the merely curious."
"Louisianians contributing to Wikipedia, at http://www.wikipedia.org, are helping to clear up misconceptions about often-stereotyped Louisiana culture."
"Articles about politically delicate subjects such as the war in Iraq, the dismissal of seven U.S. attorneys, and Republican politicians and conservative organizations have been turned into hatchet jobs."
On how fewer and fewer big sites are dominating the internet. "In fact, if you Google any person, place or thing today, you're almost guaranteed to find Wikipedia at or near the top of the list of recommended pages. Despite its flaws, the amateur-written encyclopedia has become the world's all-purpose information source. It's our new Delphic oracle."
"The inventor of the wiki is moving to a new job in Portland. Ward Cunningham will be chief technology officer of AboutUs, a 2-year-old company that specializes in using wikis to encourage collaboration on the Web." ... "The 57-year-old Cunningham wasn't directly involved with the development of Wikipedia. But he's been described as an intellectual godfather to those who advocate the power of collaboration."
"How do you keep track of the bubbling mass of information that is Wikipedia? This chaotic-looking mosaic is one attempt to show which topics are contained in the online encyclopedia, and those most hotly contested. It's a mind-boggling task. About 4 million "Wikipedians" have made over 130 million edits, and the English-language version alone contains 1.7 million articles. Every second a new edit is made, and every day 2000 new articles spring up." The image referred to can be seen here:- [3].
"Wikipedia whispers". Private Eye. May 2007. p. 7.
"without warning, Wikipedia founder and director Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales personally deleted the entire page. Soon afterwards a new, cleaned-up version of the di Stefano entry was created - minus all the awkward facts."
"Region VIII Sen.Alejandro Navarro of the Socialist Party (PS) stands accused of copying information from a Wikipedia article and pasting it into a legal brief. On Tuesday, after press time, the Senate was to decide whether his case is to be sent to its Ethics Commission." Sourced to La Tercera.
Cover feature article in June issue of Reason, a libertarian magazine, discussing and interviewing Jimbo Wales and the history and philosophy behind Wikipedia.
Reports on research by Adam Torres of Compete [4] into what people look up on Wikipedia "It appears many people are learning about what sex is and how to have it by referencing Wikipedia," said Torres.
Flintoff, John-Paul (June 3, 2007). "Thinking is so over". The Sunday Times. London. pp. 3 (News Review). Retrieved 2007-06-05.
An interview with "net entrepreneur Andrew Keen" previewing his new book The Cult of the Amateur. Keen criticises web 2.0 ideas and discusses "the disastrous effect" of traditional media disappearing. (Hard copy image shows some famous statue with a thought bubble saying "According to Wikipedia I'm the Mona Lisa")
"I haven't actually read any of the Harry Potter books, but I figure that any group of people who take the collective time and trouble to compile a 7000 word article just on Lord Voldemort have gotta know what they're talking about."
Bennett, Joe (2007-06-06). "Surprised by a heretic's epitaph". The Press. Retrieved 2007-06-06. Maybe the sort of people who contribute to online encyclopaedias are the sort of people who believe that reason always wins in the end.
Joe Bennett, a weekly humour columnist, finds Wikipedia to be trustworthy even though it is able to be freely edited.
"That this ideological bias against advertising is so prevalent amongst Wikipedia's core ontributors is worrying and poses questions about the impartiality of much of the site's content."
Keeker, Korry (2007-06-07). "Our own slice of the World Wide Web". Juneau Empire. Retrieved 2007-06-07. The Wikipedia post for Juneau lays bare the town's culture and community, but can Anonymous be trusted?
Korry Keeker talks to two local users about their experiences and thoughts on Wikipedia, and takes a look at some noteworthy contributions of local interest.
In the end, whom should we trust for information? Newsweek, TIME, or a non-profit organization called the Wikimedia? If I had to choose, it would be the one website where a few geeks can take on a God.
"The civil rights organization Privacy International (PI) has for the first time published a ranking of major Internet services providers based on the way the companies handle the personal data of users. ... The websites of the BBC, of eBay, Last.fm and Wikipedia were considered to be the best in data privacy terms; but at these sites too, the organization noted, there was room for improvement." Original report "here"(PDF)..
In the contxt of Web 2.0 and Andrew Keen's book The Cult Of The Amateur Wilson announces a change of mind over the internet's merits. Referencing Wikipedia and YouTube, he sees such projects as a threat to established interests in the media and publishing worlds. Google he sees as a threat to privacy. Wilson reveals that he "had never realised until reading Keen’s book that any amateur can write an entry in Wikipedia".
