I often blog about Wikipedia, but I have recently started to contribute to Wikinews. One thing that immediately struck me was that Wikinews’ community was much warmer than Wikipedia’s, but naturally it is much smaller.

As communities grow larger, generally more disputes arise. As more disputes arise, ways in which to resolve them must develop.

With thousands of active (and highly vocal) editors, Wikipedia finds itself with a plethora of arguments.

Wikipedia’s dispute resolution process can be described as notoriously bureaucratic. There’s requests for comments, third opinions, a mediation cabal, a mediation committee and an arbitration committee. Complex, don’t you think? The arbitration committee is the highest source of authority on Wikipedia (bar Jimbo Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation Board, who barely ever give an opinion). They are currently dealing with 14 cases I believe, and remember these are only the most severe/important disputes on the entire encyclopedia.

Wikinews, a community with only 50 admins, also has an Arbitration Committee with a similar role. They, however, have only fully dealt with 2 cases since 2006. In fact, the last case they had to decide whether or not they would take on was back in 2008, when they made a proposal to abolish the committee. One editor described it as ‘nothing but bureaucracy… with exactly zero point’, as there’s so few disputes.

So, bigger communities argue more. Smaller communities like Wikinews seem to have no major feuds inside them and all of their users are working towards a common goal, whilst in Wikipedia I feel that different editors want different things out of the project.

Working in a small community is much more rewarding than working in a large community with a lot of in-fighting. Things are also done quicker; I know Wikipedia can take several years to tidy up articles whilst on Wikinews, they’re fixed in hours.

I am a big fan of Wikipedia and for some reason, I chuckle everytime I read the media report about it. The old media appear to often have a negative bias towards the Internet, seeing it as a threat and a corrupter of morals. However, coverage of Wikipedia is always particularly negative.

Amazingly, The Observer deemed it newsworthy to report that Wikipedia had been edited to show Robert Kilroy-Silk (a controversial British MEP) was a member of the Monster Raving Loony Party. Whilst libel is definitely an issue and is wrong, most instances of blatant vandalism like this are fixed in minutes, if not seconds! That, though, doesn’t make a captivating headline or read!

Reporting on Wikipedia’s inaccuracies, libel and vandalism is old news. By now, the public should have realised that ‘WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY’ (to quote their disclaimer). It’s perfectly easy for any journalist to find lies or vandalism on Wikipedia articles through purely clicking on the ‘history’ link on the article and seeing which edits have been reverted.

I found everything from local newspapers to major national news stories criticising Wikipedia (or information within it).

I hope the media begin to move away from blaming Wikipedia and begin to blame the editors who make the misleading edits. People, children and adults, still find it amusing to vandalise articles and it seems to even be considered acceptable amongst the populace.

The beauty of the whole matter is that despite the fact the media criticise Wikipedia’s reliability, they use it for quick research and occasionally even quote it as some sort of definitive resource!

Whilst I’m sure 100s of other blogs have covered this before, something I feel invaluable are Wikipedia user scripts. These aren’t Greasemonkey scripts, but rather changes you make at the Wikipedia end. User scripts allow things ranging from previews of links, provide rich text editors to changing the links of ISBN numbers to your preferred site.

Once you have a Wikipedia account, you can install some pre-chosen user scripts by logging in and going to your ‘my preferences’ page and then clicking ‘Gadgets’ and selecting the ones you want.

An alternative way to install scripts, or scripts which aren’t supported by the automatic installer, is by typing in Special:MyPage/monobook.js in the search box and clicking ‘go’. On this page, go to edit and in a separate window/tab go to the list of scripts at Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts. On this page, choose the scripts you want and follow the installation instructions. To see the scripts, you might need to do a hard refresh by holding shift + refresh in Firefox or control + F5 in IE and/or purging the Wikipedia cache.

Some user scripts are specialised for Wikipedia power editors, but others like Navigation Popups are useful to pretty much everyone and once you’ve installed it, Wikipedia won’t seem right without them!

If you’re not using the Monobook skin, firstly you’re mad and secondly you’ll have to use the .js pages listed at this page as opposed to monobook.js.

The Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation responsible for Wikipedia, are currently holding elections for their Board of Trustees.

Personally, I dislike the Wikimedia Foundation in many ways because I find it overly bureaucratic by furtherly complicating Wikipedia/Wikimedia’s structure, they don’t much (not taking an active role) and quite possibly corrupt (see the Jimbo Wales, our “benevolent dictator for life”, controversies). It’s still arguable that there’s a need for a board, to defend Wikimedia against legal threats and see the administration of donations.

The Wikimedia Community can vote one member to the board for a one year term and this is the time of year we vote. Unless you’re a somewhat active user of a Wikimedia project (such as Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons or Wiktionary), you probably won’t be able to vote as you need 600 edits on one wiki prior to 1 March 2008 and 50 edits this year on that wiki before 29 May.

This year, there are 15 candidates and Wikimedia are employing preference-based voting using the Schulze method. I have to admit I don’t know any of the candidates, but they generally live in a different wikiworld to users like me!

Many of these candidates are present and active on multiple wikis, which improves their ‘chances’ as they’ll get votes from more and it shows they can communicate across wikis. Some Wikimedians seem to want Wikimedia to be more commercial whilst others seem to want the role of the board reduce.

And do excuse the very boring, very specialist post!

Wikipedia is often criticised by the media and even some bloggers who believe that it is unreliable, anarchic and mysterious. Sadly these opinions are often assumptions originating from a lack of research of the ‘inner workings’ of the Wikipedia.

