Anonymity of Wikipedia reviewers being questioned
Digital Life, The Straits Times, 20 March 2007, p5.
I came across this article in today's ST papers. Basically it reports that Wikipedia, which has been a "major player" in the current digital revolution (the "share" culture), is now requiring contributors who claim special qualifications to produce them for verification. This is in light of the recent discovery that one of their high-ranking members/contributors (who was promoted to the position of arbitrator - tasked with the authority to overrule an edit made by another volunteer and/or block people who abuse the site) had lied that he was a professor of religion.
This will however not be required of all contributors as wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales maintains he's still an "anti-credentialist" and further believes that anonymity is neccesary to place attention on the substance of what people have written rather than on who they are.
I suppose that being in very much a "rights" culture, the majority of us would value our privacy very highly. But perhaps, we need to realise that these are not absolute rights, and further recognise that anonymity on the Internet has proven to be the root cause of countless problems - used by paedophiles and rapist to single out and lure their victims.
Of course, compared to those instances, wikipedia's current problems seem rather trivial, but it is still no doubt quite scary. Personally, I find myself using wikipedia as one of the first "port of calls" when searching for information online, albeit its for relatively unimportant stuff (no I do not do any legal research on wikipedia). Although, one may argue that I should be smarter than to assume that everything on wikipedia is truthful, you have to realise that these things are easily identified with the benefit of hindsight. Don't/Wouldn't most people make that assumption too, especially when one considers that wikipedia (and other sites which use wikipedia information such as answers.com) ranks very highly on any and every search engine you use? Is it really so unexpected and unreasonable?
The question then is whether there is a need for contributed articles to be verified and/or whether there is a need for the contributors to identify themselves and their qualifications? I believe that there must be a balance between the 2. Certainly articles should be verified and inaccuracies corrected. Perhaps, to this end, wikipedia could engage a panel of advisors (people qualified or regarded as experts in the various fields). I don't know they currently have such an arrangement in existence - but if they don't, I think it would definitely be a step in th right direction. Furthermore, I agree that it is reasonable to expect those who claim "special" knowledge, expertise or qualifications to make them available for verification.
Digital Life, The Straits Times, 20 March 2007, p5.
I came across this article in today's ST papers. Basically it reports that Wikipedia, which has been a "major player" in the current digital revolution (the "share" culture), is now requiring contributors who claim special qualifications to produce them for verification. This is in light of the recent discovery that one of their high-ranking members/contributors (who was promoted to the position of arbitrator - tasked with the authority to overrule an edit made by another volunteer and/or block people who abuse the site) had lied that he was a professor of religion.
This will however not be required of all contributors as wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales maintains he's still an "anti-credentialist" and further believes that anonymity is neccesary to place attention on the substance of what people have written rather than on who they are.
I suppose that being in very much a "rights" culture, the majority of us would value our privacy very highly. But perhaps, we need to realise that these are not absolute rights, and further recognise that anonymity on the Internet has proven to be the root cause of countless problems - used by paedophiles and rapist to single out and lure their victims.
Of course, compared to those instances, wikipedia's current problems seem rather trivial, but it is still no doubt quite scary. Personally, I find myself using wikipedia as one of the first "port of calls" when searching for information online, albeit its for relatively unimportant stuff (no I do not do any legal research on wikipedia). Although, one may argue that I should be smarter than to assume that everything on wikipedia is truthful, you have to realise that these things are easily identified with the benefit of hindsight. Don't/Wouldn't most people make that assumption too, especially when one considers that wikipedia (and other sites which use wikipedia information such as answers.com) ranks very highly on any and every search engine you use? Is it really so unexpected and unreasonable?
The question then is whether there is a need for contributed articles to be verified and/or whether there is a need for the contributors to identify themselves and their qualifications? I believe that there must be a balance between the 2. Certainly articles should be verified and inaccuracies corrected. Perhaps, to this end, wikipedia could engage a panel of advisors (people qualified or regarded as experts in the various fields). I don't know they currently have such an arrangement in existence - but if they don't, I think it would definitely be a step in th right direction. Furthermore, I agree that it is reasonable to expect those who claim "special" knowledge, expertise or qualifications to make them available for verification.
posted by Clem | 9:14 AM
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