User talk:Shuo Xiang

 

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Please avoid spamming talk pages of Wikipedians; you may want to try the Community_Portal? NSL E (T+C) at 04:20 UTC (2006-03-10)


 * Actually, I think the Village pump is a better place. There are instructions there. NSL E (T+C) at 04:24 UTC (2006-03-10)


 * Ummm, I don't quite get your question about redirecting? What do you mean by a non-existent Wikipedia entry? NSL E (T+C) at 04:56 UTC (2006-03-10)


 * Firstly, there's no need to create a new header each time, especially if it's about the same subject - just use the contents, click on the subject header, and click the small 'edit' button you see next to the header. About redirecting and such, the format is

Hope that helps. NSL E (T+C) at 05:00 UTC (2006-03-10)
 * 1) REDIRECT existing article's name

Survey response

 * 1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful?

In rough order of importance: That it is free, that anyone can easily edit it without having an account, the technology ("wikimedia" or whatever it is called), the seeming comprehensiveness, and, as the success grew, the popularity drove people to ensure their knowledge on subjects was well represented (as in fairly, comprehensively, accurately, and understably), and the communitarian nature of the project.


 * 2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?

Wikipedia needs to be governed by experts in the field. Over-zealous amateurs and ignorance can be controlled through expert attention and intervention to articles. Failing that, Wikipedia will be only, at maximum credibility, as credible as the public sees it: which is as credible as it is to the non-expert majority.


 * 3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run?

No. Wikipedia relies, and due to its dynamic nature will continue to rely, heavily on sources such as Encyclopedia Britannica for primary knowledge and fact correction. The study which showed Wikipedia is just as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica fails to take into account that the reason is highly likely due to Wikipedia's "piggyback" kind of reliance on sources such as Encyclopedia Britannica. Additionally, fighting between editors often severely corrupts articles into an unreadable rhetorical jumble, and sometimes borders on rhetorical manipulation of the audience. Additionally, special interests group have a political/financial/personal interest in promoting their view and, in the event that it can be financed, unethical businesses, persons, and politicians can and will use Wikipedia to advertise and manipulate readers. Wikipedia is likely to eventually, and possibly inevitably, turn into something far different than a traditional Encyclopedia, and I believe it cannot achieve the "ultimate and sole encyclopedia" status without first succumbing to a transformation into something different--a huge set of amateur blogs, where amateurs fight for dominion over certain articles. --Ben 08:40, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

...Of HereToHelp

 * 1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful?

Wikipedia is easily accessible, both in sense of being online with more way to find stuff than by an A-Z listing, and that is free and licensed under the GFDL. All of the information is in one place, rather than hunting it down on Google. Mistakes are easily fixed; vandalism is soon corrected.


 * 2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?

It would help if we could actually have a panel of real experts to review and write articles in conjuntion with us. Of course, that can still be messed up by anyone; "stable versions" are necessary for the online form. For 1.0, we'd just have the stable versions on there (and maybe way to update them).


 * 3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run?

Wikipedia will never be as accurate as Britannica because it allows anyone to edit it. Britannica will never be as large or in-dpeth as Wikipedia for the exact same reason. Review by real experts (see above answer) would certainly help. And besides, Britannica can't be distributed for free. Wikipedia can be, and is.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 12:12, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Here to help!
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful?


 * I personally think it's the aspect of working with such a large community on a fully customizable and workable atmosphere. When you check out standard websites, it's a 'look but not touch' aspect. Wikipedia removes this aspect and gives people more freedom on the internet to tell of their knowledge on various subjects. The amount of articles on Wikipedia also warrant it interest, as almost anything can be found, and if somebody can't find something they know about, they can easily make a new article on it.

2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?


 * Unfortunately, as we know, Wikipedia does have a lack of experts in various fields, and this can cause some problems. This can be shown via a comparison in experts of, say, Craniometry to the fictional work of Star Trek. Wikipedia needs to expand it's base to everybody in the world and improve it's image. Additionally, groups of experts should come together and develop groups for themselves (such as we have groups for improving articles, et al). For example, a number of law enforcement officers could form their own group and work on subjects related to the law.

