User:TCS 191/Know it All: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?

Annals of Information

"Know it All: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?" is an article written by Stacy Schiff of The new Yorker. 

The article is an informative piece to show readers the history of the encyclopedia and how it varies from Wikipedia.

Summary and Critiques

 * The article first talks about how much more massive Wikipedia can be than a standard encyclopedia. It does this by compiling a list of random articles featured on Wikipedia.  This contributes very little to the overal effect of the article because a long paragraph could be shrunk down to a few sentences.  One statistic that is interesing to note is that the site generates more traffic than MSNBCC.com, Times, and Wall Street Journal combined and that the number of visitors has been doubling every four months, with the site receiving as many as fourteen thousand hits per second.  Information missing from this statistic at this point in the article that is important to note is how few people actually write and contribute to the articles on the page.  Extremely few users of sites like Wikipedia and YouTube contribute material compared to the number that views it.


 * The article points out that articles are not safe from vandalism by saying that "pettiness, idiocy, and vulgarity are regular features of the site." I guess this experiment will prove a point, won't it?


 * The history of the encyclopedia is then described. If you want more information on that, I'm sure there is already an article about it on the site.  Next, the article explains some history behind the creator of Wikipedia, Wales, and what lead to him wanting to create the site.  Much of the inspiration behind the site came, surprising, from a manifesto written in 1945.  Friedrich Hayek's "The Use of Knowledge in Society," the free-market manifesto from which Wales drew is inspiration, argued that truth is established only after people combine their knowledge.  It's interesting that a concept created before social networking technology could be one of the most important facts about Web 2.0 technologies.


 * Information about, the history of, and cultural influences of Wikipedia and the encyclopedia is then explained in what seems to be unnecessary detail . All the information in the article seems like it was just pulled from the Wikipedia articles written about the subjects, and this causes readers to doubt the journalistic abilities of Schiff.  The importance of the creation of community is then explained.  But this community seems weak when it is found that fewer than 2% of registered users are responsible for about 70% of the content on the site.  The article describes on user, Essjay, who is a Ph.D, and his user experience on the site, including is contribution and editing history before referencing an interview with William Connoley, a climate modeler at the British Antarctic Survey who discusses the issues with people with no knowledge of a subject trying to contribute to the site.  The article then explains how vandals are still a serious problem on the site and its credibility.  It states that despite surveillance and an increased number of admins that the site is still constantly modified to contain falsified information.  This is why some pages are locked, preventing edits from being made.


 * Next, the accuracy of Wikipedia is questioned. It is shocking that in a survey the site had four errors for every three of Britannica's.  That is a surprisingly good accuracy rate.  The site is praised for its breadth, efficiency, and accessibility, but these traits are also described as flaws.  The article cites the fact that the bulk of information on the site is cited from online sources, rather than print, which means that their is a higher chance for error.  But the breadth of information online, which is commonly compiled on Wikipedia, is much more useful than the limited information offered in many print encyclopedias.  Not to mention the fact that it is accessible at all times makes it more useful than print encyclopedias as well.