Encourages its readers to take an active part in editing Wikipedia and gives simple 'How to' guidance. Concludes: "Flawed it may be, but Wikipedia has the potential to be an information cathedral of our age. Wouldn't you like to be able to say that you have had a hand in building it?"
Discusses the author's fears that NPOV will lead to false views being given undue prominence. "..the General Social Survey poll data last week which revealed that 28% of American adults believe it is "definitely false" that humans evolved from other animals - and only 18% think it is "definitely true". The latter is also the proportion of Americans who believe that the sun goes around the Earth." ... "So here we have a society in which adults are just as likely to believe that the sun goes around the Earth as that evolution is true, which has also built an encyclopaedia based on the idea that the truth will emerge from cooperative debate."
Considers whether access to vast amounts of information will actually make us better able to communicate. "One example of the internet's reach on our understanding of ourselves and other people is Wikipedia. The fundamental issue at stake is not one of its factual accuracy or its efficacy, nor is it one of political constraints on accessibility to information. It is, rather, whether how we think about something is radically altered when information is available at the click of a button." ... "It is also possible that this desire to catalogue everything, build a universal library or archive is actually a defensive strategy that speaks of our fears, of the precariousness of our lives."
"So Wikipedia has become something of a running joke: the ultimate resource on things that don't matter. The bottom of reliability's totem pole. 'I saw it on Wikipedia,' the saying goes, 'so it must be true.' That saying, to reiterate, is usually meant to be humorous."
"Sources in China have reported that the English language version of Wikipedia is no longer blocked for internet users inside the country, after being unavailable for most of the past 18 months. However, the Chinese language edition of Wikipedia remains inaccessible in China."
"In postings on internal mailing groups, users of Wikipedia have described obvious mistakes in the design, a globelike jigsaw puzzle with characters from various languages on the pieces. Two of the characters — one in Japanese and one in Devanagari, the script used in Sanskrit and several modern Indian languages — are meaningless because of minor slips"
"For the first time, the German edition of the open Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia will be receiving state funding. Germany will be setting aside part of its budget to improve information about renewable resources in Wikipedia. Over the next few years, several hundred articles will be written on this issue."
Covers the discovery that someone posted news of Chris Benoit's wife's death to the article on him (this edit) before police discovered the bodies at his home.
Chris Benoit's Wikipedia page was altered to say that his wife was dead before the police discover the bodies of Benoit, his wife and son. The Independent's article reported that "An anonymous user confessed to making the entry, saying that he had based it on rumours".
Includes interviews with several Wikipedia contributors, with a focus on Wikipedia's coverage of breaking news.
"Wikipedia may not exactly be a font of truth, but it does go against the current of what has happened to the notion of truth. The easy global dissemination of, well, everything has generated a D.I.Y. culture of proud subjectivity, a culture that has spread even to relatively traditional forms like television — as in the ascent of advocates like Lou Dobbs or Bill O’Reilly, whose appeal lies precisely in their subjectivity even as they name-check 'neutrality' to cover all sorts of journalistic sins. But the Wikipedians, most of them born in the information age, have tasked themselves with weeding that subjectivity not just out of one another’s discourse but also out of their own. They may not be able to do any actual reporting from their bedrooms or dorm rooms or hotel rooms, but they can police bias, and they do it with a passion that’s no less impressive for its occasional excess of piety. Who taught them this? It’s a mystery; but they are teaching it to one another."
An interview with Jimmy Wales and the author's experiences as a new editor, or 'wikivirgin', as he calls himself.
"For all the futuristic paranoia about hive minds, I have been struck by a kind of village fete atmosphere within the Wikicommunity; you are forever being prompted about pages to clean up, articles to 'Wikify', tasks to be done."
The Shizuoka Shimbun newspaper apologized to its readers Thursday, after a reporter had copied information from a Wikipedia article and used it in his page 1 column.
Reports Nielsen NetRating's findings that Wikipedia is now the top news site on the web.
"Wikipedia also has finished on top of the news and information category every month this year -- ranking ahead of Landmark Communications' Weather Channel site by an increasing margin...."
