Friends, Barry puts his finger on the issue that bothers me here. I agree with most of the posts on scholarly and theoretical issues, and certainly the posts on pedagogical issues. My strong stand on this case is simple. There seems to be no good way to correct seriously damaging information in a swift, rapid manner. My goal is to see some clear action taken that will enable this kind of information to be caught and corrected without the kind of lengthy process Seigenthaler's correction took, and I want to see it done in a way that allows for rapid flow-through correction to the sites and services that use Wikipedia. In that sense, you can consider this a kind of stubborn "sit-in" or a non-violent "fast." As to the rest of it, I agree, and I spend a great deal of time on many of these issues -- at least to the degree possible in courses that sometimes seem to have more required content than the semester allows while students are also overloaded with cases and projects in other courses that militate against the reflective, critical thinking many of us encourage. Yours, Ken -- Barry Wellman wrote: the current AOIR debate about Wikipedia highlights another problem. It is quite easy to make legally defamatory statements on Wikipedia. Normally, the remedy is a law suit for civil damages. But if the author is anonymous, whom does one sue? And yes, I know that defamation law suits are expensive and hard to do. But at least the legal remedy is there in principle -- when the author is known. But the Wikipedia approach is like someone flooding the mail with anonymous defamatory photocopies. -- -- 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@bi.no
Ken, I identify with all of your concerns, but I completely disagree with your reaction to them. Civil disobedience is about drawing attention to disenfranchised voices through collective non-violent action. But your voice is NOT disenfranchised. Quite the opposite - you are completely empowered to influence information quality on Wikipedia. You need only become a more active editor, and encourage your students and colleagues to do so as well. (I should take my own advice here!) It's simply that if we all followed your suggestion to boycott, we would have no Wikipedia at all, if we all took action and became more conscientious editors to any degree, we would have a Wikipedia that is more responsive to concerns about quality. --Judd --Judd Antin School of Information Management & Systems (SIMS) University of California Berkeley jantin@sims.berkeley.edu http://technotaste.com blog: http://technotaste.com/blog Ken Friedman wrote:
Friends,
Barry puts his finger on the issue that bothers me here. I agree with most of the posts on scholarly and theoretical issues, and certainly the posts on pedagogical issues.
My strong stand on this case is simple. There seems to be no good way to correct seriously damaging information in a swift, rapid manner.
My goal is to see some clear action taken that will enable this kind of information to be caught and corrected without the kind of lengthy process Seigenthaler's correction took, and I want to see it done in a way that allows for rapid flow-through correction to the sites and services that use Wikipedia.
In that sense, you can consider this a kind of stubborn "sit-in" or a non-violent "fast."
As to the rest of it, I agree, and I spend a great deal of time on many of these issues -- at least to the degree possible in courses that sometimes seem to have more required content than the semester allows while students are also overloaded with cases and projects in other courses that militate against the reflective, critical thinking many of us encourage.
Yours,
Ken
--
Barry Wellman wrote:
the current AOIR debate about Wikipedia highlights another problem. It is quite easy to make legally defamatory statements on Wikipedia.
Normally, the remedy is a law suit for civil damages.
But if the author is anonymous, whom does one sue?
And yes, I know that defamation law suits are expensive and hard to do. But at least the legal remedy is there in principle -- when the author is known. But the Wikipedia approach is like someone flooding the mail with anonymous defamatory photocopies.
--
There was no "lengthy process" wrt the Seigenthaler issue. The entry was made anonymously. It was not linked to any other entry on the system. It was only edited once. Because it was made anonymously and not linked, no one was watching it for changes. It sat there. Anyone who found it could've changed it but no one did. It could only be found by explicitly searching on the site for Seigenthaler's name. He did this and flipped. He complained to Wikipedia and they were IMMEDIATELY on alert. They edited the entry within a few hours and even volunteered to remove the entire history because entries should not be made in such a defamatory way. They also decided to make it impossible for new entries to be made anonymously because they want all entries to have people watching them (a formal process where people are alerted to changes to the article). *THEN* Seigenthaler wrote the USAToday piece complaining. Once Wikipedians were alerted, it was changed in hours. But no one altered someone because it was probably not seen by anyone. Seigenthaler is not that well known today and it's doubtful folks have been searching for him. Anyone could've altered the system by marking this as a problematic entry. No one did. Anyone could've informed Wikipedia and they would've changed it; no one did. For the vast majority of articles, there are people watching them, watching EVERY change. When people wipe an entry, or add biases, it changes within minutes. MINUTES. For the articles that are small, unlinked and anonymous, they're effectively invisible. This is what needs to change more than anything else. And this is what is changing. The hysteria around the Seigenthaler case is ridiculous. I have lots of problems with Wikipedia but this is a hyped up situation that is so on the margins of the norm that it's foolish, not strong. On Dec 5, 2005, at 9:27 PM, Ken Friedman wrote:
My strong stand on this case is simple. There seems to be no good way to correct seriously damaging information in a swift, rapid manner.
