[WikiEN-l] Fwd: Article and info for Interview on The Right Hook

Tue Aug 22 14:15:50 UTC 2006

I'm doing an interview about this on [[Newstalk 106]] at 6pm. I've
attached the original article they're talking about (it's not on the site).

I find it hard to argue the unreliability point as stated ... I
suspect I'll be emphasising the 'perpetual working draft' angle and
[[Portal:Ireland]]. Probably http://ga.wikipedia.org as well. Any
other ideas, anyone?

- d.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kate Garry
Date: 22-Aug-2006 14:46
Subject: Article and info for Interview on The Right Hook

 Hi David,

As per earlier telelphone conversation, please find attached articlie
from todays Irish Independent - Wikipedia: Trick or Truth?

I appreciate you taking the time to talk with George this evening on
his drive-time show 'The Right Hook'. Also taking part in the
discussion will be Irish Times and Newstalks Technology Correspondent,
Karlin Lillington.

And here's a little  bit about us and our presenter George Hook.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newstalk_106.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hook

Look forward to talking to you

Any further questions, I can be contacted on 00353xxxxxxx

Regards

Kate Garry
Researcher

Wikipedia: trick or truth?

Tuesday August 22nd 2006

The online encyclopedia has been voted the world's second most
influential website - but with the public allowed to edit its one
million entries, this font of knowledge is a prankster's dream, writes
KIM BIELENBERG

If he happens to log on to the internet encyclopedia Wikipedia during
his summer holidays, Pat Kenny may be surprised to discover that he is
a "scientologist".

According to Wikipedia's utterly misleading entry for Pat Kenny, the
broadcaster "became a devout scientologist in the early 1970s".

The entry for the Late Late Show presenter was also claiming last week
that he presents the "acclaimed" RTE Radio 1 Show, "Granny-punching
with Pat Kenny".

Over a million articles have now appeared on Wikipedia; it has become
one of the world's greatest sources of information. Last week, it was
named by The Observer as the second-most influential website on the
internet.

But, as well as being a useful starting point for anyone looking for
information - including millions of school pupils and students - it is
also one of the world's leading repositories of comical misinformation
and nonsense.

Wikipedia's strength - the fact that it has an estimated 13,000
voluntary contributors - is also its greatest weakness. It invites
anyone - absolutely anyone - to add an entry or edit one that is
already there. This is the heart of the problem.

Wikipedia's article about Pat Kenny has been hit by pranksters before.
Previously, the world's most popular encyclopedia claimed that Pat
Kenny was suspected of being "The Midnight Commando, a Batman-style
vigilante who fought night crime in late 1970s Dublin" and "once
claimed to have travelled to space in a giant hat".

Pat Kenny is not the only famous person to have been targeted by
pranksters on Wikipedia. Until Wikipedia imposed restrictions on
changes to its article about Tony Blair, the entry was being changed
as many as 25 times a day. Pranksters have given him the middle name
'Whoop-de-Doo' and made the unfounded claim that he had posters of
Adolf Hitler on his wall as a student.

An entry for the singer Robbie Williams recently suggested that he
"makes his money by eating domestic pets in pubs in and around Stoke".

David Beckham has been described as a Chinese goalkeeper in the 18th
century, while George Bush was reported to be the frontman of 1980s
heavy metal band Poison

In the most notorious case of Wikipedia misinformation, an article on
the website falsely named a journalist John Seigenthaler as a suspect
in the assassinations of president John F. Kennedy and his brother,
Robert.

The howlers on Wikipedia would perhaps be unimportant if it was not
such a popular source of information. It is now the 17th most visited
site on the web. Experienced researchers see it as a useful starting
point, but know that they should take its information with a pinch of
salt. But as an unimpeachable source for students, it is decidedly
flawed.

Wikipedia began five years ago more or less as a lark. Jimmy Wales,
its founder, had been interested in encyclopedias ever since his
parents bought the World Book from a door-to-door salesman (and Wales
became obsessed with cross-referencing the additions that came with
each of the annual supplements).

Wales ran an earlier internet encyclopedia called Nupedia, which
relied on the old-fashioned technique of inviting experts to
contribute.

Wales's encyclopedia revolution began when he was introduced to the
wiki, a software tool that allows online collaborative writing and
editing. Wales sent out a message: "Humour me. Go there and add a
little article. It will take all of five or 10 minutes."

