Wikipedia - Can Teenagers Write An Encyclopedia? - Global Politician Options

I submit that editors should be over age 21 and live within the jurisdiction of the United States.

Fuck you. That would discount 90% of the best editors, all of whom live outside the jurisdiction of the United States. And I don't want my children's source of online knowledge dominated by people from the United States thank you. It is bad enough already.

Britannica has survived since 1768 with zero volunteers.

Where do you think Britannica was founded?

This post has been edited by Kato: Mon 23rd July 2007, 9:21am

I think that that gets to the crux of the issue.

Wikipedia can exist, and be as big as it is, and if it existed as it was originally intended, as a "fun, not serious" version of Nupedia, to get some articles started, then its fine. If it exists as Everything2 does as a kind of group blog, then its fine. The problem is that people take it seriously.

NPOV is one of the major fundamental problems with Wikipedia, because of the theoretical impossibility of it. People should be saying what their bias is, not pretending that they don't have one. This then leads to people being anonymous and pretending that they're not biased in order to create quality articles, or else alternatively to write on topics which they know nothing about.

The hatred of experts is another of the major fundamental problems with Wikipedia. To have articles created by non-experts is one thing, but to not allow experts in a field to write is very wrong. There are many biographies on living people in which the subject of the matter was banned for trying to correct inaccuracies about themselves. The most expert person in the world is banned from an article because they were submitting "original research". This kind of thing happens all of the time, and is a fundamental serious problem.

The anonymity is also a problem. Anonymity would be fine if we did not take Wikipedia seriously, but by having anonymity people can secretly be trying to win an election through dubious means, they might be lying about credentials, they might have more than one account, and they might have a secret bias. This adds to the other problems and makes matters worse.

Ultimately, the most serious problem with Wikipedia is that it changes truth. Something can be established fact, with only a tiny 1% of people who believe that it isn't, and then that 1% creates an article on Wikipedia, and for whatever reason they claim ownership of that article, so that it can never be undone (Cuba, Lyndon LaRouche, Lockerbie Bombing, Port Arthur massacre are the 4 that spring to mind immediately that we've discussed at length here). This lie is then picked up by all of the sites that mirror Wikipedia. School students use it in reports on the topic (because careless schools allow it to be used as a source). Then more and more people use it. Until eventually what Wikipedia has written, which was an outright lie, becomes the accepted version of truth. And the 1% who originally believed this lie ends up as 90% or more.

There are enough lies in the world, thanks to politicians and various hidden agendas out there. Journalists and historians are forever working tirelessly to try to stop these lies and get some kind of truth out there. The last thing that we need is for a place like Wikipedia to pop up and to randomly have someone change truth about something.

Jimbo Wales decided that he wanted to be 38 again, instead of being 39, so changed his own birthday on his article. He decided that he didn't like Larry Sanger anymore, so stripped him of even co-founder status (Larry Sanger seems to be the person who created Wikipedia, and if anyone is stripped of co-founder status, it should be Jimbo). He didn't like the attention he got from founding Wikipedia on money from pornography, so he pretended that Bomis wasn't a porn site.

And if things like that don't demonstrate that Wikipedia is changing history, then I don't know what more to say.

There is a difference between documenting history and changing it. Wikipedia has gone well beyond mere documentation.

I submit that editors should be over age 21 and live within the jurisdiction of the United States.

Isn't that a bit insulting to the United Kingdom?

I submit that editors should be over age 21 and live within the jurisdiction of the United States. Admins should be at least 30 and pass a copyediting test.

Youth may fade, but immaturity can last a lifetime.

Make them take an ethics test, instead.

I submit that editors should be over age 21 and live within the jurisdiction of the United States.

Fuck you. That would discount 90% of the best editors, all of whom live outside the jurisdiction of the United States. And I don't want my children's source of online knowledge dominated by people from the United States thank you. It is bad enough already.

People in the USA hate science and vote for idiots.

