[WikiEN-l] No wonder people don't realise that anyone can edit Wikipedia

Mon Dec 12 14:47:01 UTC 2005

Hi all,
  I've always had my bookmark set to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page,
where it's prominently written "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia that anyone can edit".  However, for any visitor who comes
directly through www.wikipedia.org, this is not the case.  There is not
a single reference on the page to the nature of Wikipedia, other than
"The Free Encyclopaedia".  

Search an item, say, "Matt Drudge", and you will be taken directly to a
fairly authoritative looking bio.  Again, the nature of Wikipedia is not
made clear anywhere - most people will read "The Free Encyclopedia" as a
reference to price, since many sites on the net proclaim to be "free".
In fact, apart from the links "[edit]" and "edit this page", there is
nothing which would suggest to the user that this page could be edited
by them - or anyone else.  This page could easily become another
Siegenthaler - if the paragraph about Drudge's sexuality is made up (and
you'd have to read an 8 page newspaper article to decide), then you
couldn't blame him for getting angry.

Can we blame people for thinking Wikipedia is more authoritative than it
is? Is it not time that a banner "Anyone could have written this.
Including you." appeared for anonymous users?  What exactly, if anything
other than possible "aesthetics", would be the argument against warning
users against taking Wikipedia at its word?

Steve