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

Mon Dec 12 14:59:02 UTC 2005

Steve Bennett wrote:

>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
>  
>
I strongly agree with this. The least we could do is make this more 
prominent. Wikipedia is just like the Internet, only slightly better in 
some parts and slightly worser in others. Everything on it should be 
taken with the same grain of salt that the rest of the Internet is.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])