[Wikipedia-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia must change with Googling (was: Dartmouth follies)

[Andrew Lih]

On Wed, 25 Aug 2004 20:43:31 +0100, Pete/Pcb21
<pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com> wrote:

> How does having articles of borderline interest make it unusable?
> If I type "George Washington" into Google and end up at the excellent
> Wikipedia article of the same name, Wikipedia has proved very usuable.
> It is completely irrelevant whether a borderline article such as "George
> from Rainbow" is also available *for those who search for it*

In some sense I agree, but what has bothered me lately is the fact
that Googling for "wikipedia foo" likely brings up one of our mirrors
first, and not Wikipedia itself. So when I see a blatant error
magnified "n" times on the many mirrors on the Internet, it sends a
chill up my spine.

Worse, because those sites are mirrors, and don't accept changes, it
makes it easy for readers to walk off and say, "What a crackpot
project."

So increasingly, the dynamic is changing, and in large part it's due
to Google search results. Whether these mirrors are gaming the search
algorithm or whatever, increasingly "Wikipedia content" does not
reside in a true wiki, because the fruits of publishing are being
removed from the mechanisms of fixing errors. I feel the dynamic of
inclusionism/deletionism and the promptness of when things are fixed
must take this into account.

-- 
Andrew Lih
andrew.lih at gmail.com