BusinessWeek’s Blogspotting asks Does Wikipedia need editors and points to a post on Nicholas Carr’s blog. The law of the wiki is an interesting dicsussion on the idea of ‘quality’ on wikipedia. Here he suggests that posts on arcane topics are better than those on general topics, since only people with some specialized knowledge and interest contribute to the former while any individual with a mouse in hand can add his ‘two cents’ worth to the latter. While this sounds plausible, I find that I refer to wikipedia only for information on the general / broader topics – more as a quick reference source rather than a reliable one. Even in case of topics requiring specialized knowledge, I have no way of knowing who – and with what level of expertise – contributed to the article.
In other words, the example of Wikipedia actually undercuts, rather than supports, the Web 2.0 tenet of “collective intelligence.” It reveals that collectivism and intelligence are actually inversely correlated. Leading to what he calls the “collective mediocrity trap”.
Apart from just mediocre or plain inferior information, wikipedia presents the opportunity for another quality issue – that of information / knowledge that is selective and manipulative in nature (even given that all knowledge is selective and can be used to manipulate!). Where does information stop and propaganda begin? There are all kinds of nuts out there brimming with their pet ideas on their preferred politics, religion, cause…
As information becomes more and more open and across the internet, the need for control mechanisms become sharper. Personally for me, the idea of such a huge information source created, totally depending on the responsible and mature behavior of millions of end users, is amazing. As a completely democratic source of information, is wikipedia a viable model in its present form?
Says Carr, If Wikipedia wants to achieve it’s goal of being “authoritative,” I think it will have to abandon its current structure, admit that “collective intelligence” makes a pretty buzzphrase but a poor organizational model, and define and impose some kind of hierarchical power structure. In which case, it does not remain a wiki… A rather dramatic dilemma – democracy without accountability or control with quality?
One way out is to have two versions of Wiki. Let the present one continue, along with an ‘edited’ version.
Go to the real wiki for quick refernce – and may be, if you have time, cross check it with edited version, which I guess will be limited in many ways. Will not be uptodate, will not be exhaustive.
“Where does information stop and propaganda begin? There are all kinds of nuts out there brimming with their pet ideas on their preferred politics, religion, cause”… Really, that has been the case with even Encyclopedia Brittanica (long back).
Some of the entries in the earlier editions of EB, on blacks for example, have been racist. Have a look at this from EB’s 1911 edition, available online: “But excess of pigmentation is not confined to the skin; spots of pigment are often found in some of the internal organs, such as the liver, spleen, &c. Other characteristics appear to be a liypertrophy of the organs of excretion, a more developed venous system, and a less voluminous brain, as compared with the white races. In certain of the characteristics mentioned above the negro would appear to stand on a lower evolutionary plane than the white man, and to be more closely related to the highest anthropoids. The characteristics are length of arm, prognathism, a heavy massive cranium with large zygomatic arches, flat nose depressed at base, &c. But in one important respect, the character of the hair, the white man stands in closer relation to the higher apes than does the Negro. Mentally the negro is inferior to the white. The remark* of F. Manetta, made after a long study of the negro in America, may be taken as generally true of the whole race”
I also found this linkin
Wiki’s entry on Britannica. Its title:”The Lies And Fallacies Of The Encyclopedia Britanica — How Powerful And Shameless Clerical Forces Castrated A Famous Work Of Reference”.
“There are no facts, only interpretations.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
The fact remains that Wikipedia is a dynamically evolving encyclopedia, and the “collective mediocrity trap” is still arguable. I give you this, that there *may* not be accuracy to every article, but time smoothens down all and eventually a proper treatment is given and a justifiable conclusion arrives. Read the Wiki article on Wikipedia itself and a lot becomes clearer.
PS- I also recommend answers.com for proper research. It references a lot of of sources(including Wiki).
Regards.
Hi Charu
I often link to Wikipedia because it is almost always an excellent reference source for some subject. I think that 99% of the people who are motivated to write a wiki are motivated enough to get it right.
Ranmath’s points above are valid. Maybe it would be good to have two versions of wikipedia so that people could choose. Although if there are 100 versions, how to chose?
Hi Charu, Here is a a news story that cover the same ground. Jimmy Wales, one of the co-founders of the ‘kipedia, apparently agrees with many of the things Carr says; The Register sort of indicates it is good news. However, after going through the article, I didn’t find any proposal that will help improve quality.
Very unfortunate, isn’t it?
BTW, the specific examples given by Carr are the ‘pedia entries for Bill Gates and Jane Fonda! Do check them out! (they may already have been ‘improved’ by the time you see those entries, though I don’t know how anyone can improve Bill Gates!)
Oops, just realized that I didn’t close the ‘link’ tag. Hopefully, it won’t do any damage. Sorry!
I wrote about the same issue a while back. I guess I use the wikipedia more like a dictionary, you know, if you don’t know what something is, say whats a “trotskyite”, the first few lines of the wiki are enough for me. It is only when you go in depth and read the entire background of the item in detail that contributor’s biases might surface.
Wikipedia in its current form is certainly a viable model for a source of information. If the fear is that this information can be manipulated, my retort to that would be what source of information is not? Newspapers have their own agenda, as do TV news channels. As SNT quotes Nietzsche, all we read or hear are just points of views.
