Comment I just posted on today’s New York Times article about Wikipedia:

I have a reasonable amount of faith in Wikipedia articles. As with any source, it’s important to check the accuracy of anything you read to see if more than one other source can corroborate it.

It’s important to keep in mind that what you’re reading here about Wikipedia is a world away from wikis that are used in countless organizations around the world as a way to reduce email, collaborate more efficiently, organize knowledge, improve the response time of call centers, and provide a place for students and researchers to collaborate.

Wikipedia, or an encyclopedia built using a wiki, is but one example of how a wiki can be used, and some of the problems associated with a completely open wiki with a loosely tied community do not carry over into other wiki uses where an established community uses the tool to further its shared purpose.

Stewart Mader
Grow Your Wiki: http://www.ikiw.org

— Stewart, San Francisco, CA

There are rumors flying around of YAWS (Yet Another Wikipedia Scandal). How should it affect peoples’ perception of wiki use in organizations?

Here’s a good perspective on it from a person who commented on a San Francisco Chronicle article this morning:

There is one important fact that should be kept in focus, however. Wikipedia is not some hierarchical top down business where one misbehaving leader can wreck havoc (such as can occur with our government). Rather, it represents a highly democratic and very loosely connected organization that has been mostly built on the dedicated efforts of a few thousand core volunteers. Therefore, regardless of the [alleged] misadventures of Mr. Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia will continue to grow and serve.

(If you want all the details of the alleged allegations, the Chronicle article has them. I’m not going to reprint them here in the interest of focusing on the impact of Wikipedia on organizational wiki use.)

This is the kind of news item that prompts people to think all wikis – including those that organizations might use – pose the same risks for inappropriate behavior that happens on Wikipedia. [Read more]

Andrea Foster writes on the Wired Campus Blog that University of Texas at Dallas professor David Parry encourages his students to use Wikipedia:

“Like it or not, the networked digital archive changes our basis of knowledge,” Mr. Parry writes “and training people for the future is about training them for this shift.”

Parry’s comments come from an article he published in Science Progress, in which he argues that banning Wikipedia isn’t just silly, it’s actually irresponsible.

It is irresponsible for educational institutions not to teach new knowledge technologies…Wikipedia, or more generally the networked archival structure it represents, alters the way in which we create, share, and record knowledge, and thus has rather significant effects on how we approach education across all disciplines, and specifically in technology and science.

Students and teachers alike must understand how systems of knowledge creation and archivization are changing. Encyclopedias are no longer static collections of facts and figures; they are living entities, and the new software changes the rules of expertise. [Read more]

Rogers Cadenhead writes about the Long Bet Dave Winer and Martin Nisenholtz (of the New York Times) made back in 2002: “In a Google search of five keywords or phrases representing the top five news stories of 2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New York Times’ Web site.” Cadenhead looks at the ranking for Times articles and blogs on the top five stories, as ranked by the Associated Press, and finds that in three out of five the blog ranked higher.

But the real winner: Wikipedia. It ranks higher than the Times on four out of five. Cadenhead sums it up this way:

“Winer predicted a news environment “changed so thoroughly that informed people will look to amateurs they trust for the information they want.” Nisenholtz expected the professional media to remain the authoritative source for “unbiased, accurate, and coherent” information.

Instead, our most trusted source on the biggest news stories of 2007 is a horde of nameless, faceless amateurs who are not required to prove expertise in the subjects they cover.”

That’s a cheap shot. (maybe it was meant to be humorous, but it sure comes off as a cheap shot).

Here’s a commenter’s take:

“Wiki’s are closer to on-line libraries while blogs and media portals are like Daily newspapers… the news rolls off the front page and into oblivion. So, unless there’s been an amzingly popluar news event with a limit number of sources then the wiki will quickly rise to the top of a search since the Wiki has more permanence and is discovered and referenced more often than a blog or new portal.”

That’s much better.

Google has announced its new knowledge platform, called Knol. “Earlier this week, we started inviting a selected group of people to try a new, free tool that we are calling “knol”, which stands for a unit of knowledge. Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it.” [Read more]

There’s been some controversy in the past few days about an alleged secret mailing list that some administrators on Wikipedia were using to privately comunicate without getting input from the larger community. “Revealed after an uber-admin called “Durova” used it in an [Read more]

I recently wrote about the failure of some high profile wiki projects because they missed a critical success factor: building a community with a common purpose. Now, a new project is underway that appears to be getting it right, and in a fascinating way. Assignment Zero is a [Read more]

I’ve been talking with Mark via my new Facebook group and his work is fascinating, so I invited him to write a few guest posts for Using Wiki in Education. Here’s a bit about him: Mark Bell is a researcher, computer programmer and father. He specializes in social networks in virtual [Read more]

Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger recently launched Citizendium, a rival to the iconic encyclopedia which will require contributors to use their names when editing the wiki. Giovanni Rodriguez writes, “Sanger may be raising the bar for wiki citizens.” Sanger argues that Wikipedia [Read more]

I started writing this post a while back, but with all the news about InfoWorld going completely electronic and print media further giving way to online, it seems like a good time to publish. According to an article published by journalism.co.uk, Jimmy Wales says newspapers [Read more]