A non-edited excerpt from the ‘Dalian’ entry from www.wikipedia.org
Clubs and social life:
Dalian is no doubt a good city. It feels like you are in western europe. Dalian people standard of living is more than many chinese cities. It is really clean compared to rest of china. There is software hub going on which exclusively caters japanese business. Well for foreigners there is a foreign community and parties almost every day just join in a website www.dalianxpat.com it is a community website which can give you information of all the parties everyday. Lot of japanese young people here so good to rock around. These days dalian see a increasing number of foreign community and one who comes here usually stay for years. But i want to say frankly life here involves dangers like in clubs they smash bottles on heads. In massage parlours just they beat you and take all the money you hold so quite dangerous night life in small city. Well police never help when you get some problem in either clubs or discos or massage parlours. So be careful with chinese guys around most of them are good but some are so bad even can risk your life.
TCP Says: There are few moments when we’re left speechless but this incredible entry provided one of them. Remember, folks, Wikipedia’s tag is “The encyclopedia anyone can edit,” so don’t cite this source in your term paper.
Mention of the complaints on the talk pages of the articles on Sarah Teather and Dawn Butler about "supporters of each have been maliciously editing each MP’s entry on Wikipedia". The two will be contesting the same, new Parliamentary seat at the next election.
Claire Beale reports how Ford Motor's latest commercial soap "Where are the Joneses" allows viewers come up with some new storylines by using an Wiki interface similar to that of Wikipedia. In doing so she assumes that her readers will be familiar with Wikipeida.
Brad Stone; Matt Richtel (2007-07-16). "The Hand That Controls the Sock Puppet Could Get Slapped". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-08-23. Recently caught promoting themselves or their causes have been a handful of chief executives and political operatives, a critic for a major magazine, as well as dozens of lesser-known bloggers, authors and entrepreneurs who sneak changes onto their own entries on Wikipedia or the reviews of their books on Amazon.com.
"Ars Nova will present The Wikipedia Plays, a mini-marathon of short plays that surf the Wikipedia wave through seventeen related entries ... 'What is The Defenestration of Prague? And how is it seventeen steps removed from Castration Anxiety? Wikipedia knows. In this brave new world of instant gratification where the internet can live in your pocket, one group of writers has created a mini-marathon of short plays that surf the wikipedia wave through seventeen related entries,' as described in press materials."
Elizabeth Gosch; Alana Buckley-Carr (2007-07-20). "Refugee tribunal hit for relying on Wikipedia". The Australian. Retrieved 2007-07-21. The tribunal based its decision on information and material sourced from a Wikipedia website, www.armeniapedia.org.
Incorrectly refers to armeniapedia as "a Wikipedia website". The communications committee has been notified.
Vankin, Sam (July 22, 2007). "Wikipedia - Can Teenagers Write An Encyclopedia?". Global Politician. The truth is that teenagers cannot do the referencing and research that are the prerequisite to serious scholarship - unless you stretch these words to an absurd limit.
At the next general election, Lib Dem frontbencher Sarah Teather will joust for the redrawn seat of Brent Central with Labour MP Dawn Butler. Already, the contest is starting to get catty. Butler has accused her opponent of launching a dirty tricks campaign by making several erroneous changes to her entry in the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia.
"It needs to stop, it's absolutely pathetic," she says. "My page was changed to say that I voted for the renewal of Trident, which is crazy - I voted against it. There were other things, like saying I'm against extra funding for more police officers. It's just rubbish and clearly came from Sarah Teather's office."
Teather's office insists it's nought to do with them. They can't both be telling the truth.
”
Farrell, Nick (2007-07-24). "Wikipedia finds faults with Britannica". The Inquirer. Retrieved 2007-07-24. ONLINE encyclopaedia Wikipedia feels that it is now so accurate it can pick holes in its rival, the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
This seems to have been picked up from Slashdot. (Two days earlier, Digg picked the article up).
It also misrepresents this good faith newbie's attempt to disambiguate "Nick Farrell", as a false claim: 'It also "accurately" claimed I was a Canadian boxer before becoming an IT journalist.'
Shreeve uses Wikipedia as model to explain how the commercial product Socialtext is used within companies. In doing so he is assuming that his readers will be familiar with how Wikipeida works.
"Version 0.5 is the first offline release from the English-language Wikipedia, though founder Jimmy Wales suggested the idea in 2003. It resulted from a yearlong collaboration between the St. Petersburg, Florida-based Wikimedia Foundation and Linterweb, a French technology company handling production."
Praise for WP stance on free access without censorship for China.
