[Web4lib] The Wikipedia Gotcha

[Roy Tennant]

On 2/21/07 4:45 AM, "Rob Styles" <Rob.Styles at talis.com> wrote:

> Let's also consider though how the two systems - journals and Wikipedia
> - handle failures in the integrity of the work.

Yes, by all means, lets. One aspect of this is knowing who is doing the
vetting. With a standard journal, there is a masthead which identifies the
editor, editorial board, and others involved in the production of (and
therefore are responsible for) the contents of the publication. Typically
this includes their organizational affiliation. They are, in a very real
sense, putting their reputations and the reputations of their institutions
on the line that what appears in the journal is worthy to appear there (note
that I did not stay "true" since anyone who knows the first thing about the
history of science knows that this is a slippery commodity).

Meanwhile, good luck with knowing who stands behind Wikipedia. Sure, you
have Jimmy Wales but from there things get foggy fast. There are well over a
thousand people with administrator rights on the site with privileges to
dump your contributions, lock the page, etc. Finding out who these people
are and what their credentials are is a hit or miss activity.

For example, administrator "1ne" has a number of deletions, user blocks,
contributions, and other edits to his or her credit, but there is no way to
find out who this person is. Administrator "23skidoo" is a self-proclaimed
"trivia fanatic". Administrator "BigDT" has a photo gallery, "general
thoughts", and college football news on his/her user page, but not much
else. Oh, and the page for administrator "C12H22O11" simply displays the
chemical diagram for sucrose. Nice.

So yes, Rob is correct that web-based information (whether Wikipedia
articles or peer-reviewed journal articles) can be corrected in a way that
print cannot. But there are many dimensions to integrity.
Roy