This is a very interesting discussion--the issue has been raised before,
but you state it very articulately.
On 12 Sep 2001, Robert Bihlmeyer wrote:
Timothy Shell <tshell(a)bomis.com> writes:
One could plausibly argue that Britannica will
always have an advantage in
quality and reliability, but I don't think this is the case. For one
thing, the Wikipedia process results in a high level of quality.
With quality I agree. Reliability is another thing: sometimes I'd want
to link with a resource that explains a concept, which *won't*
suddenly change from under my hands. Even if we believe that changes to
Wikipedia generally go to the better, more detailed, more balanced,
etc. that can be detrimental sometimes.
Suppose I write a paper about something that references an Wikipedia
article. Now someone broadens the article with much information that
is also in my paper, i.e. the papers is rendered a bit useless. Or
worse, someone puts information that refute my theory on the page.
Oops.
On the other hand, as we can all see now, up-to-dateness is a virtue
in which Wikipedia can beat all printed encylopedias hands down.
britannica.com also has something by now; I can't judge details from
here, though.
This raises issues about the future that I think are very interesting to
think about (even if they are in the somewhat distant future).
Basically, I think the occasional temporary degradation of articles is an
acceptable disadvantage of our present system, given that the what causes
that disadvantage, namely our completely open system, creates huge (and
ever more rapidly increasing) amounts of generally reliable content.
The other disadvantage mentioned, that references might lead to personal
embarrassment, doesn't strike me as a terribly huge disadvantage. Who,
after all, is going to *cite* a Wikipedia article? Nobody, or at least,
nobody before we have "stable versions" of articles (if we *ever* do) that
are given a stamp of approval (perhaps by Nupedia review groups).
But I think we probably will, in the distant (how distant, who knows)
future, have an official approval process (that is kept carefully separate
from the article-generation process). It would make sense to save copies
of the exact article that was approved, for citation purposes, or to
populate a database of "approved articles."
The way I see it, pretty soon, Wikipedia is going to have 100,000
articles, and Wikipedia will be a household name. Even those who have
scoffed at the idea of a wiki-based collaborative project will see value
in the result, and a natural movement will be afoot to certify or approve
certain articles, so that the public can trust that the information in
those articles is reliable. I think at that time we probably won't have
any trouble at all getting suitable experts interested in serving on
approval committees. Again, we might try to tap Nupedia for this
purpose--if they're willing, which they might not be, but who knows.
Anyway, Wikipedia can't be *completely* up-to-date unless we've got a
*lot* of people working on it in many different areas. And, at this stage
anyway, the best way to keep a lot of people working on it is by keeping
it completely free.
Larry