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Jimmy Wales responds
by Ken Friedman 06 Dec '05

06 Dec '05

Friends, One of our list members sent part of the thread to Jimmy Wales. He sent a reply, with the request that it be posted to the list. I post it here. Since Jimmy does not belong to the list, please copy to him any replies directed to him. Ken Hello, air-l! I am Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and I'd like to thank danah for pointing me to this discussion. Ken Friedman wrote: > This letter is a suggestion that you address the problem of bad > information in student papers from an increasingly poor source: > Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not getting better. It is getting worse. While I certainly do think that professors should educate students about Wikipedia, and about how it is created, I must object to the idea that "Wikipedia is not getting better. It is getting worse." That's a very specific empirical claim which is fairly easy to refute: simply take a look at 100 random articles from Wikipedia, and see what those articles looked like a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. The level of increase in quality is dramatic across the board. That isn't to say that Wikipedia is yet "ready for primetime" -- it isn't. But if you're going to say that Wikipedia is _getting worse_ instead of _getting better_, I'm going to ask you to prove it. >> There are now enough serious incidents of false and defamatory >> information in Wikipedia biographies to warrant prohibiting this as a >> reference source in universities and university-level professional >> schools. The same is true of inaccurate or false assertions in many >> articles. I would say it a different way: Wikipedia (and Britannica) ought to have been prohibited as a reference source in universities and university-level professional schools all along. This is what I tell students who write to me whining that they got an "F" on their paper for citing Wikipedia. :-) But what I would say is that there are encouraging signs that within another year or two, Wikipedia may have finally reached a quality level such that it might become satisfactory as a citable source in some cases. >> The problem with Wikipedia is not that the Wiki system MAY develop a >> solid and reliable reference work, but that in the current form, it >> DOES NOT. It is as easy to change an article for the worse as for the >> better. Actually, it is quite difficult to make an article worse. Yes, you can do it for an instant, but the overall process is such that bad changes tend to be reverted to older versions. Since all past versions are kept forever (except for those deleted for legal reasons of course) it is trivial for the community to restore an article to it's former glory in the event that some edit war leaves it in a worse state than before. This is routine, and this is a core part of the Wiki process. > If enough of us prohibit Wikipedia as a reference source in our > courses, programs, and schools, the message will eventually get > through. Of course there's a much easier and faster way to get a message through. You could just email me. :-) We're very very eager to hear from researchers with good ideas for improvement of our processes. Our goal is quite simple: Britannica or better quality. Everything else is more or less secondary. A lot of people assume that our current _process_ is our _end in itself_. That is not true. Our current process is only the _means_ to our _end_. It has always been changing, with very careful tweaks and alterations to preserve what works and eliminate what doesn't work. That process will continue until I get what I want, and believe me, it is not possible to out-elite me on what I consider to be accurate and neutral information. One of our most important community members put it this way the other day: Wikipedia is now like the first early releases of Linux which made it (barely) usable for the first time as the kernel of an operating system. As such, it was for the first time able to attract enough users to build the processes to make it into the world-class kernel that it is today. Realism about the current weaknesses of Wikipedia is critical, including realism about how much better it has already gotten, and how eager the Wikipedia community is to continue that trajectory of improvement. --Jimbo

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Reference sources and research
by Ken Friedman 06 Dec '05

06 Dec '05

Dear Andrew, This is too sharp a rule for me. I have no objection to reference books as sources. One can often find useful bits of information, definitions, pointers, and references that add dimension to articles and papers. This is especially true of specialized reference works. For example, in working through issues in philosophy of design where I try to develop a sense of meaning and consensus on terminology and issues, I often use Mautner's Dictionary of Philosophy, and occasionally the superb philosophy articles from the now on-line edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia from the early 1900s. Reference books serve a valuable role in scholarship and even in original research. Simply repeating the text in a reference book is not research. Using information judiciously to advance an argument is part of research, and reliable reference sources are one place to look. This is precisely why reference books should be reliable. Yours, Ken -- Andrew Lih wrote: Wikipedia should be treated no differently than any encyclopedia in this respect - you can't use it as a source. That's been true for me ever since junior high school. As someone who has been involved with the project for many years, I still tell my students - don't cite it as a source, or you'll be marked down. -- -- Ken Friedman Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management Design Research Center Denmark's Design School email: ken.friedman(a)bi.no