It seems that you can not reconstitute the history of the fake bio on Wikipedia. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051212/ap_on_hi_te/wikipedia_fake_bio http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/business/media/11web.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx... Cheers F. Thomas Ken Friedman wrote:
Friends,
Barry puts his finger on the issue that bothers me here. I agree with most of the posts on scholarly and theoretical issues, and certainly the posts on pedagogical issues.
My strong stand on this case is simple. There seems to be no good way to correct seriously damaging information in a swift, rapid manner.
My goal is to see some clear action taken that will enable this kind of information to be caught and corrected without the kind of lengthy process Seigenthaler's correction took, and I want to see it done in a way that allows for rapid flow-through correction to the sites and services that use Wikipedia.
In that sense, you can consider this a kind of stubborn "sit-in" or a non-violent "fast."
As to the rest of it, I agree, and I spend a great deal of time on many of these issues -- at least to the degree possible in courses that sometimes seem to have more required content than the semester allows while students are also overloaded with cases and projects in other courses that militate against the reflective, critical thinking many of us encourage.
Yours,
Ken
--
Barry Wellman wrote:
the current AOIR debate about Wikipedia highlights another problem. It is quite easy to make legally defamatory statements on Wikipedia.
Normally, the remedy is a law suit for civil damages.
But if the author is anonymous, whom does one sue?
And yes, I know that defamation law suits are expensive and hard to do. But at least the legal remedy is there in principle -- when the author is known. But the Wikipedia approach is like someone flooding the mail with anonymous defamatory photocopies.
--
-- .......................................... Dr. Frank Thomas FTR Internet Research 93110 Rosny-sous-Bois France -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.13.13/198 - Release Date: 12/12/2005
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051212/ap_on_hi_te/wikipedia_fake_bio
"He [Seigenthaler] also said he doesn't support more regulations of the Internet, but he said that he fears "Wikipedia is inviting it by its allowing irresponsible vandals to write anything they want about anybody." *sigh* Facts about our policies on vandalism are not hard to come by. A statement like Seigenthaler's, a statement that is egregiously false, would not last long at all at Wikipedia. For the record, it is just absurd to say that Wikipedia allows "irresponsible vandals to write anything they want about anybody." --Jimbo
On Monday 12 December 2005 13:07, Jimmy Wales wrote:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051212/ap_on_hi_te/wikipedia_fake_bio "He [Seigenthaler] also said he doesn't support more regulations of the Internet, but he said that he fears "Wikipedia is inviting it by its allowing irresponsible vandals to write anything they want about anybody."
*sigh* Facts about our policies on vandalism are not hard to come by. A statement like Seigenthaler's, a statement that is egregiously false, would not last long at all at Wikipedia.
Not trolling, just want to be clear: doesn't the WP architecture and policies allow "irresponsible vandals to write anything they want about anybody."? It's not condoned, counter to the norms, is eventually corrected -- sometimes immediately. I'm not getting the distinction you are drawing.
Joseph Reagle wrote:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051212/ap_on_hi_te/wikipedia_fake_bio
"He [Seigenthaler] also said he doesn't support more regulations of the Internet, but he said that he fears "Wikipedia is inviting it by its allowing irresponsible vandals to write anything they want about anybody."
*sigh* Facts about our policies on vandalism are not hard to come by. A statement like Seigenthaler's, a statement that is egregiously false, would not last long at all at Wikipedia.
Not trolling, just want to be clear: doesn't the WP architecture and policies allow "irresponsible vandals to write anything they want about anybody."? It's not condoned, counter to the norms, is eventually corrected -- sometimes immediately. I'm not getting the distinction you are drawing.
The distinction that I'm drawing can best be illustrated with my hopefully-someday-famous analogy between the design of software for social interactions and the design of restaurants. Imagine that we are designing a restaurant. This restuarant will serve steak. Because we are going to be serving steak, we will have steak knives for the customers. Because the customers will have steak knives, they might stab each other. Therefore, we conclude, we need to put each table into separate metal cages, to prevent the possibility of people stabbing each other. What would such an approach do to our civil society? What does it do to human kindness, benevolence, and a positive sense of community? When we reject this design for restaurants, and then when, inevitably, someone does get stabbed in a restaurant (it does happen), do we write long editorials to the papers complaining that "The steakhouse is inviting it by not only allowing irresponsible vandals to stab anyone they please, but by also providing the weapons"? No, instead we acknowledge that the verb "to allow" does not apply in such a situation. A restaurant is not _allowing_ something just because they haven't taken measures to _forcibly prevent it_ a priori. It is surely against the rules of the restaurant, and of course against the laws of society. Just. Like. Libel. If someone starts doing bad things in a restuarant, they are forcibly kicked out and, if it's particularly bad, the law can be called. Just. Like. Wikipedia. I do not accept the spin that Wikipedia "allows anyone to write anything" just because we do not metaphysically prevent it by putting authors in cages. --Jimbo
participants (6)
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danah boyd -
Frank Thomas -
Jimmy Wales -
Joseph Reagle -
Judd Antin -
Ken Friedman