In this July, 2007 article Jonathan Dee explores the efficacy of Wikipedia as an unbiased, authoritative news source and the hurdles involved in this endeavor given the vast online community of contributors involved with the site. In his quest Jon speaks with Jimmy Whales, the founder and "watchmaker-god" of Wikipedia along with various content supervisors known within the Wikipedia hierarchy as "admins". A position bestowed upon selected users (among the 4.6 million users at the time of this article) after nomination based on valuable contributions and review of responses to key questions. It is also the first step among a community of content "janitors" who have privileges to protect the integrity of the content on Wikipedia and preserve it's Five Pillars.
It is clear Jon values the intent of Wikipedia who's goal is to "make the sum of human knowledge available to everyone on the planet at no cost." It is also clear that he balances his respect for this noble cause with his academic and professional pursuit of journalism with one of the most respected names in print medium around, the New York Times. Multiple times throughout the article Jon outlines somewhat contentious exchanges with Jimmy Whales on who is contributing to the Wikipedia articles. He discusses one contributor who is a high school senior and suggests to Mr. Whales that contributors tend to be in their early 20's or younger. Mr. Whales suggests in response that editing encyclopedia entries is "not a young persons hobby".
Jon appears to justify the clear efficacy of Wikipedia, "which now accounts for 1 out of every 200 page views on the entire Internet", by suggesting it does not replace news sources (such as, oh, I don't know, the NYT) but rather regurgitates news already reported elsewhere operating as a "massive cooperative blog" while filtering "all the opinion out of it." It is clear Jon is attempting to outline the dichotomy of proper news and Wikipedia while expressing his respect for the endeavor and the individuals involved in it throughout this article.
(Side note: no "Wikipedia" registered in spell check?? Really??)
Rating: 8/10
Doug points out the distinction made in Jonathan Dee's article between Wikipedia and news sources like the New York Times. This distinction is referred to throughout the article and it's important to understand how Wikipedia should be used. Wikipedia is a bias-free source of information, much like what you'd expect from a traditional encyclopedia. Doug is right in his assertion that Dee is not only presenting this dichotomy, but also expressing his respect for those involved. I think that Wikipedia can only be appreciated if people know how it should be used.
ReplyDeleteI think we have to be careful about calling Wikipedia bias-free. Even though that's what it strives to be, all contributors come with inherent biases (either explicit or implicit) and it is the contributions and edits of many users that reduce the bias. However, the potential for bias is yet another reason why we have to be careful about how we use Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree on "suggesting it (Wikipedia) does not replace news sources (such as, oh, I don't know, the NYT) but rather regurgitates news already reported elsewhere operating as a "massive cooperative blog" while filtering "all the opinion out of it.". I argued a similar position in my blog post about this article. I think Wikipedia's true value comes from the process of filtering and verifying accuracy of facts/information. This process takes time and therefore Wikipedia articles being written on the same day of the event they are covering do not have the guarantee of bias-free and verified information because these article are just flooded with information that has not had the time to be be able to be verified, corrected and maintained.
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