On 16-08-2001, Bryce Harrington wrote thusly :
I snipped some parts of Bryce's post that are not relevant to my answers.
On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
Hello all, The same article was put on a Wikipedia page.
I just have a few random, not-worth keeping comments so will reply here rather than on the wiki site. (Btw, good idea to post it there.)
I think that we have grown a Wikipedia community. Wikipedia is a volunteer project that was made possible by Bomis. However, we have invested in our favourite project a lot of enthusiasm, time and (in some cases) money. It is quite natural that we want Wikipedia to prosper. In my opinion it is a time to stop and discuss. Discuss the future of Wikipedia. How does Bomis see it ? How does Nupedia see it ? How do we ?
Personally, as long as Bomis is providing tarballs and enough to *potentially* allow for forking, we've zero incentive to do it at all. Sort of, the more control they're willing to give away, the more control we can all trust them to have, I guess.
Reliability The other side of the free writing style in Wikipedia is quite possible lack of reliability. This lack of reliability would in the end undermine Wikipedia's credibility and ultimately her success.
No one in the world expects credibility from Wikipedia. And Wikipedia requires nothing from the world at large to be successful. Thus to me it seems like there is only a tenuous connection - at best - between credibility and success, regarding Wikipedia. If Wikipedia were *only* intended to be a literal replacement for a traditional encyclopedia, sure. But it's something a tad less, and something a tad more.
I'd like to write an article for Wikipedia about it but maybe later today.
That said, I do not think that the lack of credibility is as clear cut as would appear at first glance. Yes, logic says one should expect to see a distinct lack of credibility in Wikipedia. However, the evidence we're seeing is that many articles actually *are* reliable and credible. In a small but growing number of cases, the articles are actually *better* than you'd find in a traditional encyclopedia.
I agree and this is a Wikipedia magic but a casual reader might not know the difference. You say that judging articles in your area of expertise.
This issue must be tackled, and as soon as possible. I don't agree here with [[Larry Sanger]] and his view "self-healing". It is an example of elated wishful thinking that is misleading us.
Well I have disagreed with Larry on many things, but on this particular one I think he is correct. I've been involved with Wikipedia since the start, and have watched the evolution of many articles. I think this "self-healing" is not an expression of an idealistic wish of his but a characterization of a real thing that we have been observing again and again. I don't know that I would go so far as to say that self-healing will ensure that at some tangible point wikipedia will be 100% correct. Actually I'm fairly confident that will never happen. But then, does that matter? No encyclopedia is 100% correct, and probably not even 75% correct, when you consider how much is unknown or incorrectly known in the world.
To be really self-healing we need dozens of such enthusiasts as we are otherwise someone might put some nonsense pretending to be valid in an article none of us is competent enough. I think we should strive for a better kind of credibility than "this article can be right or wrong, but it is not totally wrong".
I would like to analogize to science here. Scientists 300 years ago did not say, "Let's make sure we have everything completely and reliably figured out as soon as possible, and record it." Instead they came up with a process that allows for establishing what they believed true, with processes for testing and validating and adjusting as we go. A self-correcting approach to accumulating knowledge. With Wikipedia we are using a similar approach - we record what we believe to be true, and then it is challenged and tested, and hopefully replaced with something better.
OK I take your point. I am just afraid that we are losing what Wikipedia _could be_ ? So in your opinion Wikipedia is a discussion forum rather than a reference source. [big snip]
Regards, kpj.