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run?


 * This is a yes and no answer. Yes, Wikipedia can emerge over Encyclopedia Britannica by the number of articles one can access and how much information somebody can locate on various articles. On the other hand, many articles have little information on their subjects, or are inaccurate, which Britannica can overcome Wikipedia on. For the answer of no, Wikipedia is a free-edit website and can be prone to hoaxes, inaccurate information, vandalism and poor writing. Though there have been instances of inaccurate information in Britannica, it does not have hoaxes, vandalism (of course) and poor writing. Britannica will always have the upper hand in this situation.

Good luck with your essay! - Enzo Aquarius 15:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Response to Shuo Xiang survey
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful?

- Ease of use (to find information and to participate) - Simplicity - The fact that because its an enciclopedia - it covers any subject - and I believe encourages people to contribute within their areas of expertise

2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?

- I dont believe in silver bullets. The credibility of the information in wikipedia will be built with time and usage.. getting good or bad credibility depending on what users/people hear & see about wikipedia - I think the fact that others can edit the articles, and discuss about them openly helps to the credibility - I also think it would help to have an area where false information within wikipedia is exposed would be useful - This is, if people demonstrate that something published is incorrect o false ==> this is clearly exposed

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run?

- I think that Encylopedia Britannica might learn from wikipedia and build on it.

- I dont believe in absolutes, so cannot agree with the statement that wikipedia will emerge as the sole encyclopedia.. but i do believe it has a strong potential.

Dystopos response

 * 1) Instant gratification for contributions.
 * 2) There is no silver bullet. Existing efforts to establish sources for content are helpful.
 * 3) Britannica is already a footnote in the "comprehensiveness" category. The obvious value of Wikipedia calls into question the nature of 'authoritativeness' and credibility for all sources of information, not just for  Wikipedia. --Dystopos 18:13, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Aguerriero survey response
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful?

The two main factors that make it successful are the fact that anyone can contribute, and that it is community moderated. There is an incredible wealth of knowledge in the global population - it is likely that anyone you meet has a depth of knowledge about something, whether it be farming, auto repair, fashion, films, popular culture, politics, etc. Since the Wikipedia community is self-moderating, there is a relatively low tolerance for people contributing substandard or false material.

2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is more credible than the mainstream information sources because it is community moderated. Instead of reading something that was reviewed by one fact-checker and one editor, you are reading something that has been reviewed by dozens or more of interested parties. The media that claim Wikipedia suffers from credibility problems need to realize that nothing is more powerful than the people.

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run?

The scope of Wikipedia already far exceeds that of any other encyclopedic information source. Britannica, for example, does not contain information about much of popular culture (film, TV, novels, video games, etc) and cannot evolve nearly as quickly. I predict that Wikipedia will emerge in popular culture as an ultimate (but not sole) information source.

Aguerriero 18:28, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Survey response from Cynical
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful? A: So far, Wikipedia has been successful because of its community spirit. Everyone, whether they have 5 edits or 5000, feels like they belong to something important. Whether that spirit will survive the current situation (flamewars, abuse of admin power, and general contempt for ordinary users) is a different question.

'''2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?''' A: I don't think it's a fundamental problem with Wikipedia per se, but a problem with encyclopedias. In the same way that I wouldn't think of using Wikipedia in an academic essay, I wouldn't think of using Britannica or Encarta either. Encyclopedias and academic textbooks are two entirely different things, and the fact that Wikipedia does not pretend to be both is a strength, not a failing.

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run? A: I think it's already happening. Sure, among those who don't have the internet, paper encyclopedias will continue to be important, but ask someone under 40 in the Western world which they read most often, Wikipedia or Britannica, and the answer would probably be Wikipedia. Wikipedia already has over 15 times as many articles as Britannica (8 times as many as the online version), and Wikipedia is still growing at a significant rate whereas Britannica is not. I don't think Britannica will ever disappear completely, but in comparison to Wikipedia it will become (and to some extent already is, when you consider coverage) utterly irrelevant.