He expected nothing very much, but within a short time there were 600
contributions. Then word got out and in a couple of years, there were
20,000 entries. Now, with over one million entries and 14,000 hits a
second, it is a paradise for the anorak who wishes to achieve internet
immortality.

Refreshingly, perhaps, the encyclopedia that has been described as
"the world's brain" can devote as much space to characters from The
Simpsons as to a Nobel prize-winning writer.

There are substantial entries on such diverse Irish themes as Eamon De
Valera's car, the word scanger ("a derogatory term for a stereotypical
member of a youth subculture group in Dublin, Ireland") and Dustin the
Turkey.

About 80% of the contributors, who remain anonymous, are male. And the
vast majority of the pranksters who type in nonsense are believed to
be male teenagers with a lot of time on their hands (vandalism
increases at weekends and during school holidays).

In theory, its entries reflect a neutral point of view and the
material in articles must be verifiable and previously published.

Disputes inevitable arise, however. Feelings can run high and
arguments over various arcane facts can rumble on for months. For some
reason, "cheese" has been among the most contested entries, but you
can see that others might be more politically sensitive.

The entry for the Israel-Lebanon conflict was posted just six hours
after Hizbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a raid on July 12,
but it has since been edited by other contributors more than 4,000
times.

Jimmy Wales, who runs Wikipedia from Florida with a tiny permanent
staff, was initially reluctant to ban persistent vandals from the
site. But as it has grown, he has had to act more swiftly.

There are various entries that cannot be altered without special
clearance - the one on George W Bush has been vandalised so frequently
that it is often closed to editing for days. Other surprisingly
contentious pages that are protected from random abuse are those on
poodles, oranges and Chopin.

With its fast-and-loose editing system and its mass appeal, Wikipedia
has inevitably incurred the wrath of the more august encyclopedias.

An editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica acidly commented about
Wikipedia: "We can get the wrong answer to a question faster than our
fathers and mothers could find a pencil."

Although it has attracted many high-profile howlers, many of its
errors have been weeded out with time. Last year, a survey in Nature
magazine estimated that for every three errors in Encyclopaedia
Britannica, there are four on Wikipedia.

Is this good enough? The founder Jimmy Wales thinks so, given that his
site is free and much more comprehensive than Britannica, but Pat
Kenny and others might beg to differ.

Wacky Wiki

Five postings from the weird and wonderful world of Wikipedia

The moon: "The moon does not exist. It was blown up in a nuclear test
in the 1960s by a scientist named Malcolm Cohen. What you see now is a
projection so that people do not panic."

The Jules Rimet Trophy: "Named after the Fifa president Jules Rimet
who, in 1929, passed a vote to initiate the competition after a
bittersweet reunion with the gruff but lovable dwarf who took him in
as a child and raised him, despite his constant bout with rickets."

Malaga (province): "The Sun Coast (Costa del Sol) is a concrete
monster that swallows, burns, and spits back millions of happy
European tourists."

Vauxhall Corsa: "Popularly driven by retired ladies and hairdressers,
Corsas can be seen in their natural habitat on their roofs in a ditch
surrounded by livestock and insurance assessors."

Stepping: "The name for a process of locomotion - either forward or
backward movement engaged in by bipedal (i.e. humans and chickens) and
quadripedal (i.e. rats, deer) and multipedal (i.e. insects) organisms
consisting of putting the left foot forward, following with the right
foot and repeating. Monopedal organisms often experience difficulty in
stepping."

What the experts say

*Alan Byrne author of 'Thin Lizzy: Soldiers of Fortune', on
Wikipedia's Thin Lizzy entry:

"In general, it seems far better than the last time I saw it. There
isn't a huge amount that I can fault but as a resource, Wikipedia is
not a site I would usually use. More often than not, fan websites
contain far more detail."

*Justine McCarthy, journalist and author of 'Mary McAleese, The
Outsider' on the Mary McAleese entry:

"As a starting point, it's quite useful but it seems to gloss over
some of the more controversial episodes in her career. It does not
deal with the troubles she encountered in RTE, her role in the second
abortion referendum and her promise to hold a bonfire in the Aras
grounds on July 12."

*Bernard Share, author of 'Slanguage - A Dictionary of Irish Slang':

"I found it useless. It is not in any way comprehensive. When you look
up 'Irish slang', there is just a list of mostly vulgar terms. The
word 'conker' is included as Irish slang, even though it is used in
England as well."

(c) Irish Independent
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/ & http://www.unison.ie/