I’m getting ready to introduce my freshman writing students to college-level research, so I found it helpful to read this brief introduction to the internal problems Wikipedia creates for itself.
When a major news event takes place, such as the Boston Marathon bombings, complex, widely sourced entries spring up within hours and evolve by the minute. Because there is no other free information source like it, many online services rely on Wikipedia. Look something up on Google or ask Siri a question on your iPhone, and you’ll often get back tidbits of information pulled from the encyclopedia and delivered as straight-up facts.
Yet Wikipedia and its stated ambition to “compile the sum of all human knowledge” are in trouble. The volunteer workforce that built the project’s flagship, the English-language Wikipedia—and must defend it against vandalism, hoaxes, and manipulation—has shrunk by more than a third since 2007 and is still shrinking. Those participants left seem incapable of fixing the flaws that keep Wikipedia from becoming a high-quality encyclopedia by any standard, including the project’s own. —MIT Technology Review.
Lou Recine Ofs liked this on Facebook.
RT @DennisJerz: The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It (MIT Tech Review) http://t.co/5…
RT @DennisJerz: The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It (MIT Tech Review) http://t.co/5…
RT @DennisJerz: The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It (MIT Tech Review) http://t.co/5…
Krista Kennedy liked this on Facebook.
RT @Wattsarian: RT @DennisJerz: The Decline of Wikipedia: As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It http://t.co/zx0Y853Qq3
RT @DennisJerz: The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It (MIT Tech Review) http://t.co/5…
RT @DennisJerz: The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It (MIT Tech Review) http://t.co/5…
Gene James liked this on Facebook.
Interesting article and even better comments. There are important lessons for any maturing business to be had for the thoughtful reader.
RT @DennisJerz: The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It http://t.co/OIeyTUfefw
RT @DennisJerz: The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It (MIT Tech Review) http://t.co/5…
Bobby Kuechenmeister liked this on Facebook.
RT @DennisJerz: The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It (MIT Tech Review) http://t.co/5…
RT @DennisJerz: The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It (MIT Tech Review) http://t.co/5…