Glad I could help! Cynical 23:13, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Survey Response
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful?

People love being able to contribute. What we have here is a community founded on knowledge, where community is the key and knowledge is what lies beyond.

'''2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?'''

I believe a less inclusive enviroment is necessary. There should be a system that requires a user to slowly earn his way to being able to contribute significantly.

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run?

I sure hope it doesn't drive any other source in obsoloscence. Wikipedia is a third-tier source. It relies on second-hand information as it is. If Wikipedia is the primary source, what validates its contents?

ProfMoriarty 00:40, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Response to Survey
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful?

There are three main factors that make Wikipedia so succesful. It is a free source of information, not an expensive encyclopedia that just takes up space. Anyone can edit a Wikipedia article, and that gives users a sense of power, flexibility, responsibilty, and peace of mind. Wikipedia also gives you a sense of community; you feel as if you're working with (mostly) intelligent people all here for a common goal: to put all the knowledge of the world in one spot. People enjoy using Wikipedia because of this.

'''2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?'''

It seems as if the only way that people are going to trust Wikipedia is if only people with credentials can edit the articles. However, this takes away the main point of a Wiki: anyone can edit it. Wikipedia has made several strong steps in the right direction, such as making users register before they can edit articles. Wikipedia has several editors to double-check information before it gets to popular. But I doubt that Wikipedia will be trusted by most people unless we remove the 'Wiki'.

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run?

I believe that Wikipedia could emerge as the ultimate enyclopedia containing the sum of all human knowlegde, but only if we have dedicated users, and people really know about Wikipedia. This is a great idea for a wiki, and it's become increasingly popular, but I believe that Wikipedia could use an add compaign of some sort. Television, radio, and internet advertising are all appealling options, though Television and radio probably aren't practical considering Wikimedia's budget.

Thank you for the opputinity to thing about these things 'and' to help someone.

--G_O_T_R 01:08, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Survey Response from witty lama
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful?

The openness. The "pure democracy" of it's administration allows people to feel a sense of control in a world where control of most things are becoming more and more removed. The medium. The internet is the perfect platform for this kind of project. It is at once universally accessible, anonymous, fluid and "free".

'''2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?'''

Wikipedia will always suffer from people detracting from its credibility however this is likely to decrease in the future. I believe this will be because the number of editors will increase which will necessarily include some of the people who currently detract from it. Furthermore with increasing commentary from "real" media (such as the recent Nature article) will raise it's stature.

What would be really good for the credibility is if there were some scandal or event of global significance which Wikipedia/Wikinews broke first and then covered better/more objectively than any other media outlet. This would work best if a wiki editor found themselves in a situation and managed to communicate it to the rest of the world using the WP platform. (much like the Bagdhad blogger did).

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run? Yes. Most definately. Especially if Wikipedia 1.0 were published and recieved popular acclaim outside of the normal Wikipedia demographics.

Witty lama 02:47, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Survey By Tutmosis
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful? The fact that people are allowed to contribute anything they know to the public. If they do not know anything the idea of being part of such a large project is also attractive. Humans usually have a drive to teach/tell others anything they know.

'''2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?''' Lack of credibility will always remain to some degree due to the known risk of vandalism. Someone might change a number and someone on the other side of the world reads it and receives the wrong information. Most credibility issues right now come from criticism of the quality of articles. No silver bullet needed here, just more time and more contributors.

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run?'

Definetely, eventually Wikipedia will become the main information resource due to free, simple, unlimited, accessable information.

Tutmosis 04:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Survey answers

 * 1. Anyone can touch anything, No limits.
 * 2. Stable versions. Articles won't deteriorate that easily, experts will be encouraged to contribute, dealing with vandalism will be limited.
 * 3. No, not in current form. It is possible to come up with much better software system and eventually someone will. Wikipedia will, however, likely serve as an example and base. Pavel Vozenilek 14:56, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Love Wikipedia!
1. It's huge. It's free. It's surprisingly well written. It's a not-for-profit community project, and that makes people who enjoy it want to take part and give back to the community.