"it's terrific to see such a prominent player in the American technology industry that hasn't gotten so transfixed by the promise of 1.2 billion consumers that it has forgotten its morals. As China has morphed into a powerhouse on the world stage, it has made many American workers and consumers feel as if they're victims. But even with all of its flaws and failures, America is still a democracy, and Americans still enjoy certain basic freedoms that are unknown to the average Chinese. In our panic over economic questions, we've forgotten that many, if not most, Chinese citizens are still living in desperate conditions under a repressive government. Jimmy Wales hasn't forgotten that. May the founders and executives at Google, Yahoo and others learn from his example."
Andrew Keen who jokingly describes himself as a "failed dotcom entrepreneur", is severely critical of Wikipedia. "He cites a case where a scientist was critical of numerous postings made by another 'citizen editor' in his specialist field. Wikipedia apparently judged that the expert's opinion was no more valid than anybody else's, and duly restricted him to one entry a day." But his major concern is that Web 2 of which Wikipedia is an example is damaging economic interests and goes on to argue that although 50% of the staff at Encyclopaedia Brittanica were laid off a number of years ago, that thanks to Wikipeidia more will follow.
" Wikipedia may be the best thing that has happened in the encyclopedia business since Denis Diderot published the first Encyclopédie in the eighteenth century. ... They get something wrong, too, every now and then, but they are pretty good about corrections..."
Praise for Wikipedia from the Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom.
"Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is the most impressive collective intellectual project ever attempted - and perhaps achieved. It demands both the attention and the contribution of anyone concerned with the future of knowledge."
"Wikipedia embodies a democratic medievalism that does not respect claims to personal expertise in the absence of verifiable sources. To fully realize this ideal, participation in Wikipedia might be made compulsory for advanced undergraduates and Master's degree candidates worldwide. The expected norms of conduct of these students correspond exactly to Wikipedia's content policy: one is not expected to do original research, but to know where the research material is and how to argue about it."
"The Interstate 35W bridge collapsed Wednesday at about 6:05 p.m. Within 22 minutes, the Star Tribune updated its website with the news. Within 24 minutes, the Internet's go-to reference site, Wikipedia, added the information to its entry for the bridge."
"The difference: The Star Tribune's news site is run by a staff of professional journalists, while Wikipedia is a publicly maintained site to which anyone can contribute and no one is really in charge."
"Before the collapse, Wikipedia's short entry for the I-35W bridge was classified as a "stub," rudimentary information about a minor subject -- basically, a side note to bigger articles on the site. The stub was created in May 2006 and edited only five times before Wednesday."
"During the night, the entry became a full-blown page (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_Bridge), with Wikipedia users adding information about the bridge's construction and history, as well as photos and updates about the collapse."
"The conference has attracted about 440 attendees, a little more than half from Taiwan, who want to immerse themselves for three days in the ideas and issues that come up making an entirely volunteer written encyclopedia. The workshops cover practical topics like how to collaborate peacefully; what importance to give “expertise” in a project that is celebrated for allowing anyone to contribute, including anonymous editors; and helpful hints on how to combat “wiki fatigue,” the inevitable boredom that can lead to “wikiwars,” such as endless arguments about the year Alexander Hamilton was born."
Hoffman reports that the Wikipedia article on Antonio da Ponte, calls him "a Venetian-born 'Swiss architect&engineer ... whose earlier works are entirely unknown" which he compares with Du Ponte's description in "the authoritative Giulio Lorenzetti in his Venice and its Lagoon" that does not mention Switzerland, and finishes the piece with "Can we be dealing here with one of those Wikipedia mistakes that become common currency through the omnipresence of the worldwide web?"
Tests on color coding edits to red flag potentially dubious content will be used on some smaller sites in the Wikia community, according to the site's co-founder.
The article claims that "The survey also found that, in spite of recent phone-in/Queen-tiff scandals, the BBC is still the UK's most reliable source of information, whereas the web encyclopedia Wikipedia is only trusted by 2 per cent of us." In fact, the data in the article only indicate that the BBC is perceived to be the UK's most reliable source of information.
Ekström, Anders (2007-08-10). "Makten ger ansvar (Power demands responsibility, in Swedish)". Editorial (in Swedish). Sysdvenskan (Swedish daily newspaper). p. B4. Retrieved 2007-08-10. Wikipedia needs to update both its contents and its way of working.