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Re: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliable information source
by Andrew Lih 05 Dec '05

05 Dec '05

On 12/5/05, Bram Dov Abramson <bda(a)bazu.org> wrote: > On: > >I have informed my students that they may no longer use Wikipedia as > >a reference or source on papers in my courses. I urge you to consider > >a similar statement. While Wikipedia may be a useful first step in > >seeking information, I no longer accept it as a credible source. > >Therefore, I advise students to look further when a project requires > >a reliable source. Wikipedia should be treated no differently than any encyclopedia in this respect - you can't use it as a source. That's been true for me ever since junior high school. As someone who has been involved with the project for many years, I still tell my students - don't cite it as a source, or you'll be marked down. > Recently I've been discovering Wikipedia, and my thoughts had run in a > different direction. Has anyone integrated Wikipedia into their > courses, not as a source, but as a destination? Are there courses out > there where students are being asked to *update* Wikipedia? I've been doing so for the last few years: http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/08/03/wikipedia/ For a complete list see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_University_projects -Andrew Lih University of Hong Kong

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Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliable information source
by Ken Friedman 05 Dec '05

05 Dec '05

Dear Colleagues, This letter is a suggestion that you address the problem of bad information in student papers from an increasingly poor source: Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not getting better. It is getting worse. One reason for this is the apparent case that the status of Wikipedia as a much-used reference resource makes it the target of opportunity for hoax efforts that would never enter an edited reference text. There are now enough serious incidents of false and defamatory information in Wikipedia biographies to warrant prohibiting this as a reference source in universities and university-level professional schools. The same is true of inaccurate or false assertions in many articles. The problem with Wikipedia is not that the Wiki system MAY develop a solid and reliable reference work, but that in the current form, it DOES NOT. It is as easy to change an article for the worse as for the better. Nearly any university student today has access to a decent library and good on-line reference texts. In addition, anyone willing to search a bit will also fine outstanding SIGNED references sources by major scholars in many fields, as well as useful albeit older versions of respected references source no longer covered by copyright. The current scandal concerning a false and defamatory biography of Robert Kennedy aide and friend John Siegenthaler (see below) and similar recent cases lead me to conclude that Wikipedia has no way to prevent problems like this from happening. This is made worse by the fact that Wikipedia is an automatic flow-through resource for other on-line sources. Wikipedia is unacceptable as a research tool. I have informed my students that they may no longer use Wikipedia as a reference or source on papers in my courses. I urge you to consider a similar statement. While Wikipedia may be a useful first step in seeking information, I no longer accept it as a credible source. Therefore, I advise students to look further when a project requires a reliable source. Use of Wikipedia by students and researchers is an important validation mechanism for Wikipedia. If enough of us prohibit Wikipedia as a reference source in our courses, programs, and schools, the message will eventually get through. When it does, Wikipedia will find an appropriate way to monitor contributions. If they do not, the reputation of Wikipedia will sink to that of another crank web site. Yours, Ken Friedman The Siegenthaler case in the New York Times and USA Today via Yahoo: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04seelye.html http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051130/cm_usatoday/afalsewikipediabiogra… -- Ken Friedman Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management Design Research Center Denmark's Design School email: ken.friedman(a)bi.no

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Re: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not areliableinformation source
by Rowin Young 05 Dec '05

05 Dec '05

> if one of my students handed in an essay with only references to the Encyclopedia Britannica > I would be deeply unimpressed. Apologies, I should have said: "if one of my students handed in an essay with only references to the Encyclopedia Britannica OR WIKIPEDIA I would be deeply unimpressed" rowin

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Re: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliableinformation source
by Rowin Young 05 Dec '05