2. Wikipedia doesn't need any silver bullet. It's credibility problems will resolve themselves eventually as more and more people come to accept the concept. Lack of credibility is a fundamental property of newspapers, but that doesn't seem to deter people from reading and citing them. In my opinion, it's just a matter of getting used to the new medium.

3. I've no doubt that Wikipedia would emerge as the ultimate encyclopedia. In fact, I believe that it already has eclipsed Britannica as far as internet-savvy individuals are concerned.

EladKehat 19:23, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Response from User:Durova
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful? The project's openness brings in a lot of people. It also incorporates several internal features that make useful contributions more likely to be retained than destructive contributions. That effect snowballed after the project reached a certain level of success.

For instance, any visitor can hit the "edit this page" button and change text. If the change is helpful then it will probably remain on the page. If it's basically good but has a couple of typing errors then someone will correct the spelling. If it's juvenile vandalism, then the next editor can revert the damage in under 5 seconds.

Another thing that works in the project's favor is that contributors develop a track record. Anyone can view my user talk, user page, and edit history. They can see this information for any editor. In the very short run, yes, it's possible to vandalize and misuse Wikipedia. That sort of behavior leaves an electronic trail that soon becomes obvious. People who help the encyclopedia get support and encouragement. People who harm it find themselves being shut out.

Suppose I've just spotted a subtle piece of vandalism: someone changed some code and suppressed a link to the Russian language edition of an article. It doesn't matter whether the vandal came along five minutes ago or last month: Wikipedia has a feature that highlights this sort of change. In less time than it took them to vandalize three pages I can track their edit history, undo any other damage that hasn't been corrected yet, and - if it's recent and serious enough - get them blocked from the site.

On the positive side, Wikipedia has some community awards called barnstars. Editors who make positive contributions are likely to collect barnstars on their user pages. People also list other accomplishments: articles they've created, articles they've improved to Good Article or Featured Article status. All of these claims are easy to verify with a few mouse clicks.

'''2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?''' I don't have a complete solution to that question, but I think I can answer parts of it. One of the simplest administrative fixes that would raise the quality would be to require AOL users to register in order to contribute. Unlike most providers, AOL logs in its users through a variable range of IP addresses. Some users exploit that to vandalize the project, knowing that thousands of legitimate users would be blocked out from the project if one troublemaker gets disciplined. Registration provides at least a limited form of accountability. The project has taken baby steps in that direction.

The project is moving toward greater credibility in other ways. The Featured Article program has been steadily raising its standards. These days it takes a good bibliography and several dozen line citations to get an article featured in the English language edition. There's also a project to release a Wikipedia 1.0 - something like a CD-ROM edition of the project's better and more stable articles.

In my opinion there's an important gap that still needs to be closed: Wikipedia doesn't really have a standard yet for what universities would call academic honesty. Copyright violations get pursued vigorously, but a few editors are more cunning than that. Occasionally I uncover citations that really don't support the claims in an article. Under the present policies Wikipedia handles that under the umbrella of "original research," which is forbidden, but I'd like to see the project treat the matter more stringently. A few of these instances are plainly fraudulent. It does greater harm to the project to fake footnotes than to write "Mike loves Kristen" on a few articles, but it's far easier to get the latter person blocked.

Now that the project is number 19 on Alexa we also get a few people who really want to use it as a soapbox or who try to form interest blocs within the project to push a particular agenda. Most of the time that effort doesn't get very far, but there's a steady trickle of people who still attempt it.

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run? From what I've read the Britannica editors are worried about us. They should be. In the long run I think they'll have trouble competing. There's no way they can hire enough people to compete with the volume of articles at Wikipedia. Where they come out ahead - so far - is on consistency and editorial review.

