[OWW-SC] NYTimes on Wikipedia and open source

[Sean Aidan Clarke]

Memorable lines:
* "If someone really wants to write 'George Bush is a poopy head,'you've got to wait four days," he said.
* "It makes me grind my teeth to hear Wikipedia compared to open source."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/business/yourmoney/12digi.htmlThe New York Times
March 12, 2006Digital DomainAnonymous Source Is Not the Same as Open SourceBy RANDALL STROSS
WIKIPEDIA, the free online encyclopedia, currently serves up thefollowing: Five billion pages a month. More than 120 languages. Inexcess of one million English-language articles. And a single naggingepistemological question: Can an article be judged as credible withoutknowing its author?
Wikipedia says yes, but I am unconvinced.
Dispensing with experts, the Wikipedians invite anyone to pitch in,writing an article or editing someone else's. No expertise isrequired, nor even a name. Sound inviting? You can start immediately.The system rests upon the belief that a collectivity of unknown butenthusiastic individuals, by dint of sheer mass rather than possessionof conventional credentials, can serve in the supervisory role ofeditor. Anyone with an interest in a topic can root out inaccuraciesand add new material.
At first glance, this sounds straightforward. But disagreements ariseall the time about what is a problematic passage or anencyclopedia-worthy topic, or even whether a putative correctionimproves or detracts from the original version.
The egalitarian nature of a system that accords equal votes toeveryone in the "community" — middle-school student and Nobel laureatealike — has difficulty resolving intellectual disagreements.
Wikipedia's reputation and internal editorial process would benefit byhaving a single authority vouch for the quality of a given article. Inthe jargon of library and information science, lay readers rely upon"secondary epistemic criteria," clues to the credibility ofinformation when they do not have the expertise to judge the content.
Once upon a time, Encyclopaedia Britannica recruited Einstein, Freud,Curie, Mencken and even Houdini as contributors. The names helped theencyclopedia bolster its credibility. Wikipedia, by contrast, providesalmost no clues for the typical article by which reliability can beappraised. A list of edits provides only screen names or, in the caseof the anonymous editors, numerical Internet Protocol addresses.Wasn't yesterday's practice of attaching "Albert Einstein" to anarticle on "Space-Time" a bit more helpful than today's"71.240.205.101"?
What does Wikipedia's system offer in place of an expert authoritywilling to place his or her professional reputation on the line with asignature attached to an article?
When I asked Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, last week, hediscounted the importance of individual contributors to Britannica."When people trust an article in Britannica," he said, "it's not whowrote it, it's the process." There, a few editors review a piece andthen editing ceases. By contrast, Wikipedia is built with unendingscrutiny and ceaseless editing.
He predicts that in the future, it will be Britannica's process thatwill seem strange: "People will say, 'This was written by one person?Then looked at by only two or three other people? How can I trust thatprocess?' "
The Wikipedian hive is capable of impressive feats. TheEnglish-language collection recently added its millionth article, forexample. It was about the Jordanhill railway station, in Glasgow. Theoriginal version, a few paragraphs, appeared to say all that a layreader would ever wish to know about it. But the hive descended and ina week, more than 640 edits were logged.
If every topic could be addressed like this, without recourse tospecialized learning — and without the heated disputes called flamewars — the anonymous hive could be trusted to produce work of highquality. But the Jordanhill station is an exception.
Biographical entries, for example, are often accompanied bycontroversy. Several recent events have shown how anyone can tamperwith someone else's entry. Congressional staff members have beenunmasked burnishing articles about their employers and vandalizingthose of political rivals. (Sample addition: "He likes to beat hiswife and children.")
Mr. Wales himself ignored the encyclopedia's guidelines about "DealingWith Articles About Yourself" and altered his own Wikipedia biography;when other editors undid them, he reapplied his changes. Theincidents, even if few in number, do not help Wikipedia establish thelegitimacy of a process that is reluctant to say no to anyone.