In essence, the author checked 10 pages and found errors in all. He does not want to fix them all, because he is not sure if they really are errors and doesn't want to do the research. Wikipedia is now a powerful source, so Something Must Be Done to make it better. Interestingly enough, in the same issue on pages A14-A15 Wikipedia is quoted as the source for information about opium.
Walker, Morley (2007-08-09). "Wikipedia's fanatical transparency; Niagra Falls Review". Editorial. Retrieved 2007-08-11. While outright factual errors and ease of vandalism are the main raps against Wikipedia, dumb errors of emphasis are incredibly common. Major historical figures get a paragraph or two, while ephemeral TV shows and video games are subject to lengthy treatises. (This is why Wikipedia has 1.9 million articles and the Encyclopedia Brittanica has but 120,000.)[dead link]
Wales claims that Wikipedia is internally more organized that the WikiMedia Foundation has been. Compares licensing, talks about Wikipedia on mobile phones.
CalTech student Virgil Griffith has written "Wikipedia Scanner", a utility that allows the tracking of which corporate IPs are editing which Wikipedia articles. The story originating with Wired has been picked up widely, and shown in this google new search
Black, Rebecca (2007-08-15). "Website sparks online flag debate". The News Letter. Retrieved 2007-08-18. A row has broken out on the popular internet website Wikipedia over which flag should represent Northern Ireland.
Kamm, Oliver (2007-08-16). "Wisdom? More like dumbness of the crowds". The Times. London. Retrieved 2007-08-18. It combines the free-market dogmatism of the libertarian Right with the anti-intellectualism of the populist Left
In the context of the new WikiScanner tool, Kamm attacks claims that Wikipedias disseminates knowledge. He sees the WikiScanner as a means of testing users credibility after the Essjay controversy.
Editorial (2007-08-19). "Now you read it …". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2007-08-20. while a hoax such as Mr. Porpora's once took years to pull off, a contributor to Wikipedia can now manufacture a hagiography or a calumny with a few quick taps on the keyboard, at least until some other contributor restores the old material or imposes a different tone entirely.
Slightly more to the point: Canadian scorn spreads south Laura Vozzella, August 29, 2007, Baltimore Sun writes:"The editorial compared Porpora to some Canadian political dirty tricksters who have been tinkering with Wikipedia entries for members of Parliament."
Henzell, John (2007-08-21). "Online censor found at Air NZ". The Press. Retrieved 2007-08-21. An Air New Zealand computer was used to sanitise an online encyclopeadia to make the airline look less culpable for its part in New Zealand's worst peacetime disaster
"It should be noted, however, that pilots are divided to this day as to whether the responsibility for the accident should rest with the pilot or with the flight planning department."
The edit can be seen here. The print edition of the article also lists three cases where computers used by New Zealand organisations have altered entries on Wikipedia that relate to those organisations. The article used information gained by Virgil Griffith's Wikiscanner.
This editorial discusses the dynamics of vandalism and COI edits on Wikipedia, but concludes that "[n]onetheless, the theory behind Wikipedia still holds: together, humans are smarter and stronger than they are alone."
Michael Agger (24 August 2007). "Wikipedia Unmasked". Slate.com. 2172703. Retrieved 2007-08-24. A new Web site reveals the sneak attacks and ego-fluffing of your friends and co-workers.
The Sydney Morning Herald uses the Wikiscanner to find edits from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to pages including John Howard and Peter Costello. Also finds a large number of edits form the department of defence to a variety of topics.
The Department denies that they were directed to make changes. The ABC also reports that the Department of Defence have blocked their staff from editing Wikipedia.
Wikipedian Simon Pulsifer points out that while Wikipedia's open editing concept allows for biased and other abusive edits, that same concept also allows such problems to be corrected in short order. The article also mentions the advent of WikiScanner and how it can help counter COI and other organisationally-based problem edits.
"A photo of Helen Clark on the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia has been "protected" to prevent people editing her listing, and Ministry of Justice staff have been detected using Government computers to alter other entries."
The article goes on to talk about Wikiscanner, vandalism to the Helen Clark article, and unrelated vandalism from Justice Ministry computers.
Chua, Hian Hou (26 August 2007). "Online lynch mob". News Article. The Straits Times. p. 40.
Wikipedia entries on Odex, for instance, have been turned into attacks on the firm, which has taken flak from the online world after news spread that it was going after people who downloaded anime illegally."