The truth is that teenagers cannot do the referencing and research that are the prerequisite to serious scholarship - unless you stretch these words to an absurd limit. Research is not about hoarding facts. It is about identifying and applying context and about possessing a synoptic view of ostensibly unrelated data.

But "possessing a synoptic view of ostensibly unrelated data" would violate WP:NOR.

OK... But just so we're clear on this, how are you defining "popularity"? There's Google rankings, Alexa ranking, registered-user counts, number of edits per month, and so forth... Clearly it's popular in all those respects, but in your opinion has the open-editing model led to all of those things, or just one or two in particular?

It's obviously the reason for the edit counts/registered user counts/active user counts. I think it's the original source of the high Google/Alexa rankings, although those numbers have since been inflated by other factors.

NPOV is one of the major fundamental problems with Wikipedia, because of the theoretical impossibility of it. People should be saying what their bias is, not pretending that they don't have one. This then leads to people being anonymous and pretending that they're not biased in order to create quality articles, or else alternatively to write on topics which they know nothing about.

I think you're hitting on a fundamental culture problem, here. I don't think NPOV is a bad editorial ideal, but you run into problems largely because part of the culture of Wikipedia is disdain for anyone who holds a strongly-held belief and edits in that area. (I think this is caused by a combination of the general anti-elitism and the fact that many people who wear a cause on their sleeve turn out to be fanatics.)

The anonymity is also a problem. Anonymity would be fine if we did not take Wikipedia seriously, but by having anonymity people can secretly be trying to win an election through dubious means, they might be lying about credentials, they might have more than one account, and they might have a secret bias. This adds to the other problems and makes matters worse.

When you have a project that any old shlub can participate in, eliminating anonymity doesn't accomplish much, particularly without some mechanism for confirming identity.

Unless you had a heavy-duty mechanism for confirming identity, you would have much the same problems as Wikipedia does with anonymity.

Remember, we thought we knew who Essjay was.

Ultimately, the most serious problem with Wikipedia is that it changes truth. Something can be established fact, with only a tiny 1% of people who believe that it isn't, and then that 1% creates an article on Wikipedia, and for whatever reason they claim ownership of that article, so that it can never be undone (Cuba, Lyndon LaRouche, Lockerbie Bombing, Port Arthur massacre are the 4 that spring to mind immediately that we've discussed at length here). This lie is then picked up by all of the sites that mirror Wikipedia. School students use it in reports on the topic (because careless schools allow it to be used as a source). Then more and more people use it. Until eventually what Wikipedia has written, which was an outright lie, becomes the accepted version of truth. And the 1% who originally believed this lie ends up as 90% or more.

I think this is right and wrong, but I can't really form my argument. More later, I guess.

But "possessing a synoptic view of ostensibly unrelated data" would violate WP:NOR.

Well, yeah. It's a criticism of the ideal Wikipedia; even if Wikipedia reached its stated goals with 100% effectiveness, it would still have the problem that it can only be an executive summary of the sources because the users can't be trusted to do their own original research.

This is something worth discussing later; the difference between criticism of the ideal Wikipedia (Wikipedia if it achieved all its stated goals perfectly) and the actual Wikipedia (how Wikipedia runs as a practical matter and the people involved with it). Both types of criticism are necessary, but the solutions need to take different tacks.

I think that the way that Wikipedia is designed lends it to high Google pageranks. Also, as discussed in the article, Google has recently changed their algorithm to give Wikipedia a higher page rank than their popularity indicates, i.e. thinking more highly of it than they do of a similar page that is not Wikipedia.

The rampant cross-linking is what does it, and the great overlooked thing is that the different language wikipedias all interwiki link with none of the SEO-barring nofollow limits. I.e., on top of everyone linking to WP from every last website and blog ever (which doesn't hurt), it means that en.wp gets TREMENDOUS pagerank authority. en.wiki then links back to all the various fr.wiki, de.wiki, etc., for articles in other languages/transwiki whatever its called. Those in turn link back to en.wiki, which feeds it in an endless Pagerank bonanza. If they actually designed the mediawiki model with this in mind, whoever did it is a design genius. It makes each *.wikipedia.org tremendously powerful, all feeding off the central en.wiki hive.

