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By Gregory Kohs
Wikipedia is one of the world’s ten most-used websites, right up there with the likes of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, and Amazon. However, it is the only non-profit, educational site in the top 50, inspiring at least some of its hundreds of millions of monthly readers to pitch in and edit their way to an even better repository of the world’s knowledge. Every year in December, the face of Jimmy Wales appears on the site, making his annual appeal for cash donations. He has become a sort of global ambassador for Wikipedia, recognized by millions of people.
Dr. Larry Sanger, forgotten creator of Wikipedia
However, Wales is not the man who truly launched Wikipedia.
The honorable distinction of bringing life to Wikipedia rests with a philosopher and educator named Dr. Larry Sanger. You see, what Wales
…continue reading Wikipedia’s forgotten creator
By W. P. Beans
Let’s meet Scott Bibby, a person who, shall we say, has taken a strong interest in this Wikipedia criticism website.
You might know him better as Wikipedia editor Russavia. I say Wikipedia editor, but he’s actually banned on Wikipedia right now. That doesn’t stop Bibby from being a very active Wikimedia Commons admin and bureaucrat. It’s no secret that proud Russophile Scott Bibby is Russavia. Here’s Bibby identifying himself as Russavia and asking permission to use a photo on Wikipedia. Here’s Bibby cc’d on a message about Creative Commons Australia (Bibby lives in Perth, Western Australia, according to his Wikipedia user page). Bibby also uses @Russavia as his Twitter handle, although he hasn’t made any public tweets. Does it hurt when you tweet in public? (Oddly, he doesn’t use Russavia as his Facebook handle, he uses mudozvon. That roughly translates from Russian as “bullshitter”. Among the many domains that Bibby has owned is mudozvon.net.)
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A rose by any other
…continue reading Russavia is Scott Bibby is russiansafetycards
Once upon a time, Gomi of the late great Wikipedia Review compiled an introductory survey of criticism that is intended to provide the public with a range of different reasons to shun Wikipedia as an authoritative source of information.
Wikipedia Content
1. Wikipedia contains incorrect, misleading, and biased information. Whether through vandalism, subtle disinformation, or the prolonged battling over biased accounts, many of Wikipedia’s articles are unsuitable for scholarly use. Because of poor standards of sourcing and citation, it is often difficult to determine the origin of statements made in Wikipedia in order to determine their correctness. Pursuit of biased points of view by powerful administrators is considered a particular problem, as opposing voices are often permanently banned from Wikipedia. Wikipedia’s culture of disrespect for expertise and scholarship (see below) makes it difficult to trust anything there.
2. Wikipedia’s articles are used to spread gossip, abet character assassination, and invade the privacy of the general public. So-called “Biographies of
…continue reading A Compendium of Wikipedia Criticism
By Andreas Kolbe
Jimmy Wales and the Wikimedia UK team, circa 2010
The publication on 7 February 2013 of an independent report on Wikimedia UK governance, commissioned jointly by Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK, was covered the following day by Civil Society Media’s Governance magazine (“Wikimedia UK trustees have been ‘too involved’ to effectively govern charity”), aimed at charity trustees, chief executives and company secretaries, and by Third Sector (“Review urges major overhaul of governance at Wikimedia UK”), a UK magazine specialising on the voluntary and non-profit sector.
Background
The review, performed by management consultancy Compass Partnership, was paid for by the Wikimedia Foundation. It was commissioned in October of last year, in the wake of media controversy and community discussions around the Monmouthpedia and Gibraltarpedia outreach projects. A key part of the dispute, Governance said, was—
“ an intellectual property dispute over QRpedia, a mobile web-based system using QR codes to deliver Wikipedia articles, that was developed
…continue reading Wikimedia UK governance review finds significant failings
By Delicious carbuncle
Another in a in a series of blog posts highlighting lesser-known Wikipedia editors.
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When the account Crakkerjakk was registered on Wikipedia in late October 2010, the person behind the account was probably already an experienced WP contributor. Their very first edit was to create a fully-formed article about actor Kipp Marcus, who would have been 13 when he began the television show which is his most significant credit. Crakkerjakk has gone on to become a prolific editor of articles about male child and teen actors. What’s wrong with someone being interested in adolescent actors and adding information to WP based on their interest? If you are a child or teen watching television shows made for children and teens, there’s nothing wrong with that. If you want to add information about shows that you enjoyed as a child, there’s nothing wrong with that, either.
…continue reading Meet the editors: Crakkerjakk
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