[WikiEN-l] Boston Globe: "Bias, sabotage haunt Wikipedia's free world"

[The Cunctator]

On 2/12/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
>
> > http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/02/12/
> > bias_sabotage_haunt_wikipedias_free_world/
> >
> > First of a two-parter. Seems pretty good to me, the reporter has done
> > some work, it's not just a hatchet job. But it's pretty negative
> > about Wikipedia.
> >
> > There is a discrepancy between what WIkipedians know Wikipedia to be
> > and what outsiders think it is.
> >
> > They think it's an encyclopedia.
> >
> > That discrepancy is going to cause us more and more trouble unless we
> > find a better way to deal with it.
>
> That was seriously one of the best articles I've ever seen written about
> us. I've shot an email to the author thanking him for doing his research
> instead of shabbily ommitting and making up stuff to support a
> particular viewpoint as most other journalists do. I don't think it's
> negative at all; I find it highlights some of the best and worst parts
> of Wikipedia and would probably comply with [[WP:NPOV]], if not [[WP:NOR]].

I think it places too much emphasis on the idea of fighting vandalism,
but then so do a lot of editors these days. I wrote the author about
the obvious factual error, "On his own, Seigenthaler tracked down the
saboteur to a business in Nashville." As if.