05 Dec '05

I assumed that older versions of articles could often be found on the wayback machine (http://www.archive.org/)? I'm prepared to be proved wrong :-) I think the main reason I use it is because I love the name 'wayback machine'... I've found this a really interesting discussion. I taught until about a year ago, in Scottish and English literature and linguistics, and at both 'traditional' universities and via distance learning - had to give up because my 'main' job requires too much travel for me to be able to commit to teaching at regular hours. I was always quite pleased when I saw a student struggling with - for example - a stylistic feature, and providing a definition referenced to wikipedia on which they based their answer: to me it showed that they were at least attempting to provide a basis for their interpretation, and is exactly what we tell them to do in exams: 'If you're not sure what the question's asking, provide your interpretation of it as the starting point for your answer'. Yes, it would have been better if they'd been able to reference the dictionary of literary terms I referred them to, but it's not their fault that the library wouldn't stock it in that fiscal period, or that funding cuts meant that opening hours were cut so that the times when it was open was when the student was working to make up for their lack of funding... but that's a whole different can of worms :-) But I can think of at least two reasons why wikipedia was acceptable in the context of the courses I taught. Firstly, the students were mostly using it for basic facts such as the definition of alliteration or (for students who took an historicist approach to literature) details about the life of an author or the cultural context in which s/he was working. I do think that wikipedia is sound on the fundamental facts of such topics, and like other people who have contributed to this thread I use it myself for learning the basic points of an issue before I go and follow up points of interest in more detail elsewhere. Secondly, because the nature of that subject is so focused on individual interpretation and the production of original analysis (and because the course teams were increasingly canny about minimising opportunities for plagiarism), there isn't any room for a student gaining many marks by simply regurgitating information from another source. In response to the original poster, whose field is, I appreciate, very different to mine: if one of my students handed in an essay with only references to the Encyclopedia Britannica I would be deeply unimpressed. I encouraged any of my students who attempted to use the internet to support their research. All three universities, particularly the distance learning uni, offered superb access to academic resources via Athens, but students were hugely reluctant to use them: I don't know whether that's because they lacked understanding of how to access them - which I doubt, given their levels of IT literacy - or because they were aware that they lacked the academic background to be able to discriminate between good and less good sources: I'm sure that every academic on this list will have seen material published with glowing peer reviews and through the best academic resources with which they have violently disagreed! I did encourage my students to restrict their searches in google to site:ac.uk, which at least imposes a vague attempt at quality control over what they accessed. If anyone has any statistics for the use of google scholar, particularly within the uk, i'd be really interested in hearing about it. Apologies for the overlong and banal post; it's my annual contribution so please feel seasonably towards me and don't flame me too much :-) rowin Dr Rowin Young eLearning Research Fellow University of Strathclyde ________________________________ From: air-l-bounces(a)listserv.aoir.org on behalf of Jeremy Hunsinger Sent: Mon 05/12/2005 19:16 To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliableinformation source actually this is fairly easy to solve and is solved by all the current citing practices of online materials. when one cites online materials, one is always supposed to give date and if appropriate time of access in the citation. on wikipedia, you can then go to the history and find that particular version of the article, or if it has been moved to archive, you could request it. On Dec 5, 2005, at 1:59 PM, Tom Erickson wrote: > This has been a very interesting discussion. Nobody has mentioned > what seems to me to be the biggest problem in using Wikipedia as a > source: the fact that its articles are not stable. Since, obviously, > articles can and do change over time, simply citing an article would > seem insufficient, as the content may change. > > It is interesting that the Wikipedia's design does not make it easy > to do a citation that will continue to point at the version actually > used. If one clicks on the history tab (for "past versions of this > page"), one sees the history list and can copy those URLs. And in > fact, contrary to what the flyout text for the history tab suggests, > the history page also contains a URL for the current page, so in fact > one could cite the specific instance of the article with something > that would presumably act like a permalink. It seems to me that, for > courses where Wikipedia citations are permitted, that this might be a > good discipline to follow, as it foregrounds the issue of the > stability or lack thereof of knowledge. > > --Tom > -- > ------------------------------------------ > Tom Erickson > IBM T.J. Watson Research Center > Email: snowfall(a)acm.org (preferred); snowfall(a)us.ibm.com(IBM > confidential) > http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/ > > > > > _______________________________________________ > The air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// > listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments http://www.aoir.org The Association of Internet Researchers http://www.stswiki.org/ stswiki _______________________________________________ The air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/

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Re: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliable information source
by GTa3411203＠aol.com 05 Dec '05