However, anyone who has a good education and a few areas of expertise could critique the articles in Britannica and find errors in the subjects they know best. One area I happen to know well is Joan of Arc. When I read Britannica's article I nearly gag at the line that describes her parents as tenant farmers. That's simply wrong: they didn't rent, they were modest landowners. They had fifty acres and the house where they lived still stands. I can't edit Britannica: the best I could do is send an e-mail and hope someone pays attention. At Wikipedia I put that into the article and cited a leading historian.

Wikipedia hasn't matured yet. As I look at the next five years I think we'll see it become more robust and systematic. There's a project within the encyclopedia that identifies featured articles in other languages and encourages translation. The English edition doesn't have a featured article about Abraham Lincoln, but the German edition does. I predict more cross pollenation in the next few years. One article I improved that way is Pierre Cauchon, the leading judge in Joan of Arc's trial. Four months ago the English edition had two sentences about him. The French article wasn't feature quality, but it went into considerable depth about his life and career. I translated the text and found an image of the man from a period manuscript at the multi-language Wikimedia Commons. Now - instead of just two lines about a person Britannica wouldn't cover at all - there's a biography that would fill about 3 printed pages.

Multilingual collaborations are another expanding area. I worked with two Russian editors to create an article about my username namesake, the first female officer of the Russian army: Nadezhda Durova. They brought information that I couldn't have added. She's been the subject of an opera, an operetta, a play, a film, and even a public statue. Most of that material has never been translated into English. My fluency in this language (English, not Russian) made the English article better than they could have written. Wikipedia fosters that sort of synergy.

Right now Wikipedia's most rapid growth isn't its overall article output. That's fairly stable. The real expansion is in specialty projects to improve specific aspects of the encyclopedia. I joined WikiProject Military history less than six months ago as number 36 on their member list. That's grown to 138 names now. Several subprojects called "task forces" recently started. I began one exactly seven days ago, WikiProject Military history/Middle Ages task force, that's already grown to 10 members. Different people contribute in different ways. Some editors concentrate on improving a single article. Other editors do housekeeping chores: creating a coherent category structure, sorting stubs, and generally making sure that whatever information the encyclopedia has about - let's say Medieval weapons - is easy for readers to locate and navigate.

Essentially, Wikipedia owes a lot of its growth to the fifteen-year-old smart alec that hides within so many people, the kid who scribbled corrections into the margins of library books. Wikipedia grants that impulse honor and legitimacy. So there's my reply to your query - much longer than I had intended to write - and I hope it helps your class assignment.

Regards, Durova 01:17, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Survey Response
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful? I believe that what makes Wikipedia successful is the fact that anyone can edit it. Some people debate this, claiming that this makes is unreliable as a source, but I disagree. This system would seem to do the opposite. Yes, there are those who vandalize articles, but every article is on at least someone's watchlist, and so vandalism is quickly reverted. The fact is, there are a lot of people out there who like to share knowledge, for many reasons. In addition, competition plays a large part in article success. When there are multiple users editing an article, there is a competitive drive to have the best edits, the ones that last the longest and are most valued.

'''2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?'''I do not believe a "silver bullet" is necessary. As any scholar will tell you, any source of information must be taken with a grain of salt, including more reputable encyclopedias like Britannica. Given time, Wikipedia will become more credible with the public, indeed it is already starting as evidenced by the recent use of it as a resource by politicians.

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run? In some regards, yes it will. Wikipedia is already a far superior source of cultural things: I doubt Britannica will ever have an article about leetspeak, or anything about the majority of video games. In addition, there are several other topics which are not covered in Brittanica, somehow can't see Britannica having small towns or obscure articles (like several of those in Unusual Articles), and in their hardcopy versions at least they will never have an easier categorization proccess. Of course, Britannica has been around much longer than Wikipedia, and it is doubtful that it will ever become completely obsolete, which may not be a bad thing. Niroht 18:30, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

carptrash's reply to your survey
1. It is honest, straightforward all inclusive and all encompassing. We live in the information age, and wikipedia is what that means. On wikipedia we are all constantly helping each other communicate better. For example, in your question 3, I would drop the work "would" for the word "will."