But the smear campaign has gone on unabated and things have become so bad that one of Wikipedia's editors was compelled, in an Aug 14 entry, to tick off these 'contributors' and remind them to 'stick to facts and try to balance them'. Some of the more offensive posts have been taken down."
Reports the suspension from work of an official from Statistics SA, who will face a disciplinary hearing for removing content from HIV/AIDS in South Africa which was critical of the South African government's policy towards HIV/AIDS.
Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan's staff have confirmed they deleted several unflattering, but true, items from the mayor's Wikipedia page -- including the fact the mayor was investigated by the police for giving money to addicts to purchase drugs.
Reports on a program developed at the University of California, Santa Cruz which can assess the reliablity of Wikipedia editors by measuring the durability of their edits over time. It can also color code the text in an article to show how reliable it is likely to be.
Note: There are follow-up articles about this story throughout September 2007.
Looks at the work of 3 Wikipedia contributors ; John Warkel , Kevin McCoy, and Jason Safoutin and what motivates them to make contributions to the encyclopedia and Wikinews.
"Business Brief -- So is Google making a phone or what? The blogosphere is buzzing with rumours that the search giant might announce Linux-based mobile software as early as this week and a Google phone, which observers have dubbed the GPhone by early 2008...We'll believe it when we see it in Wikipedia."
The author is the professor of Japanese history from Middlebury College from whom this college's policy of banning citations of Wikipedia in term papers originates.
The column sets straight some misunderstandings propagated by the media: Middlebury College's faculty is not at war with Wikipedia, and Waters' position is that no tertiary source, including Encyclopaedia Britannica, is suitable for citation anyway.
Waters suspects that the accuracy of articles varies in proportion to the interest that they generate, and thus the accuracy of history articles decreases as one strays away from the hot topics of American history. He spotted inaccuracies in the history of early Tokugawa Japan, not a mainstream topic in English-speaking countries.
Waters' expresses fears that history according to Wikipedia is determined by a preponderance of opinions, and thus favors opinions that are widely considered true at the expense of real scholarship.
Looks at proposals to give Wikipedia users an indication of how trustworthy an article is by rating each contributor's trustworthyness based on their past contributions.
Instead, instant editing will be restricted to a group of “trusted editors”, who must first earn their status by proving their commitment to the Wikipedia concept.
New Zealand will allow citizens to access a Wiki to help draft a new set of laws in New Zealand's Policing Act. Wikipedia is cited by New Zealand Police Superintendent Hamish McCardle as an example of successful collaboration through a wiki. "McCardle specifically notes the success of Wikipedia as proof wiki-based contributions can lead to something constructive."
Describes novel session planned for this year's SearchMarketingExpo.com expo that will attempt to guide individuals and corporations concerned about the portrayal of their company or service in Wikipedia, so as to avoid typical problems that arise when interacting with the Wikipedia community. User:Durova is one of five speakers planned for the session.
Bureaucrats at the Japanese Agriculture ministry have been reprimanded over the editing of Wikipedia during work hours, on subjects such as Gundam. Wikipedia access has now been blocked at the ministry.
"As a first-time user of Wikipedia, I have no idea why the original posting of Little Fatty was deleted in the first place. So I return to where I started."
"A number of readers have written to ask where that most essential of American institutions -- the cocktail party -- got its start. In particular, I've been asked whether I can verify the Wikipedia claim that Alec Waugh -- once a popular British novelist and essayist on the good life, but now best remembered as Evelyn's older brother -- "invented" the cocktail party sometime around 1925 in London. Alas, for all the things Wikipedia manages to get right, this is not one of them."
An inaccurate detail was included in obituaries of the British television composer Ronnie Hazlehurst from the Wikipedia article. Naughton castigates fellow journalists for using a single source, but largely defends Wikipedia.
An anonymous Daimler employee in Spain (195.235.246.33) vandalised Wikipedia's article on Lewis Hamilton, a Formula One driver who competes for the McLaren-Mercedes team. Daimler has launched an internal investigation into the matter.
Looks at the supposed battle between deletionists and inclusionists on Wikipedia.
"Submission of new articles is slowing to a trickle where in previous years it was flood, and the discussion pages are increasingly filled with arguments and cryptic references to policy documents. The rise of the deletionists is threatening the hitherto peaceful growth of the world's most popular information source."
Wikipedia, the most popular Internet information source, is quite accurate when it comes to surgical information, albeit with some gaps, according to research reported here at the 93rd Annual Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons (ACS).