05 Dec '05

I have found that Wikipedia entries are good starting points for conducting research on emerging trends. For example, I am currently writing a paper on the emerging trends to use mobile devices (PDAs, smartphones, tablet computers, MP3 players) and wireless networks to support learning in workplace and educational settings. I have found Wikipedia entries to be an invaluable resource in assisting me with pulling together the evolutionary processes associated with the emergence of the various mobile devices and associated practices. My approach in using this source of information in support of research is to triangulate available information to other sources, those that skeptics would consider as being reputable publications (newspapers, trade publications, academic journals, books). I also encourage students to use this same approach when considering using a Wikipedia entry as reliable source of information. I co-teach an on campus course where students do collaborative learning activities each week to construct knowledge about a given topic. At the completion of the activity, I ask students to report out to others, in a large group setting, key insights gained from the interaction. I might have them share information orally or in writing, using the blackboards or whiteboards in a room or easel-size Post-It notes and colored markers. This activity could easily turn into one where students could create new or build upon existing Wikipedia entries. I would use this approach in teaching this group of students but have limitations with regard to access to computer and Internet resources that are necessary to support the integration of this activity into a face-to-face classroom setting. I could modify the approach so tasks would be completed as t ake-home assignments but this goes against personal teaching values. I teach students from the constructivist perspective and place high value on students constructing knowledge in collaboration with others, with guidance from me as opposed to the other way around. -- Gail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gail Taylor, M.Ed. Human Resource Education Ph.D. Student Educational Psychology Teaching Assistant University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Re: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliable information source
by Bram Dov Abramson 05 Dec '05

05 Dec '05

On: >I have informed my students that they may no longer use Wikipedia as >a reference or source on papers in my courses. I urge you to consider >a similar statement. While Wikipedia may be a useful first step in >seeking information, I no longer accept it as a credible source. >Therefore, I advise students to look further when a project requires >a reliable source. And: >- Compounding the above point is the fact that Wikipedia's quality >assurance mechanism only works on a macro-level. We have little >information about whether individual articles have been properly vetted >by many users at a specific point. We end up deciding in general >whether we believe the mechanism works or not. I agree that a lot of the articles on Wikipedia are not great. As a reference tool, Wikipedia is interesting but not necessarily authoritative. Sure. Recently I've been discovering Wikipedia, and my thoughts had run in a different direction. Has anyone integrated Wikipedia into their courses, not as a source, but as a destination? Are there courses out there where students are being asked to *update* Wikipedia? (Wikipedia's quality assurance mechanism -- talking things out, seeking intervention, going to third party arbitrators -- assumes the possibility of rational resolution and is hard to understand besides. It needs a lot of work, particularly in having people produce concise guides making what's already there more readily understandable. Still, that doesn't mean it need be dismissed as a "brute force" approach! Something more is going on there, I think.) >- One common tool that people use to make decisions about information >quality is authorship. But in the name of promoting the >commons-authorship model, Wikipedia actually obscures the notion of the >author at an individual level. If you wanted to find out who wrote an >individual piece an article, there would be no reasonable way to do >that. It's true that wading into page histories can be time-consuming. But it's not *that* bad. Whether it is based on the other things they have written on Wikipedia or on their choice to stitch the Wikipedia identity to a real-world one, though, the reputation mechanism is still around -- though less foregrounded. If making the reputation mechanism more prominent would help Wikipedia, there are probably ways to do so within the existing structure. An individual could draft the article (or major changes to it), make the edit on Wikipedia, and leave a link on the Discussion page to the frozen version that that person had written -- allowing people to identify the author and consult it directly. The converse is true, too: the MediaWiki package makes it easy to gather links to all of one's edits on a single page. In fact, one could create an off-site list of "trusted authors" and the articles they had written, or edited, etc. Heck, I wonder what would happen if a group of academics decided to produce an encyclopedia and publish its results on Wikipedia -- and, simultaneously elsewhere, either online or in paper. The two sets of articles would gradually diverge. Third parties could decide which, if either, they wanted to consider authoritative. Sorry to natter on. I do understand that the original point was much smaller, ie to keep students thinking about the quality of their sources, and I agree with most of what's been said. Still, I can't help but think that Wikipedia is much more interesting as an opportunity. cheers Bram

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Ang Peng Hwa on Internet Governance "Webjam"
by Randolph Kluver (Assoc Prof) 05 Dec '05