2. Time will solve this problem.

3. I don't know. We are just entering the information age and I have no idea where it will go. I am a book person and I do not believe that the internet will make books obsolete. But we shall see. Carptrash 09:02, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Shuo
Your idea is nice and the questions are proud.


 * 1 - Success calls for success. What is to be noted is the english WP success, as plenty of other language WPs are quite poor. Also, when you try random pages and not pages you are interested in, there is plenty of - crap. So, to beat up Britannica (question 3), there is plenty of work to be done.
 * 2 - Silver bullet ? There is no magic. Only vigilance from most of honest WPians. Damaged articles are spotted in minutes and fixed quickly. Shall someone try to extract good enough pages and seal them one day ? Also, newspapers and TV news are not so accurate (politics, propaganda, POV, &c.), so the risk may be elsewhere.
 * There are many other risks. The first encyclopedia did not claim its need for sources all the time. Personal research, POV (against religion, monarchy ...) was discretely encouraged. The sources here, when based on Internet sites, last an average two years (I'm generous), so the links need constant verification. Information found here about records, TV series, people is sometimes irrelevant because based upon marketing and nothing else. No one seems really to know where WP goes and still it lasted some years : cybernetics (the art of steering) help a lot avoiding reefs, but where is the land to conquer ?


 * 3 - Britannica might be dead : costly and not freely contributed. But let's see. --DLL 19:17, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Add to #2 (risks) : Subject of the month - I wrote to a dozen people about it ... "Are you aware of this Wikipedia talk:Censorship ?" --DLL 20:31, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Responses from JFAS
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful?


 * The ability for *anyone* to quickly add content without having to worry about formatting issues.

2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?


 * 1) Awareness. Anyone who has used the wikipedia knows the credibility problems are overblown.
 * 2) More users.  I find most vandalism disappears within 3 minutes.   With more users that could be down to seconds.

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run?


 * It already is the best encyclopedia, but it will never contain the sum of all human knowledge.

Justforasecond 19:51, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

survey response --Halcatalyst 00:42, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful?

[This is a leading question. What if I don't agree that it's successful? But I do.] (a) huge level of participation (b) desire to share knowledge (c) desire to show off knowledge (d) cameraderie once one gets involved (e) subscription to the idea that my ideas combined with those of others are better than my ideas alone (which is the basic assumption of scholarship and scientific investigation) (f) willingness to forego the credit

2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?

I think they're talking about "stable articles," where once an article gets to a certain level of quality it would be sorta "walled off." Not that it couldn't change, but there would be some control by experts. In this case, many articles would be what they are now -- no better or worse than what they actually are, i.e., it depends on what article you're talking about. The point is, on articles that really matter, lots of people get involved. I believe there naturally develops a critical community of knowledgeable persons who prevail because of the value of what they say, not because of some perceived reputation. Consequently, no "respect of persons," only attention to what the article is actually saying and some critical consensus. Also, the issues are fought out on the talk pages, behind the scenes in a sense, and not in the highly contentious journals where, among other things, people try to establish their reputations, get good jobs, make their marks, become rich and famous, etc.

Wikipedia could publish these articles separately and designate the rest as Work in Progress. Hey, there might even be a charge for the material, though that might violate the WP philosophy. I don't really care, myself.

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run?

It could happen. Depends on a lot of factors. I hope not. That's an attitude I hated in the corporate world: that it was a good idea, no, you had to destroy your competition. Au contraire, you need your competition. It makes you and your product better.

Best wishes in your project. --Halcatalyst 00:42, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

strangely useless answers

 * 1) It was easily accessible when I were bored.
 * 2) Familiarity may be the best silver bullet to kill the werewolf of credibility although lack of credibility may be inherent in its make-up. Personally I think a little less credibility is usually a good thing; nevermind cite your sources, doubt your sources. An open mind and waryness in everything you read is desirable. The fluid nature of the internet and a wiki in general rings alarm bells for many, the sort of concern which should be applied to mashed tree literature more readily.
 * 3) