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Wikipedia editor Kingsindian looks at the loose relationship between Wikipedia’s self-image and its reality, then examines the process by which articles are created. …continue reading What can fact checkers learn from Wikipedia — How not to do things, perhaps? By Andreas Kolbe . The other day, a contributor to question-and-answer site Quora asked: “Why did people create huge, comprehensive websites like Wikipedia for free?” Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, a frequent and well-loved commenter on Quora (as well as an investor in the site), left a short reply that had no difficulty establishing itself as the most popular answer: “Because it’s awesome.” It was an astute piece of cheerleading from Wales – and it worked. His one-liner received over 1,800 upvotes. Wikipedia is funded by donations from the public (nearly $50 million in the last accounting year, an almost ten-fold increase over takings five years ago), and much of its PR work relies on feel-good messages. Wales has made a living from supplying them. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement: Wales makes a good income from his speaking fees – typically over $70,000 per event, according to the New York Times – and Wikipedia benefits from the publicity he generates. However, Wales’ throwaway answer masks a far more complex reality. Wikipedia’s Google footprint In January 2004, the English Wikipedia had just 277 contributors making more than 100 edits a month. One year later, it was 801; by January 2006, it was 3,051, eventually peaking at almost 4,800 in March 2007. What happened? By 2005, people noticed that Wikipedia had begun to dominate Google search results, with many searches featuring a Wikipedia article among the top Google hits (see e.g. Wikipedia Ruling in Google Search Results? from 2006, and Google offers to help Wikipedia from 2005). The fact that anyone researching a subject online would be directed to Wikipedia made Wikipedia articles an obvious vehicle to influence public opinion. The site became an attractive outlet to anyone who had a stake in how a …continue reading Why do people contribute to Wikipedia?
. By the Masked Maggot It’s been an interesting week in Wikiland, and in Wikipediocracy country too! It all started several weeks ago during the ARBCOM elections. Early on, there were some seriously odd characters running for the seats, and not many others. Several folks on the Wikipediocracy forums suggested that “one of us” should run, and it turns out that one did, though we didn’t know it at the time. Not only did he run, but he won, and won with the most support of any of the candidates. About a week and a half ago, our superb team of investigators figured out who 28bytes is in “real life”. His identity (or “dox”, though it wasn’t really his dox) appeared on the public forum briefly, but was taken out of sight for a while at his request. He briefly considered “coming out” here on our blog, but decided that doing so on WP would be the better approach. The investigative team then began to suspect that he was also an insider here on Wikipediocracy as well, and what do ya know… they were right again. .
As you can imagine, some of us were annoyed, some amused, some angry, most surprised. Some of the Wikipedians seem a bit shocked that we have a “super secret forum” where we review blog posts before publishing them (the horrors!), and of course the wheels of the Wikipedia drama machine are spinning away, though that’s not news, is it? All we can say to those of our readers who aren’t Wikipedians: wikidrama is as contagious as flu and as addictive as a bad soap opera or reality show. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. We wish you all …continue reading All Ur 28bytes R belong to us |
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