Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Nov 27, 2005, 6:40pm

The Faith-Based Encyclopedia
By Robert McHenry
Published 11/15/2004

Away back about 1993, '94 -- in retrospect, the last of the halcyon days when a relatively small and rather homogeneous group of people around the globe could reasonably consider themselves as constituting the Internet community and could take a strongly proprietary view of its future development -- back then, I am recalling, a cluster of enthusiasts coalesced in an online discussion group devoted to the creation of an encyclopedia on the Internet, an Interpedia, as they called it.

[. . .]

continued at -
http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Nov 27, 2005, 6:52pm

A rebuttal (rather weak, IMO) to McHenry's article -


Quote:
The FUD-based Encyclopedia
Dismantling fear, uncertainty, and doubt, aimed at Wikipedia and other free knowledge resources

By Aaron Krowne

In this article, I respond to Robert McHenry's anti-Wikipedia piece entitled "The Faith-Based Encyclopedia." I argue that McHenry’s points are contradictory and incoherent and that his rhetoric is selective, dishonest and misleading. I also consider McHenry’s points in the context of all Commons-Based Peer Production (CBPP), showing how they are part of a Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) campaign against CBPP. Further, I introduce some principles, which will help to explain why and how CBPP projects can succeed, and I discuss alternative ways they may be organized, which will address certain concerns.




Continued at http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_i...d_encyclopedia/

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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Nov 27, 2005, 6:57pm

McHenry's article is discussed in this blog entry -
http://www.kottke.org/remainder/04/11/6948.html

Most of the commentators seem to have missed the finer points of the article.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by TBSDY on Nov 30, 2005, 9:18am

Actually, have you bothered to read the main article he criticises? Evidently not, because it has been fixed now.

Perhaps an alternative view might do wonders: see http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_i...d_encyclopedia/, Aaron Krowne's article.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by TBSDY on Nov 30, 2005, 9:25am


Nov 30, 2005, 9:18am, TBSDY wrote:Actually, have you bothered to read the main article he criticises? Evidently not, because it has been fixed now.

Perhaps an alternative view might do wonders: see http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_i...d_encyclopedia/, Aaron Krowne's article.



Oops! Missed your previous post. Exactly how is it a weak post? You don't say.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Dec 1, 2005, 4:19am


Nov 30, 2005, 9:18am, TBSDY wrote:. . . because it has been fixed now.



It's easy to go and fix an article once a critic like McHenry shines the spotlight on them. The specific article he used was just an example.

The real issues McHenry raises are:

1. For how long will such an article remain "fixed?"

2. How many other articles that need "fixing" are there on Wikipedia?

Those are problems inherent to the way Wikipedia is structured. There ain't no simple cure for them.


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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Dec 1, 2005, 4:39am


Nov 30, 2005, 9:25am, TBSDY wrote:[quote author=TBSDY board=general thread=1133134828 post=1133360281]Exactly how is it a weak post? You don't say.



I'll read it over again and list the problems I have with it. I've had my hands full lately so it may take a few days.

Generally, it seemed like the author was disingenuously ignoring the underlying points McHenry was making.

It's also interesting to note that McHenry's tone was fairly reserved, and his criticisms were fairly general, whereas the title of the rebuttal itself is an Ad hominem (and it doesn't get any better as you start reading it).
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by TBSDY on Dec 2, 2005, 7:33am

"It's also interesting to note that McHenry's tone was fairly reserved, and his criticisms were fairly general, whereas the title of the rebuttal itself is an Ad hominem (and it doesn't get any better as you start reading it)."

Um... did we read the same article? McHenry compared Wikipedia to a toilet... or perhaps you didn't read that bit?

Exactly how is that "reserved"?
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Dec 2, 2005, 9:54am


Dec 2, 2005, 7:33am, TBSDY wrote:Um... did we read the same article? McHenry compared Wikipedia to a toilet... or perhaps you didn't read that bit?

Exactly how is that "reserved"?



I thought it was a good analogy myself.

McHenry was making some fairly general (and obvious, and truthful, and IMO mild) observations about Wikipedia. Is that a personal attack?

There was nothing in McHenry's article that any reasonable person wouldn't agree with. If Wikipedians are as dedicated to creating a quality encyclopedia as they profess to be, you'd think they would at least concede some of McHenry's points and use those as the basis to make improvements. Instead, the typical response is personal attacks and innuendo.