05 Dec '05

Ang Peng Hwa gave a keynote speech at the recent AoIR meeting in Chicago on Internet Governance. Those who found his speech helpful might be interested in watching the internet governance "debate" on at Open Source Media, in which Peng Hwa is participating. Peng Hwa has posted a response to the opening salvo of the debate by Claudia Rosette (http://osm.org/site/articles/20051130rosettinternet/) His response is posted at this webpage: http://osm.org/site/articles/20051204angpenghwa BLOGJAM: On Monday, December 5, at noon US Pacific time, join Professor Ang in a live online discussion, along with Perry De Havilland of Samizdata <http://www.samizdata.net/blog/> , Franklin Cudjoe <http://www.wingsoffreedomandjustice.blogspot.com/> of Imani Ghana <http://imanighana.org/> and new media guru Dan Gillmor <http://bayosphere.com/blog/dangillmor> . Moderated by US News & World Report's Michael Barone <http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneblog/home.htm> . Randolph Kluver Executive Director Singapore Internet Research Centre Nanyang Technological University Singapore 637718 phone (65) 6790-5770 URL: www.ntu.edu.sg/sci/sirc/

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Re: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliable information source
by Ken Friedman 05 Dec '05

05 Dec '05

Quick response to comments and questions 1) Ulf-Dietrich Reips asks, "How many citations of Wikipedia entries have your students really handed in to you that were a) not backed up by another source, and, b) found to be inaccurate?" I did not keep count. I have noticed a significant increase in Wikipedia use over the past year, and I notice that students who DO use Wikipedia often use it as a single source. The inaccuracies I observe tend to be a difference between these students and those who draw on a wide range of sources. This is a simple way to push them in another direction. My focus is on using multiple sources regardless of how good any one source may be. Given the use of Wikipedia as a proxy for research, my simple counterbalance is a proxy measure for those who do not search more widely in the first place. 2) Judd Antin writes, "For my own part, I often find that Wikipedia is a valuable place to start exploration, especially in areas that I know little about. Wikipedia articles often provide me with the background and context I need to begin exploration. This, IMHO, is the type of use we should promote." Without disagreeing with or contesting Judd's other points, I want to say that Judd and I agree here. I don't tell students not to use Wikipedia at all. It is a good starting point for background information and leads. What I tell students them is that I no longer accept Wikipedia as a source. As Judd writes, Wikipedia macro-level principle works, but the micro-level is too often flawed. While tools like the History Flow are interesting for those who want to research an article, I'd rather have students check multiple sources than myself have to check each article -- and its provenance -- when I see a Wikipedia reference. I do not wish to be a fact checker for student research papers. 3) Peter Steinberger writes, "To be consequent you have to ban all other Internet sources too. And all the magazines that are peer reviewed too, because lately they made some major mistakes too." I don't see it this way. There are many good on-line sources, and I work with students teaching them how to explore, evaluate, and use multiple sources comparatively, including on-line sources. The issue here is the likelihood of major mistakes, and especially the unchecked occurrence of malicious hoaxes and fraud. You may defraud a scholarly journal, but you must do so by faking your evidence in a sophisticated way and getting it past the reviewers. All it takes to defraud Wikipedia and set fake facts loose is to log on and write -- or rewrite -- an entry. For the moment, I argue that prohibiting Wikipedia as a source will enhance the debate by increasing the pressure on Wikipedia to find a better correction mechanism. 4) Jill Walker writes, "Our department has recently instated a similar prohibition against using the Wikipedia as a source in student papers. Our line has been that the Wikipedia is one of many useful places to start doing research on a topic, but that it is rarely valid as a final source for research. Many articles do provide good overviews and more importantly, they often link to primary sources which CAN be good, citable resources in student papers." Thanks for this note. Again, I agree, and I find myself in agreement with the other issues she raises as well. One note: this is not a school policy. It is my own policy. I have proposed this at the department level, though, and I plan to take it up the line. 5) Ulf-Dietrich Reips correctly notes that I misspelled John Seigenthaler's name. Alas, I did so twice. And I just did it again before correcting myself. But my note was not the "source" on Seigenthaler, and the sources I gave had it right. Rather, this was an example. My note was a source of information on a situation and my action in response to the situation. -- Ken Friedman Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management Design Research Center Denmark's Design School email: ken.friedman(a)bi.no

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