It should be noted that Mr. Wales is a full-time volunteer, and thatneither he nor the thousands of fellow volunteer editors has apecuniary interest in this nonprofit project. He also deservesaccolades for keeping Wikipedia operating without the intrusion ofadvertising, at least so far.
Most winningly, he has overseen a system that is gleefully candid inits public self-examination. If you're seeking a well-organized listof criticisms of Wikipedia, you won't find a better place thanWikipedia's coverage of itself. Wikipedia also provides a taxonomy ofno fewer than 23 different forms of vandalism that strike it.
It is easy to forget how quickly Wikipedia has grown; it began only in2001. With the passage of a little more time, Mr. Wales and hisassociates may come around to the idea that identifying one person asa given article's supervising editor would enhance the encyclopedia'sreputation.
Mr. Wales has already responded to recent negative articles aboutvandalism at the site with announcements of modest reforms. Anonymousvisitors are no longer permitted to create pages, though they stillmay edit existing ones.
To curb what Mr. Wales calls "drive-by pranks" that are concentratedon particular articles, he has instituted a policy of"semi-protection." In these cases, a user must have registered atleast four days before being permitted to make changes to theprotected article. "If someone really wants to write 'George Bush is apoopy head,' you've got to wait four days," he said.
When asked what problems on the site he viewed as most pressing, Mr.Wales said he was concerned with passing along the Wikipedian cultureto newcomers. He sounded wistful when he spoke of the days not so longago when he could visit an article that was the subject of a flame warand would know at least some participants — and whether they couldresolve the dispute tactfully.
As the project has grown, he has found that he no longer necessarilyknows anyone in a group. When a dispute flared recently over anarticle related to a new dog breed, he looked at the discussion andasked himself in frustration, "Who are these people?"
Isn't this precisely the question all users are bound to ask about contributors?
By wide agreement, the print encyclopedia in the English world reachedits apogee in 1911, with the completion of Encyclopaedia Britannica's11th edition. (For the fullest tribute, turn to Wikipedia.) But theWikipedia experiment need not be pushed back in time toward thatmodel. It need only be pushed forward, so it can catch up to otherswith more experience in online collaboration: the open-source softwaremovement.
Wikipedia and open-source projects like Linux are similarlynoncommercial, intellectual enterprises, mobilizing volunteers whowill probably never meet one another in person. But even thoughWikipedians like to position their project under the open-sourceumbrella, the differences are wide.
Jeff Bates, a vice president of the Open Source Technology Group whooversees SourceForge.net, the host of more than 80,000 activeopen-source projects, said, "It makes me grind my teeth to hearWikipedia compared to open source." In every open-source project, hesaid, there is "a benevolent dictator" who ultimately takesresponsibility, even though the code is contributed by many. Goodstuff results only if "someone puts their name on it."
WIKIPEDIA has good stuff, too. These have been designated "featuredarticles." But it will be a long while before allone-million-and-counting entries have been carefully double-checkedand buffed to a high shine. Only 923 have been granted "featured"status, and the consensus-building process is presently capable ofadding only about one a day.
Mr. Wales is not happy with this pace and seems open to looking againat the open-source software model for ideas. Software development thatrelies on scattered volunteers is a two-step process: first, a liberalpolicy encourages the contributions of many, then a restrictive policyfollows to stabilize the code in preparation for release. Wikipedia,he said, has "half the model."
There's no question that Wikipedia volunteers can address many moretopics than the lumbering, for-profit incumbents like Britannica andWorld Book, and can update entries swiftly. Still, anonymity blockscredibility. One thing that Wikipedians have exactly right is that thecurrent form of the encyclopedia is a beta test. The quality levelthat would permit speaking of Version 1.0 is still in the future.
Randall Stross is a historian and author based in Silicon Valley.E-mail: ddomain at nytimes.com.
    * Copyright 2006The New York Times Company