If Wikipedia is truly an encyclopedia, this type of response is completely irrational. If, on the other hand, Wikipedia is a "community" (or as some might call it, a cult), then this sort of behavior makes perfect sense.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by eloquence on Dec 4, 2005, 7:29pm

There's nothing wrong with improving Wikipedia. There's nothing wrong with improving Britannica, either. Have you ever actually read Britannica? Its topical selection frequently strikes me as completely arbitrary. For example, it has nothing on the Milgram Experiment or Stanley Milgram himself, where Wikipedia has a detailed, well-illustrated, well-sourced article about the experiment (including a spoken version!) and a 5800 character bio about Milgram himself. As for bias and errors, take the circumcision article in Britannica, which is heavily biased in favor of cutting newborns for "hygienic" reasons, many of which have long been debunked as myths (it has been updated recently, with the bias being consistently maintained). The key fact that routine circumcision originated as a means to prevent masturbation is not even mentioned in the two paragraph article. The corresponding Wikipedia piece is incredibly detailed. It's frequently edit warred over, but even then any given version is better than the rubbish in Britannica.

The false sense of security McHencry talks about is far greater with Britannica, with its enormous prestige in spite of its frequent and egregious errors and bias. There is no way for me to find out how an article was written, what internal debates there were, what decisions were made. There's no way for me to influence those decisions. Consequently, the whole thing is marketed as "an encyclopedia you can trust". This notion of the "trustworthy source" is a very dangerous one. In contrast, Wikipedia almost advertises itself as "the encyclopedia you shouldn't trust" - just take a look at its disclaimer page!

And why should I trust Britannica, when it has such glaring holes in critical areas of coverage? Try to find anything about the activities of secret services in Britannica. Where Wikipedia has a well-sourced and detailed article about the declassified CIA mind control program on human subjects, MKULTRA, Britannica does not mention it with a single word. Is the fact that the US government experimented on unwilling human subjects with drugs and torture not worth mentioning? Is it not encyclopedic? Take FBI operations against "dissidents" - EB mentions the COINTELPRO program briefly in "History of the FBI" article. Wikipedia has a detailed page that is linked from over 100 other pages. Was this operation not "encyclopedic" enough for Britannica? When McHenry was editor, was he simply too ignorant to know - or did he actively prevent editors from working on these topics?

At this point, it seems almost laughable to even hold up Britannica to compare it against Wikipedia. Frankly, its meager and often ridiculously biased and flat out wrong articles do not compare to the breadth and depth that can be found in Wikipedia. What is true is that Wikipedia's quality throughout is less consistent (sometimes much higher, sometimes much lower), and that the errors you will find are often more obvious. That can be expected from a massively collaborative project. The true challenge is to more systematically review the articles in Wikipedia and distinguish them based on their quality. Britannica could very much benefit from a similar effort, and from better public feedback mechanisms. The main difference: Wikipedia's code is open, and people will love you if you work on better review mechanisms. Or put your money where your mouth is and pay someone to do it.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by tbsdy on Dec 5, 2005, 2:46am


Dec 2, 2005, 9:54am, Igor Alexander wrote:
Dec 2, 2005, 7:33am, TBSDY wrote:Um... did we read the same article? McHenry compared Wikipedia to a toilet... or perhaps you didn't read that bit?

Exactly how is that "reserved"?



I thought it was a good analogy myself.

McHenry was making some fairly general (and obvious, and truthful, and IMO mild) observations about Wikipedia. Is that a personal attack?

There was nothing in McHenry's article that any reasonable person wouldn't agree with. If Wikipedians are as dedicated to creating a quality encyclopedia as they profess to be, you'd think they would at least concede some of McHenry's points and use those as the basis to make improvements. Instead, the typical response is personal attacks and innuendo.

If Wikipedia is truly an encyclopedia, this type of response is completely irrational. If, on the other hand, Wikipedia is a "community" (or as some might call it, a cult), then this sort of behavior makes perfect sense.



Then we must agree to disagree. He used most immoderate language - comparing the mechanism for someone's best work to a place people defecate in, all because you don't like the project because you believe it to be unreliable is quite unreasonable. There are other ways to express the same sentiment.