You don't have to be an actual teenager to have a teenager mind and habits where other people are concerned. See this creature, for example.

I submit that editors should be over age 21 and live within the jurisdiction of the United States.

That would discount 90% of the best editors, all of whom live outside the jurisdiction of the United States.

The United States jurisdiction part has to do with the legal system. You can't serve a US subpoena outside the US. People who commit libels should be held responsible for their actions. They wouldn't never do it, so don't worry about it.

I submit that editors should be over age 21 and live within the jurisdiction of the United States. Admins should be at least 30 and pass a copyediting test.

Youth may fade, but immaturity can last a lifetime.

Granted, but immaturity is more likely among minors.

I submit that editors should be over age 21 and live within the jurisdiction of the United States.

That would discount 90% of the best editors, all of whom live outside the jurisdiction of the United States.

The United States jurisdiction part has to do with the legal system. You can't serve a US subpoena outside the US. People who commit libels should be held responsible for their actions. They wouldn't never do it, so don't worry about it.

Uh, pretty much every country has libel laws. And those in the UK are notoriously plaintiff-friendly.

This post has been edited by Cedric: Tue 24th July 2007, 12:10am

Let me correct myself: I submit that admins should be over age 21 and live within the jurisdiction of the United States.

This is something worth discussing later; the difference between criticism of the ideal Wikipedia (Wikipedia if it achieved all its stated goals perfectly) and the actual Wikipedia (how Wikipedia runs as a practical matter and the people involved with it). Both types of criticism are necessary, but the solutions need to take different tacks.

The nature of the wiki system does not allow Wikipedia to work properly. We need an alternative to what Jimbo calls the "Cabal."

Let me correct myself: I submit that admins should be over age 21 and live within the jurisdiction of the United States.

This is something worth discussing later; the difference between criticism of the ideal Wikipedia (Wikipedia if it achieved all its stated goals perfectly) and the actual Wikipedia (how Wikipedia runs as a practical matter and the people involved with it). Both types of criticism are necessary, but the solutions need to take different tacks.

The nature of the wiki system does not allow Wikipedia to work properly. We need an alternative to what Jimbo calls the "Cabal."

I think it would be sufficient if the admins would: 1) provide IRL identity and contact information; 2) Agree to submit to US (FLA) venue and jurisdiction 3) agree to US law in choice of law matters.

Let me correct myself: I submit that admins should be over age 21 and live within the jurisdiction of the United States.

If so, then why not make a rule that only Americans can use the internet at all? (wince)

The United States jurisdiction part has to do with the legal system.

Because the United States is the only country with laws?

You can't serve a US subpoena outside the US.

Sure you can. You've never heard of cross-border extra-territorial lawsuits? Dow Jones US was sued in an Australian court, for libel (or was it defamation, hm) and they paid up. Yahoo (US) was sued in France, and they had to either quit selling Nazi items, or their CEO was subject to multiple fines. Doesn't anyone else here read the WSJ? Or the FT? Google both cases - they are online.

The question is first merit (is it worth the effort) and then once you've decided "yes" then means of enforcement (making sure the judgement be honored). Both merit and enforcement are easier in cases against a big company - very easy if the company does business in the country where the judgement was levied, very VERY easy if they have an office in the country. This of course assuming the case went in your favor.

For Wikipedia, it is a question of how much effort it is to (for example) squeeze 400 bucks out of some acne-prone psychopath sitting on a desktop in the Ukraine. Usually it isn't worth the effort.

People who commit libels should be held responsible for their actions.

It depends on your favorite hobbies. Mine is golf.

They wouldn't never do it, so don't worry about it.

Who is "they"?



This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey: Tue 24th July 2007, 11:08am