[Wikide-l] Sorry- we have a problem...

Mi Okt 20 09:07:01 UTC 2004

Wenn wir solche Meldungen bekommen, wie ich heute bereits zum X-Mal, dann
sind vielleicht auch die Wahlen in Amerika, die dazu mit beitragen ( ...
dass die Kollegen in Bochum davon noch nichts mitbekommen haben? Jedenfalls
kann da auf die Wikipedia in der Zukunft noch Einiges kommen! Gruß Ilja):

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Wiki wars
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=10909&hed=Wiki%20wars 
Think this year's presidential debates have been rough? Check out Wikipedia.
October 14, 2004

Wikis, touted as the next big thing in online content, have become the
latest battleground in the presidential election as users of online
encyclopedia Wikipedia, the best-known wiki, squabble over entries related
to President George W. Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry, the junior
senator from Massachusetts.

Disputes over content related to Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry have been growing
since August, prompting the popular reference site’s administrators to warn
users last month that election-related entries may be the focus of
“contention and debate – possibly diminishing their neutrality.” 

Wikis like Wikipedia are web sites that encourage users to share information
by allowing them to freely write and edit content.

Wikipedia community members held an online town hall meeting last month to
try to solve the disputes over the entries, to no avail. Meanwhile,
Wikipedia’s administrators are periodically “freezing” contentious pages –
locking out any edits for brief periods of time. Since May, Wikipedia’s Mr.
Kerry entry has been frozen at least seven times, while its Mr. Bush page
has been locked down almost as often.

Bigger than Jesus

Indeed, entries for Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry have become the most contentious
in the history of Wikipedia, said Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales, president
of the Wikipedia Foundation, which is based in St. Petersburg, Florida. Mr.
Bush and Mr. Kerry have created even more debate than entries for sex and
religion. As of October 8, Wikipedia’s President Bush entry had been tweaked
3,953 times. Its entry for Senator Kerry had been modified 3,230 times. By
contrast, Wikipedia’s article on Jesus has only been edited 1,855 times
since the site’s inception in 2001.

“George Bush is no question a controversial president,” said Mr. Wales. “But
he’s also the only president we’ve had since the Wikipedia began.” A click
on a link from Wikipedia’s entry for Mr. Bush reveals users debating topics
such as the president’s college grade point average, allegations of cocaine
abuse, and Michael Moore’s anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.

The stakes in these online disputes are high. Wikipedia has become a popular
online reference for students, academics, and even journalists. Its articles
can be among the first results returned by search sites such as Yahoo! and
Google. New search site Clusty.com, launched earlier this month, even
features an “encyclopedia” page dedicated to helping users comb through the
free encyclopedia’s content.

Disputes could make wikis stronger

As Wikipedia has become more important, critics have attacked the
reliability of Wikipedia’s system. Some users have even deliberately
inserted errors into Wikipedia entries to test how quickly users can detect
and remove them. The results have been mixed, with some finding their errors
are fixed quickly, and others finding erroneous changes made to less popular
entries persisting for longer periods of time.

Members of the Wikipedia community have proposed several fixes. Wikipedia’s
Mr. Wales has said that next year he will begin using editors to review the
web site’s content for accuracy and allow users to rate contributions to the
encyclopedia for their quality. “It’s complex because it’s a social
community, and feelings can be hurt,” said Mr. Wales, but he added that the
change will be critical when Wikipedia content is put on more permanent
media, such as CD-ROM disks.

Fans argue that Wikipedia’s open system taps into the collective wisdom of
large groups of people to root out error and minimize bias. While anyone can
make a change to any entry, the discussions around those changes are open,
said Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor at New York University’s Interactive
Telecommunications Program in New York City. “It’s like the security of
sidewalks,” said Mr. Shirky. “If everyone shares a little the sidewalk is
safe.”

Indeed, the tussling at Wikipedia doesn’t faze those who hope to take wiki
technology corporate. Joe Kraus, CEO of Jotspot, a Palo Alto, California,
company trying to commercialize wikis, said that “the true brilliance of
Wikipedia and wikis in general is that [they] allow people to edit pages and
allow them to add perspective.” 

By that measure, at least, you could count the Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry
entries as Wikipedia’s most successful.

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