The odds are that the vast majority of people visiting the Wikipedia will stick inside what Wikipedians call the image and main namespace (a namespace specifies what type of page something is, for example pages with the prefix Template: are templates, Category: are categories etc). An important namespace which outsiders often don’t see is the Wikipedia: one where everything ranging from our core policies (such as a neutral point of view) to deletion debates exist!

I was indeed surprised to see a 9rules’ notes topic titled Did You Know Wikipedians Have Public Trials? because of the general surprise my9r members seemed to have; it would appear most didn’t seem to realise Wikipedians had an advanced dispute resolution process. It is worth noting that Wikipedians would object to anything on it being a ‘trial’ (in a legal sense) due to the status of WikiLawyering.

The Wikipedia isn’t exactly an anarchy. True, some vandalism (as well as potentially libelous material) seeps through the dozens of editors monitoring the latest changes but it’s extremely rare for a piece of vandalism – especially blatant pieces – to remain on a page for any lengthy period of time.

The vast majority of Wikipedia critics don’t realise that users who vandalise or add false information to pages are prevented from doing the same in the future. They will be given between 1 and 4 warnings and if they continue they will be blocked from editing. Anonymous users are rarely given indefinite blocks because it’s deemed unfair to the ‘well-behaving’ users of that IP address but a temporary one (a typical length is 48 hours) might be used. If an IP which has been blocked in the past chooses to edit after their blocks expires their edits will be ‘flagged’ as being made by a black or grey listed user. Normally user accounts are indefinitely blocked if they vandalise.

Another concerning misconception I’ve picked up is that when you discuss the Wikipedia with someone the only response they seem to be able to give is a list of pages they’ve vandalised! I’ve had people telling me that Wikipedian administrators are miserable for (semi-)protecting the Osama bin Laden article! They seem to think that the Wikipedia is their playground but still they choose to rely upon it when requiring quick research! Instead of editors reverting juvenile edits, they could potentially be bringing many more of the Wikipedia’s 2,000,000 articles to a featured standard than the current 0.08%!

One idea certain groups have which could help create a high-standard, free encyclopaedia is that it should only be administered by the degree-holding middle-aged (see Citizendium). In a way this is a good idea but I doubt many trainspotters – for example – hold a degree in trainspotting yet they still manage to produce high quality Wikipedian articles on trains and I don’t believe an academic background is essential to being able to do such things as block vandals and delete pages! Citizendium also shows a much slower rate of growth having only 2600 articles over a 10 month period as opposed to Wikipedia’s 10,000 in its first 10 months.

Many educational establishments prohibit their students from visiting the Wikipedia as they find the content unreliable. Jimbo Wales, the Wikipedia’s founder, even admits that the Wikipedia should never be used as a primary source. My opinion is that these establishments should tell their students to verify the content in articles before using it instead of banning the whole Wikipedia. Even if you dislike the Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia, I doubt you could dislike it as a resource to find sources relating to specific topics!

So to summarise here are some popular misconceptions and my rebuttal

I vandalised the Wikipedia. That’s why you let me edit it, right?

Umm nope. We could be bettering the site which I’m fairly sure you frequently use than cleaning up the mess you make. Would you graffiti your local shops?

It’s free, so it can’t be any good

It’s true that the editors (with an odd exception) don’t get paid a penny for their edits to the Wikipedia. It’s a stark contrast from the professional editors at the Encyclopaedia Britannica who get paid but fail to churn out a quantity of articles which even compare to the Wikipedia.

If you really think the Wikipedia isn’t any good, you obviously haven’t looked at it in any detail whatsoever. Lots of people volunteer to do lots of things and produce great work (and that’s not limited to the Wikipedia or Internet )

The Wikipedia isn’t a reliable source

You should treat information on the Wikipedia how you would towards any source; you should verify claims made and assess any potential bias (not that the Wikipedia attempts to have any of that!).

The Wikipedia demands that all edits are verifiable by a reliable source. Naturally, some unsourced articles slip through but if you edit it and add {{unsourced}} to the top of the article, editors will eventually attempt to source it. Even better, you could add sources which confirm the content yourself!

If editors continuously fail to source claims they make, it’s possible they’ll be blocked.

The Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia which allows me to create an article on my gran!

Unless your grandmother is Goldie Hawn, HM Queen Elizabeth II or someone else notable, we will quite quickly delete the article you make. Much like recent changes, editors also patrol the newest pages. See the Wikipedian policy on notability before you create a page.

Wikipedia editors are mainly teenagers who war with each other

It’s true that a large proportion of Wikipedians are teenagers and it’s true that a few members – teenagers and adults – often enter disputes over policies or articles. If an argument starts to include personal attacks, the parties making the attacks will be blocked. Generally, if an argument continually breaches Wikipedia rules they will be dragged through the dispute resolution process (sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not). The Wikipedia has both arbitrators, mediators and formerly it used to have a member advocacy association.

You can use the term editor and administrator synonymously.

False. I often hear people moaning about admins reverting their edits but on inspection they are just editors. Most editors have the same powers (there are a few differences when it comes down to account age etc) and in order to become an administrator (with the power to block and delete) you must go through a process where other editors’ opinions are gathered so consensus can be reached.

If you have any questions about the Wikipedia I can try to answer them (this wouldn’t be an official Wikimedia Foundation response, though ) just comment. If you have questions which require an official response email the OTRS at info-en-o (at) wikimedia.org for English language queries.

Tags: wikipedia, wikimedia, wiki