As a source of information on the Net, Wikipedia is way ahead of any other site. Very few sites can claim to have as comprehensive, almost correct information on a wide variety of topics as Wikipedia. Now comparing Wikipedia’s accuracy to say a published Encylopedia or a research paper may be comparing apples and oranges.
And as Ramnath said, it is possible to go with a stable branch and and unstable branch. Have changes committed to the unstable branch. After remaining locked for some time, if no one objects/changes the information, move it into the stable branch.
Cheers,
D.
http://www.yannicklaclau.com/2005/10/to_nicholas_car.html
This is why.
You have some valid points but I have to disagree. The concept of Collective Intelligence promises a potential for great knowledge but ONLY if ALL participate and offer what they know (see Pierre Levy’s book Collective Intelligence for more). The real problem here isn’t that there are immature yahoos posting innaccurate information because those posts are rectified quickly enough. The problem is that not enough qualified, intelligent people are willing to share what they know for the greater good.
What’s the last thing YOU added to Wikipedia? Why critique it when we can improve it?
Wikipedia, and many other Web 2.0 applications, function on an envolving knowledge model that encourages valid information (don’t read that as accurate because I think that biased information can just as important) will be sustained and invalid information will be cut out. It’s a “Survival of the Fittest” model for knowledge collection and it can work.
The fundamental question is what is it that can be termed as accurate information. Aftearll, all information is from the point of view of the observer.
To give you a simple example – the term Middle East. From India isn’t that area Middle West?
or the event that happened in 1857. Look at a British History book it is the Mutiny of 1857. look at an Indian history book it is the First War of Independence (incedentally a term coined by a journalist called Karl Marx who went on to write a book called the Communist Manifesto).
Browse through Amazon and you will find a zillion titles most of which are not worth the paper that they are printed on. So when you look at a free to create, free to use medium like the wiki – the tendency for anyone, his/her idiot cousin and the kitchen sink to have an opinion is very plausible.
The wikipedia is a great concept. But, ultimately each article is someone’s opinion. And no opinioin is unbiased 🙂
just my two bits.
Wikipedia is unlike anything before. Jimbo Wales and team started out with Nupedia as a controlled and authoritative ‘pedia but abandoned it for a the current democratic model. Wikipedia has the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s a social experiment more than anything else (despite what the originators claim).
It seems to me that “collective mediocrity trap” resonates with “I don’t understand the social experiment and I won’t participate in it”. There’s a lot of idealism in Wikipedia. And that’s something worth even when the content is inaccurate.
Whew! first things first – my intention was not to criticize the wiki model – I read the post again and do not think it sounds critical. it sounds questioning – wondering – which is the frame of mind in which I wrote it and raised the issues mentioned by Carr on his blog. Having said that, I need to add here that I understand the power of wiki as a social experiment – and also understand that any social experiment is dependent on the rational behavior of human beings – and there, no one, not even the creators of wiki can exert any control.
Ramnath, agree, printed texts are not more “balanced” and reliable than those on a source like wiki – it is just that in case of printed texts, it is still possible for the reader to know the source of the information – the writer’s background and orientatin towards the topic – therefore, does that make it easier for us to decide how we see the information too…?
Abi, I think there are good proposals to “improve the quality” of wiki floating around – but the block they face is in working within the democratic format that wiki stands for…
Michael, I refer to wiki all the time, I link to it on my blog too. but I would hesitate to use it in a situation where I need to link to more “reliable” information – as Gawker says, I use it more often as a dictionary… quick reference.
SNT, agree there can be no uniformity in quality – and expecting it is not reasonable. as for laclau’s article, I think the issue is not about amateurs v/s professionals – it is about people who have an active interest in the subject and those who have a passing interest who decide to add their ‘just something’ to a wiki entry…
Rahul, completely agree. have said in the post itself – “given that all knowledge is selective and can be sued to manipulate” – also agree that all media sources have an agenda and play them out. but I am not always happy with the argument of – everyone else is doing it, so why not me.
Dhar, that model makes a lot of sense – have some “quality ranking” of contributors – a similar model I can think of is on some ecommerce sites such as ebay (baazee used to have it, assume ebay now does too) – rate buyers/sellers based on their past behavior on the site…?
Intellagirl, that is precisely the point – that information on it, even reliable and “sepcialized” can be edited to suit any yahoo’s (as you say!) agenda. Having said that, this still doe snot detract from the power of wiki as a source of information. I do not think a critique is a bad thing at all – as opposed to criticism which this post certainly was not. it was a thinking-out of where wiki could be headed…
Harini, this is just what is happening on a medium like blogging – personal opinions and free at that! so the temptation is to go on adding one’s opinions and editing someone else’s…
Selva – It seems to me that “collective mediocrity trap†resonates with “I don’t understand the social experiment and I won’t participate in it†– wauthor had thought about the concept more from the angle of a long term business model. why does hen I read the post, it seemed to me that the “social” have such a sanctimonious ring to it – why cannot a model be both “social” and be viable as a business…? sure, wiki has the good and the bad – just like any other medium – just like any other “democracy” does – however, you know as well as I do how a perfectly “ideal” (free and no control) democracy can be, given time…