TBSDY
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Dec 5, 2005, 10:10am


Dec 4, 2005, 7:29pm, eloquence wrote:There's nothing wrong with improving Wikipedia. There's nothing wrong with improving Britannica, either. Have you ever actually read Britannica? Its topical selection frequently strikes me as completely arbitrary. For example, it has nothing on the Milgram Experiment or Stanley Milgram himself, where Wikipedia has a detailed, well-illustrated, well-sourced article about the experiment (including a spoken version!) and a 5800 character bio about Milgram himself. As for bias and errors, take the circumcision article in Britannica, which is heavily biased in favor of cutting newborns for "hygienic" reasons, many of which have long been debunked as myths (it has been updated recently, with the bias being consistently maintained). The key fact that routine circumcision originated as a means to prevent masturbation is not even mentioned in the two paragraph article. The corresponding Wikipedia piece is incredibly detailed. It's frequently edit warred over, but even then any given version is better than the rubbish in Britannica.

The false sense of security McHencry talks about is far greater with Britannica, with its enormous prestige in spite of its frequent and egregious errors and bias. There is no way for me to find out how an article was written, what internal debates there were, what decisions were made. There's no way for me to influence those decisions. Consequently, the whole thing is marketed as "an encyclopedia you can trust". This notion of the "trustworthy source" is a very dangerous one. In contrast, Wikipedia almost advertises itself as "the encyclopedia you shouldn't trust" - just take a look at its disclaimer page!

And why should I trust Britannica, when it has such glaring holes in critical areas of coverage? Try to find anything about the activities of secret services in Britannica. Where Wikipedia has a well-sourced and detailed article about the declassified CIA mind control program on human subjects, MKULTRA, Britannica does not mention it with a single word. Is the fact that the US government experimented on unwilling human subjects with drugs and torture not worth mentioning? Is it not encyclopedic? Take FBI operations against "dissidents" - EB mentions the COINTELPRO program briefly in "History of the FBI" article. Wikipedia has a detailed page that is linked from over 100 other pages. Was this operation not "encyclopedic" enough for Britannica? When McHenry was editor, was he simply too ignorant to know - or did he actively prevent editors from working on these topics?

At this point, it seems almost laughable to even hold up Britannica to compare it against Wikipedia. Frankly, its meager and often ridiculously biased and flat out wrong articles do not compare to the breadth and depth that can be found in Wikipedia. What is true is that Wikipedia's quality throughout is less consistent (sometimes much higher, sometimes much lower), and that the errors you will find are often more obvious. That can be expected from a massively collaborative project. The true challenge is to more systematically review the articles in Wikipedia and distinguish them based on their quality. Britannica could very much benefit from a similar effort, and from better public feedback mechanisms. The main difference: Wikipedia's code is open, and people will love you if you work on better review mechanisms. Or put your money where your mouth is and pay someone to do it.



There you people go again. You're not dealing with the issues McHenry brought up in his article. I can only assume you're attacking Britannica instead of addressing the points he made because you simply have no rebuttal. His points are essentially correct.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Dec 5, 2005, 10:20am


Dec 5, 2005, 2:46am, tbsdy wrote:Then we must agree to disagree. He used most immoderate language - comparing the mechanism for someone's best work to a place people defecate in, all because you don't like the project because you believe it to be unreliable is quite unreasonable. There are other ways to express the same sentiment.



While I'm sure the bathroom analogy was no accident, I think you're reading too much into it. The point McHenry was making is that in a public washroom, you don't know who's been in before you or how clean they were. Britannica is presumably a bathroom as well, but one which is private, rather than public.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by eloquence on Dec 5, 2005, 10:45am

Hello Igor,

which part of "There's nothing wrong with improving Wikipedia" did you not understand? Everyone on Wikipedia strongly believes in increasing the reliability and usefulness of the content on the site by all means possible.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Dec 5, 2005, 11:33am


Dec 5, 2005, 10:45am, eloquence wrote:Hello Igor,

which part of "There's nothing wrong with improving Wikipedia" did you not understand? Everyone on Wikipedia strongly believes in increasing the reliability and usefulness of the content on the site by all means possible.



OK, so you prefaced a four paragraph long attack on Britannica with, "There's nothing wrong with improving Wikipedia." I guess that means it wasn't a four paragraph long attack on Britannica (?!).
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by eloquence on Dec 5, 2005, 3:22pm


Dec 5, 2005, 11:33am, Igor Alexander wrote:
OK, so you prefaced a four paragraph long attack on Britannica with, "There's nothing wrong with improving Wikipedia." I guess that means it wasn't a four paragraph long attack on Britannica (?!).



