Comments on: Five Wikipedia Predictions (A Valentine)

By: Heel

Heel — Thu, 11 May 2006 05:44:01 +0000

A fantastic site, and brilliant effort. A great piece of work.

By: Jason Scott

Jason Scott — Wed, 10 May 2006 21:41:22 +0000

Well, considering this is just a list of predictions, nothing beyond what you might see before a good sports game, that’s not really overboard criticism. But I assume you mean the series of articles I’ve written on this subject.

The “it’s just Wikipedia” argument doesn’t hold water because the wikipedia articles, unlike your forum or my website or many others, are in many case the defacto answer on thousands of proper nouns, non-proper nouns, and general phrases. If you go to google and want to know who Bob Denver, John Denver, or Anton Lavey are, Wikipedia is either the first or one of the first hits. And it calls itself Wikipedia, which a lot of people misinterpret as it having encyclopedic discipline, which it doesn’t. Couple this with the amount of sites now using Wikipedia as a primary source, and the arbitrariness of it, and that’s where my criticisms come in.

The speech I gave at Notacon lays out my concerns better than most of these essays.

By: Bobak

Bobak — Wed, 10 May 2006 20:10:59 +0000

Maybe this criticism is a little overboard? Who cares if people are wasting their energy (or the system isn’t a well-oiled machine) as long as the content gets the info across eventually (which, when you’re talking about a free mass-particpated experiment is as best you can ask for). While I agree with the problem you’ve identified here and in previous articles, I don’t agree that it’s going to reach some crecendo that will tear the very fabric of the universe or what you seem to be implying. If it’s just wasted energy that concerns you, then don’t waste your own (it’s a fair concern, and one that I’m sure many also consider, myself included). Sorry for the rambling comment, but I did find your articles interesting (but ultimately alarmist). I noticed your own articles on this “failure” started in 2004. I joined Wikipedia in July 2005 and so far have found it to be enjoyable, albeit frustrating at times –but no more frustrating than the iron-fisted control that I bear on my own internet video game forum where I need to worry about the hundreds of people online at any given time. I think for ever minor quibble you get on a hot topic there’s about 100-200 articles with no problems, many of which are actually pretty solid mini-articles for reference. I look forward to seeing how your criticism develops.

By: Gamahucheur

Gamahucheur — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 15:28:39 +0000

D_mn. Stranger be dissin’ my name.

By: Disgusted

Disgusted — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 01:07:57 +0000

Wikipedia has now become the whitewashed encyclopedia that not everyone can edit.

By: Dr Z

Dr Z — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 03:13:43 +0000

Pretty much on the money, Jason. 3 is the interesting one, because all power flows from Jimbo’s power. I think a fork is possible if 3 doesn’t happen.

By: anon

anon — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 22:45:13 +0000

Wasn’t freedb.org created because of cddb’s move (exact action I can’t remember, but something about apropriation of user-submitted data)?
In the end, as all wikipedia content is licensed with the GFDL, we may see a fork of it if wikipedia becomes crap.
It still is the best encyclopedia in the world as far as presenting different opinion and views on political and other non-consensual matters. It also links to more information on the web, books, etc., usually the most pertinent on the matter, so if the previous fails, interested people can continue their search by themselves, and find out the truth.
Which can’t be said for traditional encyclopedias, i.e. the more alternative or far from the oficial sanctioned view an opinion is, the less chance it will get good or any coverage at all.

What I dislike is, in fact, it’s policy of neutral point of view, but it does contribute to what I wrote.

By: Zorglub

Zorglub — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 02:44:15 +0000

Ok, I understand, thanks for the clarification. Without any indication of what “non-anonymous” meant in the original prediction, it was hard to see what you really meant.

Cheers,

Zorglub.

By: Jason Scott

Jason Scott — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 02:38:45 +0000

This is a simple misunderstanding. I am not saying that there is email verification now. I am saying that when I mean “no anonymous editing”, I don’t mean a weasel-word version of “it is difficult to tell who jimmy69 is”, but I mean e-mail verification.

I am predicting e-mail verification as a pre-requisite of being able to edit Wikipedia before the beginning of 2007, with a set of grandfathered accounts.

By: Zorglub

Zorglub — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 02:34:11 +0000

Jason: there is no email verification when you register a new user (I just did it). You don’t even have to enter an email address, except if you want to have the “Email this user” function activated, or (probably, I haven’t tested it) if you are worried about forgetting your password.

Please tell me if your experience is different, but I have really never seen or heard anything about email verification.

Zorglub