Re: [Vo]:Re: The distorted mirror of Wikipedia: a quantitative analysis of Wikipedia coverage of academics

[Jed Rothwell]

Eric Walker  wrote:


> It's an unruly democracy/technocracy with an overgrowth of rules,
> regulations, guidelines, technicalities and useless dogma.  As an
> organization of people collaborating on their own time on a summary of
> human knowledge, they're gradually tackling problems on a scale that has
> not seen before.
>

I hate to admit it, but you are right. It is remarkable, and it has done a
lot of good.



>  It is quite possible that other collaborative encyclopedia ventures, with
> a better collaboration model, will come along in the next few years and
> gradually replace them . . .
>

They should be looking for a better model now, so they can replace
themselves. Otherwise they will Sears and someone else will be Wallmart. It
is surprising how often incumbent organizations sit on their laurels.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:Re: The distorted mirror of Wikipedia: a quantitative analysis of Wikipedia coverage of academics

[Eric Walker]

You can't edit an email once it's been sent out.  ;)

Wikipedia is the site that everyone loves to hate, and that almost all
younger people, including those in the top tier of the journalism industry,
love to consult as a starting point to find out about a new topic.  It's an
unruly democracy/technocracy with an overgrowth of rules, regulations,
guidelines, technicalities and useless dogma.  As an organization of people
collaborating on their own time on a summary of human knowledge, they're
gradually tackling problems on a scale that has not seen before.  It is
quite possible that other collaborative encyclopedia ventures, with a
better collaboration model, will come along in the next few years and
gradually replace them in the way that search engines and Web sites have
come and gone (think Alta Vista, Digg, Yahoo!, AOL, MySpace, etc.).

As long as one keeps in mind the need to ignore a lot of what one reads
there, it's a fantastic site.  I think the researchers who took a look at
the site are just saying in researchese what everyone already kind of
realizes.

Eric



On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 3:21 PM, jedrothwell  wrote:

> I meant it is NOT good at controversy.
>
> Sorry.
>
> (Is there a way to edit these messages?)
>
> - Jed
>
>

Re: [Vo]:Re: The distorted mirror of Wikipedia: a quantitative analysis of Wikipedia coverage of academics

[James Bowery]

One of my primary motives for suggesting Wikipedia as the corpus for
theHutter Prize for Lossless Compression of Human
Knowledge
was that Kolmogorov compression will have to involve modeling bias --
perhaps even imputing specific authors as being responsible for specific
passages.  Moreover, it will have to model the specific biases of those
authors which will include modeling their psychology.

Unfortunately, a billionaire who said he was going to underwrite that prize
mysteriously reneged and ceased all communication.  It is still probably
the best investment any philanthropist could make -- simply on the strength
of motivating the advancement of artificial intelligence in the verbal
realm.


On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 5:21 PM, jedrothwell  wrote:

> I meant it is NOT good at controversy.
>
> Sorry.
>
> (Is there a way to edit these messages?)
>
> - Jed
>
>

[Vo]:Re: The distorted mirror of Wikipedia: a quantitative analysis of Wikipedia coverage of academics

[jedrothwell]

I meant it is NOT good at controversy.

Sorry.

(Is there a way to edit these messages?)

- Jed

[Vo]:Re: The distorted mirror of Wikipedia: a quantitative analysis of Wikipedia coverage of academics

[jedrothwell]

Wikipedia is okay for some subjects. But as an institution, Wikipedia it is 
good at handling controversy. Cold fusion is the longest-running and most 
controversial subject in the history of academic science. (I think by now 
we can say that.) So, the people in this field do not like Wikipedia, and 
Wikipedia does not like us.


Here are some thoughtful articles about the problems at Wikipedia:

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Undue-Weight-of-Truth-on/130704/

http://wikipediocracy.com/2013/02/20/a-compendium-of-wikipedia-criticism/

I think I mentioned this one before. It shows that Britannica is a lot 
better than Wikipedia despite what Nature said:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/britannica_wikipedia_nature_study/

And here is a hilarious one -- my all-time favorite:

http://www.wired.com/software/webservices/commentary/alttext/2006/04/70670

QUOTE:

*But why should I contribute to an article? I'm no expert.*
*
*

That's fine. The Wikipedia philosophy can be summed up thusly: "Experts are 
scum." For some reason people who spend 40 years learning everything they 
can about, say, the Peloponnesian War -- and indeed, advancing the body of 
human knowledge -- get all pissy when their contributions are edited away 
by Randy in Boise who heard somewhere that sword-wielding skeletons were 
involved. And they get downright irate when asked politely to engage in 
discourse with Randy until the sword-skeleton theory can be incorporated 
into the article without passing judgment.

[Vo]:Re: The distorted mirror of Wikipedia: a quantitative analysis of Wikipedia coverage of academics

[JohnMaguire]

Interesting find Daniel. Most of the time you can only find critiques of 
Wikipedia bias, etc. on message boards, forums, and so on. Not generally in 
a researched article. I'll be interested to see if more such articles, more 
focused on other shortcomings of Wikipedia (politicking, censorship, etc.), 
will come to light in the future.
 
Regards,
John