[Web4lib] Problems with Wikipedia

[Richard Wiggins]

My concern with Wikipedia is not accuracy of articles on popular subjects,
but rather on obscure ones.  Michigan State University is celebrating 50
years of digital computing.  Over the last few months I've done a lot of
research on the topic, and even had a live event panel discussion with the
four men who built the first computer, along with one of the first women
programmers and the founder of our Cyclotron.

In the course of this I ran across the Wikipedia entry for the computer,
known as MISTIC, or Michigan State Integral Computer.  MISTIC was a clone of
Illinois' computer, ILLIAC, which in turn was based on a design by the
legendary mathematician and scientist, Jon Von Neumann of Princeton.

Wikipedia had two statements that were just flat out, blatantly false:

-- That the Von Neumann machines were incompatible; they could not run each
others' software.

-- That MSU built a second computer, MSU DC, for MSU DIscrete Computer.
(There never was such a computer.)

In fact, the Von Neumann machines WERE software compatible, despite some
subtle variations.  MSU benefitted from a wealth of math and stats routines
that Illinois had developed.  I think this is a great story, open source
software before we needed such a term.

So I was mystified as to who got things so wrong, and why.  I was lazy and
didn't take the time to join the Wikipedia community and learn its
etiquette, so I edited the article.  I left all of the text intact, and
inserted a line at the bottom of the page, and posted a note that this
information is false, and would the original author please contact me.

To me, this was like leaving a note in a print book that by the way, the
content on this page is false, see me for details.

To the Wikipedia movement, I had taken a magic marker and defaced the
encyclopedia.

I started receiving a barrage of e-mails from around the world, lambasting
me for not following the rules.

What was interesting about the lambasting was that the authors were
belligerent and not at all interested in what the truth might be.  No one
tried to help me locate the original author.  I still haven't found him or
her. Some questioned whether I, just some random guy, had any better idea of
the truth than whoever wrote the article.

And THAT is the nub of the story.  You're just another bee in the hive.
This is an obscure story -- obscure enough that I might never have seen the
false statements, and they might have remained there, false, and mostly
unread.  Suppose that years later someone is writing a history of computing
and cites the piece.  Suppose all who know the truth are long since dead.

The "wisdom of the masses" notion does not extend into the long tail.

And to wrap up this long tale, anyone who's interested in the history of
computing can see the panel discussion with some pioneers, who during the
discussion puzzle over how such false information about their work 50
years ago got into this Wikipedia thing.

http://computing.msu.edu/50years/

/rich

PS --  Eventually a computer science class at MSU took on the project of
correcting errors in the article the "right" way.


On 1/5/07, Steven Jeffery <steven at iblist.com> wrote:
>
> Actually, this is somewhat incorrect. While many times larger than an
> encyclopedia, Wikipedia does not plan to cover every topic. There is a
> specific policy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:N) covering what will
> and will not be included in the database. In essence, they DO believe
> that some topics are more worthy of documentation than others, but
> that threshold is lower than that of an encyclopedia.
>
> Steven Jeffery
>
> Quoting Jesse Ephraim <JEphraim at ci.southlake.tx.us>:
>
> >> Now you are implicitly saying that *other*
> >> sources (printed books) *are* inherently reliable.
> >> But are they?
> >
> > That is why I have a problem with the concept of "authoritative"
> > sources.
> >
> >> Maybe the real benefit of Wikipedia is that it forces us to ask this
> > question.
> >
> > Precisely.
> >
> > Wikipedia has several strengths. New information is added quickly, and
> > articles go through a peer review process (of sorts).  It is a great
> > place to find other resources, and covers topics for which there ARE no
> > "authoritative" resources.  It also does away with the assumption that
> > some topics are more worthy of documentation than others, which is an
> > ongoing problem (to my way of thinking) in the development of reference
> > works (especially encyclopedias).
> >
> > Jesse Ephraim
> >
> > Adult Services / Reference Librarian
> > Southlake Public Library
> > 1400 Main Street, Suite 130
> > Southlake, TX  76092
> > (817) 748-8247
> > jephraim at ci.southlake.tx.us
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Web4lib mailing list
> > Web4lib at webjunction.org
> > http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
> >
>
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