FYI, this week Wall Street Journal (perhaps Asia only) had one of the more useful stories on Wikipedia, which has some comments from academics/expets on WP articles. In general, very good opinions of Wikipedia. My comments are probably the harshest. :)

-User:Fuzheado

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June 17, 2005 PERSONAL JOURNAL --- Your Life -- Loose Wire: Trusting an Internet Encyclopedia ---- By Jeremy Wagstaff

The Asian Wall Street Journal via Dow Jones

[...]

I've found Wikipedia to be pretty good on the few subjects I know a little about. But you aren't interested in what I think. So I polled some people who might have something to say: random academics from diverse disciplines in North America, Australia and the United Kingdom. I asked them to look up five to 10 subjects in their field and offer their impressions. Here's what they said:

-- Claudia Eberlein, a theoretical physicist at the U.K.'s University of Sussex, checked entries relating to quantum and laser science: "I must say I am impressed! Not everything was 100% accurate, but it was close enough for a general knowledge encyclopedia, and in places it was much more detailed than I would possibly have expected."

-- William J. Jackson, an expert in Hinduism at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, says he was "pleasantly surprised at how accurate the information is -- not because I assumed Wikipedia would get things wrong, but because often sources from the West often seem put together by people who haven't studied the other culture in depth."

-- Ray Trygstad, Director of Information Technology at the Illinois Institute of Technology, focused on several areas of interest: Internet & Web, Information Security and Navy/Naval Aviation. He was impressed with accuracy and balance, but felt that some entries were thin or nonexistent: "The information security article was an outstanding introduction to the field and very well balanced . . . The helicopter article was very complete and very accurate although there were some additional areas that could be discussed."

-- Komninos Zervos, a lecturer in CyberStudies at Australia's Griffith University, looked up digital poetry (poetry that in some way uses the computer) and found it "a good starting point to a new and developing field of new media/cyber/digital/web poetry" although he found it "still very patchy mentioning types of digital poetry."

-- Charles Chapman, manager of digital marketing at Massachusetts' Babson College and an occasional tweaker of entries covering emerging technologies found entries on his subject matter 95% accurate. "I can't say 100% because there was missing information, rather than incorrect information, on some of the topics I researched. I was happy to find most everything correct."

-- Chris Ewels, a nanotechnology expert at the University of Paris, was lukewarm on entries on nanotechnology ("started well, then lumpy") and transmission electron microscopy ("it's a good, very introductory description, but is missing many of the important features of this type of microscopy"), but was impressed by density functional theory ("would give this 100% on all fronts -- very accurate, detailed, well written"). Overall, Mr. Ewels said he was impressed by how far Wikipedia has come since he last checked: "(I) must admit I didn't realize to what depth information was available," he said.

I would take those responses as a general thumbs up. If the experts can't pick big holes in Wikipedia, I'd say the rest of us can use it. This doesn't mean, of course, that we should use the information in it without confirming it elsewhere. As Andrew Lih, director of technology at Hong Kong University's Journalism and Media Studies Centre and a long-time contributor to Wikipedia, puts it: "It's a good starting point for things; it isn't a good authority."

Why is something so easy to tamper with so good? This is easily answered: Guardians of the site constantly monitor the updated information by viewing a real-time feed of changes and can quickly spot a vandal or heavily biased contributor and undo the damage, or refer the case to others. Vandalism usually stays there for only a few minutes, or even less.

Indeed, comparing it with an existing encyclopedia may be missing the point of Wikipedia. It isn't written by individual contributors -- who, like everyone else, may be fallible -- but by a vast network of people of varying expertise whose contributions are open to challenge and review by anyone else. In other words, it isn't about what qualifications you have. It's about what you contribute. If your contribution is good enough, well-sourced enough and balanced enough to survive the challenges of others, then it's probably pretty good stuff. There's always room for improvement, but then any print editor who has had to issue a correction would acknowledge that.

Wikipedia, for what it is, is an impressive monument to collective scholarship and curiosity.

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Send comments to jeremy.wagstaff@awsj.com