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How to fix Wikipedia
February 24th, 2010 · by David Bradley >> 13 Comments
The introduction of so-called Flagged Revisions on the infamous online information repository, Wikipedia, do not go far enough to allow the site to mature into an accurate and wholly verifiable Internet resource. Instead, the adoption of more traditional values is the only way forward, argue Australian information experts.
Wikipedia is a user-produced online encyclopedia and, since its inception in 2001, has grown to be one of the main resources for finding factual information on the Internet.
Wikipedia is free, web-based, collaborative, and multilingual. Its name is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites, from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning “quick”) and encyclopedia. The site’s 14 million articles (3.1 million in English) have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site.
Unfortunately, Wikipedia has not turned out to be the perfect alternative to traditional sources of facts. It is often criticized for inaccuracies, bias and vandalism of high-profile pages. In an effort to address such problems, the site’s owners are testing new rules that still allow contributors to write what they want, but require an experienced and registered site volunteer to verify any edits a user may make. Flagged revisions of specific prominent pages, such as those of politicians, including President Obama, and celebrities such as Michael Jackson and Britney Spears are then published only if verified by a trusted member of the Wikipedia community. A new tool can reveal flagged pages. Ultimately, the aim is to extend the rules to the Wikipedia pages for every living person.
Sharman Lichtenstein and Craig Parker of the School of Information Systems, at Deakin University, Burwood, Australia suggest that this approach will not result in any significant improvement to the “information quality” on Wikipedia.
First, they say, it will only address the issue of vandalism and, if successful, only on a small selection of English Wikipedia articles selected by non-experts who are not esteemed experts. It may become more useful if it is applied to all Wikipedia content as in the case of the German Wikipedia, however we cannot see this happening in North America which favors free speech and appears to favor unrestricted content except in extreme cases.
Secondly, it will not address the information quality issues which are caused by having non-traditional (lay) experts editing content. The information quality of Wikipedia will still depend entirely on the knowledge and expertise of the volunteer “trusted” editors and administrators who oversee the flagging. There will be no change in this regard and therefore little improvement in information quality. This is an aspect of which the researchers are particularly critical in their paper.
Thirdly, the Wikipedia policy changes will not address the information quality problems arising due to inexperienced editors (including administrators and trusted editors) who rely upon published sources that contain incorrect information. The existing editorial policies in the English Wikipedia means that these false published sources would still be viewed as more credible than the unpublished expertise of traditional experts. Traditional experts can refute the published sources based on their expertise.
Finally, the new approach does not address the issue of incomplete articles, unless the flagging approach is used across all content Wikipedia and adopts a policy to ensure that the completeness of articles is verified before they are made public.
The recent Wikipedia changes, and proposed changes currently being trialed, do not alter the key problems facing Wikipedia, other than in addressing vandalism.
Lichtenstein and Parker suggest that a flagging system must be adopted for all pages in the English Wikipedia. This system would require all article content to be verified and signed off by a recognized traditional expert, as in the traditional peer review process. This would essentially validate Wikipedia in an equivalent way to conventional published encyclopedias.
“A rigorous, rather than evolutionary, approach to the development of new policies and guidelines is required,” the researchers conclude. “The policies and guidelines should align more closely with conventional encyclopedia publication policies.”
Related research paper from Lichtenstein and Parker in which they focus on additional aspects of Wikipedia:
Lichtenstein, S., & Parker, C. (2009). Wikipedia model for collective intelligence: a review of information quality International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, 5 (3/4) DOI: 10.1504/IJKL.2009.031199
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13 responses so far ↓
Alwyn // Feb 24, 2010 at 1:13 pm
This proposal is completely unrealistic. Where would these experts come from? If they had been involved in Wikipedia already, they would have been the ones writing the articles, no need for “amateurs” to do so. Plus, there are tens of thousands of topics, getting an expert to volunteer in each of them would be unrealistic. Wikipedia is not perfect, but I don’t think the Australian gentlemen understands the essence of Wikipedia either.
Alwyn // Feb 24, 2010 at 1:32 pm
P.S. Despite being a fan of Wikipedia and a non-active admin, I really think people should not put their complete trust in the factuality of information they get from there, as a matter of course. Rather view it as a quick overview and a “portal” to more reliable information.
David Bradley // Feb 24, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Good points Alwyn. Personally, I only use Wikipedia to check information I already know and/or have independent sources and references to.