McHenry's argument is that the collaborative process cannot lead to reasonable articles. Since he was the editor of Britannica, it is fair to ask whether the non-collaborative process, the "expert-centric" one, can lead to better results. I think any objective observer will see fairly quickly that Britannica's reputation is more the result of good marketing and a long lack of competition than genuine text quality or comprehensiveness.

The problem with his polemic is, then, that he is not genuinely interested in a debate about how knowledge should be collected and created. He wants to "rip Wikipedia a new one", as this thread is titled. That is not a helpful way to begin the conversation.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Ted Wilkes on Dec 5, 2005, 5:00pm

What must be considered in the John Seigenthaler, is not just the fact that such a character asassination occurred on a website, but as reported on November 2 by CNN ( http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:w6T4AA...my+Wales,+cnn&h l=en ) and other media outlets, Jimmy Wales announced that the content from the Web site would soon be made available in print form and burned onto CDs and DVDs. What would have happened if Seigenthaler hadn't caught this? What about others who might have been similarly attacked or articles where the content is filled with fabrications? An article that can be edited is one thing, but should Wikipedia be distributing in permanent form (book/CD) something that has had no verification of any kind? What needs answering is why did Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales admit serious quality problems that were reported in The Register 2005-10-18 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/18/wi...quality_problem but then announce plans to print the Wikipedia content less than two weeks later?
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Dec 5, 2005, 5:51pm


Dec 5, 2005, 3:22pm, eloquence wrote:McHenry's argument is that the collaborative process cannot lead to reasonable articles. Since he was the editor of Britannica, it is fair to ask whether the non-collaborative process, the "expert-centric" one, can lead to better results. I think any objective observer will see fairly quickly that Britannica's reputation is more the result of good marketing and a long lack of competition than genuine text quality or comprehensiveness.



And is your opinion any more disinterested than McHenry's?


Dec 5, 2005, 3:22pm, eloquence wrote:The problem with his polemic is, then, that he is not genuinely interested in a debate about how knowledge should be collected and created.



That was never the issue. The article is about Wikipedia.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Dec 5, 2005, 5:53pm


Dec 5, 2005, 5:00pm, Ted Wilkes wrote:...but then announce plans to print the Wikipedia content less than two weeks later?



Has Jimbo actually announced plans for a print edition of Wikipedia?
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by stude62 on Dec 6, 2005, 12:08pm


Dec 5, 2005, 3:22pm, eloquence wrote:
Dec 5, 2005, 11:33am, Igor Alexander wrote:
OK, so you prefaced a four paragraph long attack on Britannica with, "There's nothing wrong with improving Wikipedia." I guess that means it wasn't a four paragraph long attack on Britannica (?!).



McHenry's argument is that the collaborative process cannot lead to reasonable articles. Since he was the editor of Britannica, it is fair to ask whether the non-collaborative process, the "expert-centric" one, can lead to better results. I think any objective observer will see fairly quickly that Britannica's reputation is more the result of good marketing and a long lack of competition than genuine text quality or comprehensiveness.

The problem with his polemic is, then, that he is not genuinely interested in a debate about how knowledge should be collected and created. He wants to "rip Wikipedia a new one", as this thread is titled. That is not a helpful way to begin the conversation.



Seems to me that some of the people on this site are blowing off a lot of steam, and thats a good thing. Will that help move the discussion further? Until Wikipedia says its open to suggestions and wants to start a dialogue on how it can better serve its contributors and its readers, there is no conversation.

So let folks let it out, then start the constructive stuff, but don't shame them/us in to bottleing it all up, that makes impossible to do anything positive.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Ignore me on Dec 6, 2005, 1:28pm

I'm not sure why people seem so intent on ripping into Wikipedia. Just because Wikipedia is well-read doesn't make it authoritative by any means. In case y'all have forgotten, major websites (including those like CNN) have made major screw-ups. All of these sites (including Wikipedia) have disclaimers stating they won't be held responsible for these screw-ups, yet people prefer to bash Wikipedia instead of CNN.

If you don't like the fact that anonymous editors are welcomed on Wikipedia and that they can add any crap they like, tough. Do note the fact that without anonymous editors, Wikipedia would not exist - its counterpart, Nupedia, that tried to be more restrictive on anons, failed horrendously.