Report on "Wikipedia: The Democratization of Knowledge or The Triumph of Amateurs?, a week of lectures at Eastern Michigan University organized by Marshall Poe.
Basing on an example from the editing of "Wal-Mart", the article carries out an insightful discussion of the NPOV issues and the importance of the contextual frame in which "neutral" facts are presented in judging the neutrality.
"...[B]oth sentences pass the undisputed fact test. But they also violate the logic of Wikipedia's rule: undisputed facts equal neutrality which leads to truth."
The author recounts how his own opinion of Wikipedia has changed from enthusiastic support to opposition, due to disillusionment with the way it is operating. The fact that an image he uploaded was deleted due to copyright license issues seems to figure heavily in this change of opinion.
"The site was founded with five pillars of behavior, including 'be open, be welcoming and be civil.' The site now is none of these things and should be left to the trolls, in my opinion."
Recounts how University of New South Wales Associate Professor Andrew Collins is using Wikipedia as a teaching exercise in his advanced immunology class. Copies of articles are taken, improved by students then reposted back to Wikipedia. 2500 edits were made to around 150 Wikipedia articles by the students.
Howard Tayler, the webcomic artist of Schlock Mercenary fame, is calling on people not to donate money during the latest Wikimedia Foundation fund-raiser. This is to protest the 'notability purges' taking place throughout Wikipedia.
Siegenthaler's biography, Wikipedia-Watch, Daniel Brandt, Wikipedia Review, Essjay, Taner Akçam, Jack Sarfatti, the "Wikipedia Scanner", SlimVirgin being a British intel agent.
Reports that a defamation case based in France against Wikipedia was rejected by a judge, because of a 2004 limited liability law that offers some protection for webhosts.
Thoughtful general overview of the project, with different viewpoints. Includes quotes from Merovingian and a walk-through of creating an article, AK (Radio Program).
Jimmy Wales interviewed by Lewine — Greatest misconception about Wikipedia: We aren’t democratic. Our readers edit the entries, but we’re actually quite snobby. The core community appreciates when someone is knowledgeable, and thinks some people are idiots and shouldn’t be writing.
Middle school librarian puts up "Just Say 'No' to Wikipedia" signs around her library. Wikipedia is blocked on all computers in the Warren Hills Regional School District.
Describes cellphone widgets available from various websites. Wikipedia's is recommended for the feature that allows users to disable image downloads. Image of Car on cellphone is shown.
Discusses Phillip Greenspun making $20,000 available to pay for professional-quality illustrations for articles.
Metz, Cade (2007-12-04). "Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia"(HTML). The Register. p. 2. Retrieved 2007-12-03. On the surface, all is well in Wikiland... But underneath, there's trouble brewing.
Discusses the recent controversy surrounding Durova and the "cyberstalking" mailing list, and the crisis in confidence among Wikipedians in its wake.
Talks about User:^demon's contributions to the encyclopedia, and a bit about the Mzoli's dispute.
Finkelstein, Seth (2007-12-06). "Inside, Wikipedia is more like a sweatshop than Santa's workshop"(HTML). The Guardian. London. p. 1. Retrieved 2007-12-05. Wikipedia is frequently touted as a marvel of collaboration, a model of peer production. But it may be more instructive as a laboratory of pathologies of social interaction. While perhaps - like sausages- it's better not to see the product being made, any familiarity with how Wikipedia operates should give rise to enormous scepticism about its alleged example of harmonious collective action.
Discusses current conflicts within Wikipedia and criticizes model on which site is based.
Discusses the withdrawal of claims by Katrina Schubert, deputy leader of the Left Party, that the Wikipedia promoted the use of banned Nazi symbols. Subtitled A left-wing German MP who wanted police to charge Wikipedia for allowing Nazism to be promoted has withdrawn her claims in contrast to the headline
Keinon, Herb (December 8, 2007). "Leading Wikipedia editor to visit Israel". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2007-12-13. n an acknowledgement of the importance that the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia has in shaping opinion, the Foreign Ministry is bringing one of its leading editors, David Shankbone, to Israel next week.
