Wikipedia wants to remain free

By Charles Jade | Published: August 06, 2005 – 01:51PM CT

Loosely translated, “wiki” is Hawaiian for fast, and, loosely defined, “Wiki” is a type of collaborative database software that allows users to quickly and easily edit content using a web browser. The Wikipedia is an encyclopedia created by a community of such users, more than 50,000 volunteers worldwide and growing, and they are growing fast. In four short years, Wikipedia has become the largest free online encyclopedia in the world, containing nearly 2 million articles in almost one hundred active languages. Wikipedia’s popularity is undeniable, the reference site generating some 60 million hits hits per day, so great that it may have influenced Microsoft’s recent decision to “open source” Encarta. However, it should come as no surprise that the Wikipedia is experiencing growing pains.

Hundreds of developers and thousands of users and contributors will be meeting at Wikimania in Frankfurt this week to discuss the future of wikimedia, as well as the online encyclopedia. Ironically, Wikipedia’s greatest strength, the users creating content, may also be its biggest weakness. Jimmy Wales, a founder of Wikipedia, gave an interview in a German newspaper concerning that issue. The interview cited an example of apparent malfeasance in which a contributor to an article on Pope Benedict substituted the Pontiff’s photo with that of Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars films. The article then reported that Wales suggested “There may soon be so-called stable contents. In this case, we’d freeze the pages whose quality is undisputed.”

As a big fan and user of Wikipedia, the idea of “freezing” out contributors from editing articles seems like a horrible idea–say it ain’t so, Jimbo!

I spoke to one journalist about our longstanding discussions of how to create a “stable version” or “Wikipedia 1.0″. This would not involve substantial changes to how we do our usual work, but rather a new process for identifying our best work.

There was no “announcement”. We are constantly reviewing our policies and looking for ways to improve, but we have not “announced” anything. We don’t even really work that way… if you know how Wikipedia works, it’s through a long process of community discussion and consensus building, not through a process of top-down announcements.

What happened was that the report got changed being translated between languages and wasn’t checked with the source before being published by the professionals. How shocking that the news wires, the top-down press, got it completely wrong. If only they were as quick as Wikipedia in correcting their mistakes. Don’t hold your breath. Perhaps it’s time for Wikinews.

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