Nobody (to the best of my recollection) has ever said Wikipedia should be trusted more or less than any other website. To me, Wikipedia is basically the web's collective intelligence (and we all know how "intelligent" that intelligence is) with some of the worst crap thrown out (and occasionally thrown in again) with a layer of encyclopedic wording slapped on top. This doesn't make it any more or less reliable than CNN.com or Joe's blog or Anne's cat page. People have no problem Googling for information and yet the way some describe Wikipedia, Wikipedia-ing would be like asking the devil how to get to Heaven.

If you're expecting fully trustworthy and reliable information on the internet, tough. Wikipedia's weaknesses are more apparent because they don't hide them. If we all could see what went on behind the scenes of CNN's premature obituaries scandal, we'd probably have trouble trusting CNN.com as well.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by clyde on Dec 6, 2005, 2:10pm

Notice how the expectation threshold gets lower each time:

... "Nobody (to the best of my recollection) has ever said Wikipedia should be trusted more or less than any other website " ....

Nobody suggests turning the average website into a book and sending it to Africa, either. Or maybe you overlooked the "-pedia" in the name? It's supposed to be an Encyclo- ...

You'll figure it out.


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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Ignore me on Dec 6, 2005, 2:22pm

Are you really so stupid as to think people won't painstakingly check the website before it's turned into hard copy form? If you haven't even bothered to read the relevant pages brainstorming on how to do this, you don't have the right to comment on it.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Ignore me on Dec 6, 2005, 2:30pm

Oh, and who ever set the bar high in the first place? Wikipedia was started with the goal to become the best encyclopedia it can possibly be. Nobody said that Wikipedia would ever reach that goal or even is anywhere near that goal yet. And even then, such a goal would be greatly constrained by circumstances, such as the fact that anyone can edit it. Honestly, what do you expect from a site anyone can edit?
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by lir on Dec 6, 2005, 4:50pm


Dec 6, 2005, 2:22pm, Ignore me wrote:Are you really so stupid as to think people won't painstakingly check the website before it's turned into hard copy form?



Why would anyone want to do that, what a lot of work -- itd be easier to start over from scratch!
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Ignore me on Dec 7, 2005, 3:47am

If you really think that, you have no clue how Wikipedia works. You look at an article like "Article 153 of the Constitution of Malaysia" or "Hey Jude" and tell me it'd be easier to rewrite them from scratch.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by JesseW on Dec 8, 2005, 9:51pm

Just to point this out. Did you get permission to reproduce the full text of McHenry's article? (Via, I assume: http://www.techcentralstation.com/reprintrequest.html ) If not, are you aware that this is a copyright violation? If you did get permision, why didn't you mention it? Wikipedia has a active procedure for fixing and removing copyright violations; it just appears amusing that the first thread on a board critical of Wikipedia is a copyright violation.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by laurels on Dec 9, 2005, 3:50am


Dec 5, 2005, 10:45am, eloquence wrote:Hello Igor,

which part of "There's nothing wrong with improving Wikipedia" did you not understand? Everyone on Wikipedia strongly believes in increasing the reliability and usefulness of the content on the site by all means possible.



This isn't true: Wikipedians believe in "fixing" the article to adhere to (reflect) their own views.

After posting my earlier comment on this site, I went to Wikipedia and looked at the threads I'd participated in. Perhaps I am biased in that my own experiences aren't typical (I doubt this), but two threads I'd spent a great deal of time researching are completely changed - to reflect only one viewpoint.

To make controversial topics non-controversial.

Funny - the primary value I saw in Wikipedia is its ability to reflect non-status-quo viewpoints. If facts were allowed to speak, we might get two sides to a story. Instead, Wikipedia proves it is no better than any mainstream media.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Dec 9, 2005, 7:59am


Dec 8, 2005, 9:51pm, JesseW wrote:Just to point this out. Did you get permission to reproduce the full text of McHenry's article? (Via, I assume: http://www.techcentralstation.com/reprintrequest.html ) If not, are you aware that this is a copyright violation? If you did get permision, why didn't you mention it? Wikipedia has a active procedure for fixing and removing copyright violations; it just appears amusing that the first thread on a board critical of Wikipedia is a copyright violation.



This is laughable. Procedure or no procedure, I have seen literally hundreds of copyright violations on Wikipedia. Yet you come here and try to rub my nose in one article, which I properly attributed and arguably falls under fair use, and claim to have the moral high ground? Go fuck yourself.