Antezana, Fabiola (2007-12-08). "Did Iceland Teen Call Secret White House Phone?". abcnews.go.com. Retrieved 2007-12-11. Icelandic Boy, 16, 'Wanted to ... Have a Chat, Invite Him to Iceland and See What He'd Say'
An Icelandic teenager uses Wikipedia as backgound information on Icelandic president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson to impersonate him in a telephone call to the the US White House. Vífill Atlason claims he was passed on to several people, each of them quizzing him on President Grímsson's date of birth, where he grew up, who his parents were and the date he entered office. "It was like passing through checkpoints," he said. "But I had Wikipedia and a few other sites open, so it was not so difficult really.
Someone in the US House of Representatives was caught editing Wikipedia [6] in 2005 to insert the claim of a link between Iraq and the al Qaeda.
Cheeseman, Katie. "Wikipedia's bust idea ever". The Sun. Retrieved 2007-12-13. It's every computer geek's dream come true -- definitely one of Wikipedia's breast, I mean best, assets
Meek, James Gordon (2007-12-13). "U.S. military command hacks Wikipedia". nydailynews.com. Retrieved 2007-12-13. ...By tracing unique identifying numbers found on Wikipedia computer logs, the sleuths found they were registered to Gitmo and the U.S. Southern Command. Military officials did not respond to requests for comment.
"Volunteers working for the online encyclopedia traced digital fingerprints found on Wikipedia.org to Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, the U.S. military command running the Camp Delta terrorist prison in Cuba.
The volunteer team discovered that people using military computers registered to the Gitmo task force edited the ailing Cuban president's biography on Wikipedia to say, 'Fidel Castro is an admitted transexual(sic).'
Anyone can edit Wikipedia entries, but the site expects facts to be linked to credible sources, such as documents or news reports."
Metz, Cade (2007-12-13). "Wikipedia COO was convicted felon"(HTML). The Register. p. 2. Retrieved 2007-12-15. For more than six months, beginning in January of this year, Wikipedia's million-dollar check book was balanced by a convicted felon.
Makes revelations about former Wikimedia employee Carolyn Doran's history.
Orlowski, Andrew (2007-12-14). "Google kicks Wikipedia in the googlies"(HTML). The Register. p. 1. Retrieved 2013-10-28. Whatever you think about the kooks at Wikipedia - the crazed Goths banning chunks of Utah, a COO prone to drunken rampages and embezzlement, and a Roi Soleil answering to himself - one thing is in no doubt. The project has saved Google's original business.
Discusses the "Knol" project recently announced by Google.
Pyrah, Joe (2007-12-15). "Wikipedia bans Lehi neighborhood"(HTML). Daily Herald (Utah). Daily Herald and Lee Enterprises. p. 1. Retrieved 2007-12-15. So exactly what kind of artifice did Traverse Mountain engage in to get on Wikipedia's naughty list?
Discusses an entire neighborhood in Utah being banned from editing Wikipedia as part of the attempt to enforce the ban on Judd Bagley.
"An investigation of "anonymous" edits on the site has revealed that the broadcaster's staff rewrote parts of a page entitled "Criticism of the BBC" to defuse press attacks on "political correctness".
On Friday, the search engine announced the creation of "Knol," a project that allows users to create their own Wikipedia-like pages on specific subjects. The big difference: users put their names--and Google's advertisements--on their knol pages and split the revenue with the search company. The project , which is described as "experimental" by Google...could be seen as good news for wiki-heads hoping to make money from the same specialized knowledge they give to Wikipedia for free...Wikipedia pages, by comparison, receive more traffic from Google than any Web site other than Myspace or Google's own Google Images, according to Hitwise, a Web analysis group. And that traffic is growing. Last February, Hitwise found that Google traffic to Wikipedia had increased 166% from a year earlier. From an advertising vantage point, Wikipedia has been a black hole; it does not carry any advertising...
"Why it's broke and how it can be fixed...In Wikiland, you aren't allowed to edit articles where you have a conflict of interest. If you do so, you could be grounded. But the inhabitants of Wikiland also have the right to anonymity. This means that no one may ever know if you have a conflict of interest"
"The foundation that runs — and accepts donations for — the online encyclopedia Wikipedia neglected to do a basic background check before hiring a chief operating officer who had been convicted of theft, drunken driving and fleeing a car accident."
Tibbetts, Janice (2007-12-26). "Wikipedia wars: Who decides what to include?"(HTML). Victoria Times Colonist, via CanWest News Service. p. 1. Retrieved 2007-12-26. A dispute over whether volunteer administrators have become too deletion-obsessed has produced two clashing factions within the ranks of "Wikipedians," sparking enthusiastic and sometimes ugly sparring on blogs and discussion groups.