C. Akritidis // Feb 24, 2010 at 6:11 pm
They must be joking! The power of Wikipedia is exactly that anyone can contribute. The information in it is as good as the knowledge and good will of the people willing to contribute. The model has worked exceptionally well. Of course it’s not perfect, but neither is the best commercial encyclopeadia. The proposal to switch to a ‘traditional’ model is absurd and makes me wonder which encyclopeadia publisher funded their research.
Depending on your goal, you may find Wikipedia more or less useful. I would not base a research paper on it, but I would certainly use it for K-12 homework assignments. At the very least, it is an excellent starting point for additional investigation on ANY subject. How many encyclopeadias can give you that?
David Bradley // Feb 24, 2010 at 6:57 pm
I think Wikipedia is an amazing system, but it does have flaws. The researchers have many more detailed criticism of the Wiki system in their full paper than I have alluded to in this short post, which are unlikely to be addressed by the changes Wikipedia itself is making in response to criticisms and problems it sees in itself.
mad the swine // Feb 24, 2010 at 8:43 pm
Wikipedia’s major flaws are inherent; they’re a result of its bottom-up structure. The whole point of Wikipedia is that *anyone* can edit it. If anyone can edit it, you have liars, self-promoters, ideologues and nuts and cranks of every description editing it. That’s the nature of the beast. The ‘information quality’ problems are simply not solvable as long as amateurs are contributing and editing, and if you turn Wikipedia over to professionals and ‘traditional experts’, why should Wikipedia exist in the first place?
In other words, this:
“Lichtenstein and Parker suggest that a flagging system must be adopted for all pages in the English Wikipedia. This system would require all article content to be verified and signed off by a recognized traditional expert, as in the traditional peer review process. This would essentially validate Wikipedia in an equivalent way to conventional published encyclopedias.”
would turn Wikipedia into the online equivalent of a traditional encyclopedia. Of which there are thousands. It would kill Wikipedia qua Wiki. And that assumes that Wikipedia could somehow pay for these expert editors without charging subscriptions, which would also kill Wikipedia qua Wiki. Which part of ‘that anyone can edit’ did they not understand?
mad the swine // Feb 24, 2010 at 8:47 pm
Actually, this right here is the core problem:
“to allow the site to mature into an accurate and wholly verifiable Internet resource”
which shows that these ‘information experts’ either don’t understand what Wikipedia is, or want to change it to what they want Wikipedia to be. Again: you cannot have something that’s accurate, wholly verifiable, AND freely edited by the public, and if you take out the ‘freely edited’ part, what you have left is no longer Wikipedia as it was created to be.
David Bradley // Feb 25, 2010 at 8:21 am
So much venom Mr/Ms The Swine but I’m afraid it’s not this site’s policy to leave intact comments that make abusive remarks directed at individuals, so I removed your attack.
As to the actual content of your comments regarding Wikipedia: I don’t see the point of an online encyclopedia that is written and edited by the masses without curation, doesn’t that simply lead to the intellectual equivalent of a gray goo.
If everyone knows that some pages might be vandalized or contain errors then how can one trust the information in any page? As a journalist, one always has to verify sources anyway, but why start with a source that might be wrong (deliberately in some cases). Do we really want to educate people to wade through a dozen pages of revisions every time they are looking for a fact? Open is not necessarily good just because advocates say it is…
Oh and isn’t there a paid model being built?
David Bradley // Feb 25, 2010 at 8:23 am
Jaron Lanier has more on the idea that web 2.0 and Open are broken – http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/21/my-bright-idea-jaron-lanier
Greg // Feb 25, 2010 at 6:12 pm
It’s too bad that the author’s research is published in a journal that is not open access – so few will be able to read it. Isn’t that both emblematic and ironic?
David Bradley // Feb 26, 2010 at 11:35 am
@Greg yes, unfortunately for whatever reason, the vast majority of academic journals use a subscription model, of course, anyone could request the paper from their library, or buy the paper…
David Bradley // Feb 26, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Incidentally, it looks like that publisher offers the author a choice about going OA (where the authors pay for publication).
Some facts that came to light re subscriptions/OA might be of interest. The average cost of publishing an article in a subscription-based journal with print and electronic editions was estimated by a RIN/CEPA 2008 study to be $3800 (excluding
non-cash peer review costs). [STM report: An overview of scientific and scholarly journals publishing International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, Sept 2009]).
David Bradley // Feb 26, 2010 at 3:28 pm
GBP4000 (about $7000) according to this report – http://www.rin.ac.uk/system/files/attachments/Activities-costs-flows-summary.pdf