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wiKiPedia: a GeNuiNe
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pointed experts. Contributors research and write up subjects, or
produce articles on subjects that they are familiar with.
This is authorship, but what of editorship? For if there is
one thing a
Guide
or an encyclopedia must have, it is authority.
It must be vetted by trustworthy, neutral parties, who present
something that is either The Truth or simply A Truth, but truth
nevertheless.
The Wikipedia has its skeptics. Al Fasoldt, a writer for the
Syracuse Post-Standard,
apologized to his readers for having rec-
ommended that they consult Wikipedia. A reader of his, a librar-
ian, wrote in and told him that his recommendation had been
irresponsible, for Wikipedia articles are often defaced, or worse
still, rewritten with incorrect information. When another jour-
nalist from the Techdirt website wrote to Fasoldt to correct this
impression, Fasoldt responded with an increasingly patronizing
and hysterical series of messages in which he described Wikipe-
dia as “outrageous,” “repugnant,” and “dangerous,” insulting the
Techdirt writer and storming off in a huff. [fn: see http://tech-
dirt.com/articles/20040827/0132238_F.shtml for more]
Spurred on by this exchange, many of Wikipedia’s support-
ers decided to empirically investigate the accuracy and resilience
of the system. Alex Halavais made changes to thirteen different
pages, ranging from obvious to subtle. Every single change was
found and corrected within hours. [fn: see http://alex.halavais.
net/news/index.php?p=794 for more] Then legendary Princeton
engineer Ed Felten ran side-by-side comparisons of Wikipedia en-
tries on areas in which he had deep expertise with their counter-
parts in the current electronic edition of the
Encyclopedia Britan-
nica.
His conclusion? “Wikipedia’s advantage is in having more,
longer, and more current entries. If it weren’t for the Microsoft-
case entry, Wikipedia would have been the winner hands down.
Britannica’
s advantage is in having lower variance in the quality
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