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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Dec 9, 2005, 8:44am


Dec 9, 2005, 7:59am, Igor Alexander wrote:
Dec 8, 2005, 9:51pm, JesseW wrote:Just to point this out. Did you get permission to reproduce the full text of McHenry's article? (Via, I assume: http://www.techcentralstation.com/reprintrequest.html ) If not, are you aware that this is a copyright violation? If you did get permision, why didn't you mention it? Wikipedia has a active procedure for fixing and removing copyright violations; it just appears amusing that the first thread on a board critical of Wikipedia is a copyright violation.



This is laughable. Procedure or no procedure, I have seen literally hundreds of copyright violations on Wikipedia. Yet you come here and try to rub my nose in one article, which I properly attributed and arguably falls under fair use, and claim to have the moral high ground? Go f**k yourself.





There. I've removed the potential copyright violation.

Let's see how many years it takes for Wikipedia to do the same.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Dec 9, 2005, 10:45am


Dec 9, 2005, 3:50am, laurels wrote:
This isn't true: Wikipedians believe in "fixing" the article to adhere to (reflect) their own views.

After posting my earlier comment on this site, I went to Wikipedia and looked at the threads I'd participated in. Perhaps I am biased in that my own experiences aren't typical (I doubt this), but two threads I'd spent a great deal of time researching are completely changed - to reflect only one viewpoint.

To make controversial topics non-controversial.

Funny - the primary value I saw in Wikipedia is its ability to reflect non-status-quo viewpoints. If facts were allowed to speak, we might get two sides to a story. Instead, Wikipedia proves it is no better than any mainstream media.



I feel the same way. I thought the Wikipedia had great potential as an "alternative" encyclopedia. The world doesn't need another Britannica, AFAIC. Why let anyone edit it if all you want is another Britannica? Why not follow a more hierarchical structure like Linux if that's what you want to create? I quickly learned that ours was a minority viewpoint over there. Most Wikipedians just seem to want to build another Britannica, even if it ends up being a second rate one.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by faethon on Jan 12, 2006, 8:15am


Quote:There you people go again. You're not dealing with the issues McHenry brought up in his article. I can only assume you're attacking Britannica instead of addressing the points he made because you simply have no rebuttal. His points are essentially correct.


Isn't McHenry's point that Wiki isn't as good as Brit (gold standard). By showing that Brit isn't really that good, wiki is no longer as comparatively bad. Just my point of view.

No one is saying that 'wiki doesn't have problems'.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by faethon on Jan 12, 2006, 8:18am


Dec 9, 2005, 7:59am, Igor Alexander wrote:
This is laughable. Procedure or no procedure, I have seen literally hundreds of copyright violations on Wikipedia. Yet you come here and try to rub my nose in one article, which I properly attributed and arguably falls under fair use, and claim to have the moral high ground? Go fuck yourself.



If you have seen 100, then showing me 5 copyright violations (in articles that have had it for a while) should be easy. I think you are exaggerating your claims too far.

Reproducing the whole article will very very rarely qualify as fair use.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Jan 14, 2006, 10:59pm


Jan 12, 2006, 8:18am, faethon wrote:
If you have seen 100, then showing me 5 copyright violations (in articles that have had it for a while) should be easy. I think you are exaggerating your claims too far.



I started a thread a while back asking people to submit any potential copyright violations they saw on Wikipedia. I don't remember if it ever amounted to much, but there might be some incidents listed there.

You want me to list 100 copyright violations on Wikipedia? Easy: I contend that the vast majority of the images on Wikipedia that are being used under "fair use" (i.e. without the copyright holder's permission) are in fact copyright violations.

Example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image%3aPink_try_this.jpg


Quote:This image is of a music album or single cover, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by either the publisher of the album or the artist(s) which produced the music or artwork in question. It is believed that the use of low-resolution images of album or single covers solely to illustrate the album or single in question on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. Any other uses of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement.



The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't sound very confident in its right to use these images (note the phrase "It is believed..."). There must be tens of thousands such images on the Wikipedia servers at present.
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Re: Britannica editor rips Wikipedia a new one!
Post by Igor Alexander on Jan 14, 2006, 11:03pm


Jan 12, 2006, 8:15am, faethon wrote:
Isn't McHenry's point that Wiki isn't as good as Brit (gold standard).



No. I think his point is that it isn't any good, period.
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