Hi all, I've always had my bookmark set to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, where it's prominently written "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". However, for any visitor who comes directly through www.wikipedia.org, this is not the case. There is not a single reference on the page to the nature of Wikipedia, other than "The Free Encyclopaedia".
Search an item, say, "Matt Drudge", and you will be taken directly to a fairly authoritative looking bio. Again, the nature of Wikipedia is not made clear anywhere - most people will read "The Free Encyclopedia" as a reference to price, since many sites on the net proclaim to be "free". In fact, apart from the links "[edit]" and "edit this page", there is nothing which would suggest to the user that this page could be edited by them - or anyone else. This page could easily become another Siegenthaler - if the paragraph about Drudge's sexuality is made up (and you'd have to read an 8 page newspaper article to decide), then you couldn't blame him for getting angry.
Can we blame people for thinking Wikipedia is more authoritative than it is? Is it not time that a banner "Anyone could have written this. Including you." appeared for anonymous users? What exactly, if anything other than possible "aesthetics", would be the argument against warning users against taking Wikipedia at its word?
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
Hi all, I've always had my bookmark set to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, where it's prominently written "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". However, for any visitor who comes directly through www.wikipedia.org, this is not the case. There is not a single reference on the page to the nature of Wikipedia, other than "The Free Encyclopaedia".
Search an item, say, "Matt Drudge", and you will be taken directly to a fairly authoritative looking bio. Again, the nature of Wikipedia is not made clear anywhere - most people will read "The Free Encyclopedia" as a reference to price, since many sites on the net proclaim to be "free". In fact, apart from the links "[edit]" and "edit this page", there is nothing which would suggest to the user that this page could be edited by them - or anyone else. This page could easily become another Siegenthaler - if the paragraph about Drudge's sexuality is made up (and you'd have to read an 8 page newspaper article to decide), then you couldn't blame him for getting angry.
Can we blame people for thinking Wikipedia is more authoritative than it is? Is it not time that a banner "Anyone could have written this. Including you." appeared for anonymous users? What exactly, if anything other than possible "aesthetics", would be the argument against warning users against taking Wikipedia at its word?
Steve
I strongly agree with this. The least we could do is make this more prominent. Wikipedia is just like the Internet, only slightly better in some parts and slightly worser in others. Everything on it should be taken with the same grain of salt that the rest of the Internet is.
John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]])
On 12/12/05, Steve Bennett wiki@stevage.com wrote:
Hi all, I've always had my bookmark set to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, where it's prominently written "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". However, for any visitor who comes directly through www.wikipedia.org, this is not the case. There is not a single reference on the page to the nature of Wikipedia, other than "The Free Encyclopaedia".
Search an item, say, "Matt Drudge", and you will be taken directly to a fairly authoritative looking bio. Again, the nature of Wikipedia is not made clear anywhere - most people will read "The Free Encyclopedia" as a reference to price, since many sites on the net proclaim to be "free". In fact, apart from the links "[edit]" and "edit this page", there is nothing which would suggest to the user that this page could be edited by them - or anyone else. This page could easily become another Siegenthaler - if the paragraph about Drudge's sexuality is made up (and you'd have to read an 8 page newspaper article to decide), then you couldn't blame him for getting angry.
Can we blame people for thinking Wikipedia is more authoritative than it is? Is it not time that a banner "Anyone could have written this. Including you." appeared for anonymous users? What exactly, if anything other than possible "aesthetics", would be the argument against warning users against taking Wikipedia at its word?
Steve
Not our juristiction. You would need to talk to the people over at meta.
-- geni
On 12/12/05, Steve Bennett wiki@stevage.com wrote:
Can we blame people for thinking Wikipedia is more authoritative than it is? Is it not time that a banner "Anyone could have written this. Including you." appeared for anonymous users? What exactly, if anything other than possible "aesthetics", would be the argument against warning users against taking Wikipedia at its word?
Steve
Well, most "anonymous" users *can't* edit Wikipedia. Wikipedia blocks most anonymizing proxies, after all.
Anyway, can we blame people for thinking Wikipedia is more authoritative than it is? Sure, you shouldn't believe something just because you read it on the Internet, even if that site claims to be an encyclopedia.
But then again, I have my doubts Wikipedia should be calling itself an encyclopedia in the first place. It's not really an encyclopedia, it's a website for a group of people who are building an encyclopedia. I remember arguing that years ago on IRC, though, and I lost the argument. Most Wikipedians insist that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, even though common sense says that it is not.
Anthony
On 12/12/05, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
But then again, I have my doubts Wikipedia should be calling itself an encyclopedia in the first place. It's not really an encyclopedia, it's a website for a group of people who are building an encyclopedia. I remember arguing that years ago on IRC, though, and I lost the argument. Most Wikipedians insist that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, even though common sense says that it is not.
Yet.
-- Sam
On 12/12/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/12/05, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
But then again, I have my doubts Wikipedia should be calling itself an encyclopedia in the first place. It's not really an encyclopedia, it's a website for a group of people who are building an encyclopedia. I remember arguing that years ago on IRC, though, and I lost the argument. Most Wikipedians insist that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, even though common sense says that it is not.
Yet.
-- Sam
I think that's implied in what I said. We're building an encyclopedia. We haven't produced one yet, at least not in English. German Wikipedia arguably *has* produced an encyclopedia.
Anthony
On 12/12/05, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
I think that's implied in what I said. We're building an encyclopedia. We haven't produced one yet, at least not in English. German Wikipedia arguably *has* produced an encyclopedia.
Oh, I realise that. I was just emphasising your point, which is an extremely valid one.
-- Sam
On Monday 12 December 2005 11:50, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
I think that's implied in what I said. We're building an encyclopedia. We haven't produced one yet, at least not in English. German Wikipedia arguably *has* produced an encyclopedia.
Just curious, on what basis do you make this distinction?
Hello,
But then again, I have my doubts Wikipedia should be calling itself an encyclopedia in the first place. It's not really an encyclopedia, it's a website for a group of people who are building an encyclopedia. I remember arguing that years ago on IRC, though, and I lost the argument. Most Wikipedians insist that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, even though common sense says that it is not.
Well, I'm not sure I agree. I use wikipedia as an encyclopaedia all the time. It's great on countries, models of cars, computer technologies etc. But I'm lucky enough to realise that the information is of an "amateur" standard, and I don't make any serious decisions based on anything I've only read there. As most of "us" know - there are good bits and there are bad bits. But does the general public?
Steve