On 24/05/07, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote: It's entirely unclear ... that public participation ruins their business model? In which case look out for them as a threat in the future? - d.

On 25/05/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: I eagerly await news that we violate 287 unspecified Microsoft patents. - d.

On 24/05/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think you're inferring far too much here. This is, really, nothing at all to do with Microsoft or Google; it's to do with the web and its users. The link is talking about a meeting of the UKSG, the United Kingdom Serials Group, who are a perfectly staid and respectable group of librarians. It simply so happened that one of the talks was given by a guy from MS, talking about their products and Google's. Now, pause for a second. Serials librarians. The context here is identifying and retrieving information, discussing search tools. Hence all the statistics abour search groups, content available, etc. The "Wikipedia problem" - well, talk to half a dozen librarians or teachers, you'll know exactly what they'd say if you asked what the "Wikipedia problem" is. It's ubitquitous, it's pervasive, it's not very good compared to a lot of other stuff out there. It's the same problem *every other person* who worries about Wikipedia is concerned with - that peoples behaviour online is to google for something, take the first result uncritically; if it's something researchable, that first result is probably served up by us; they'll take it and read it and never think to check it. This isn't news. It's the problem we've known about ever since we became a runaway popular success - we get given far much more uncritical credence than we deserve, and people are hurting themselves through it. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On 25/05/07, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote: "Well, people should have more clue" is the same thing *they're* saying, when you get down to it. It's true, but repeating it doesn't refute the problem :-) Wikipedia provides a) a central point for broadly reliable but individually dubious articles; and b) a nice clean-looking respectable veneer. Never underestimate a good presentation. I'm not saying this is a new problem, or that we're somehow specifically to blame for it. But it is fair to say that we are a *very* major source for all thosde "grab the first page that comes up" searches on topics... we look and feel reliable even when the content is tripe. These people are professionals; they know all this. Consider what these people do for their day jobs: they invest staggering amounts of money and effort in obtaining and providing incredibly high-quality online resources, which people then ignore, go straight to Google, and wind up on Wikipedia. Which, for all our merits, is so not in the same league as these works for scholarly topics. "The Wikipedia problem" is not that we exist, or that we get used, but that the Internet's search system has developed in such a way as to make us much, much more prominent than we ought to be by any rational measures. The average electronic resources librarian would give an arm and a leg for a system which intelligently took account of locally available resources and made it trivially easy - and indeed encouraging - to use complex searching. (And they have one - themselves - but honest-to-god reference queries are a dying breed). This problem is really "The problem which is heavily manifested in relation to Wikipedia", not "the problem with Wikipedia and only Wikipedia". But it's handy shorthand - and everyone nods and says "yeah, I know, we have it too", and so it gets used. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On 5/24/07, William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com> wrote: I suspect that the fact that Wikipedia is the best result on the first search result page scares these people even more, and for good reason. -Matt

On 5/25/07, William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com> wrote: Ah! We must have removed the begging message at the top of the screen! -- Peter in Canberra