On 23/04/07, Martin Peeks martinp23@googlemail.com wrote:
On a more serious note - it would help if something were to be done to tell those reporting just why Wikipedia articles can be vandalised, and what we do to repair it.
Every press call on the subject ... though they seem to have been dropping in frequency.
For what I've heard of the newspaper article (I haven't read it yet), they followed the usual process of looking through revisions (or introducing deliberate vandalism) and reporting these instances as examples of Wikipedia being evil, only their to poolute our childrens' minds, must be banned (you see where I'm going with this..). Hopefully when/if stable revisions arrive, a lot of the complaints will slow down. As Wikipedia grows, and gets more press attention, its faults are pointed out more and more often, so we need to do all we can to nullify these concerns, and crucially let the media know how a we are taking care of the issues.
Stable versions will be a MASSIVE public relations boost. Even journalists who understand how Wikipedia works (and many do) will appreciate it becoming even theoretically fixable.
- d.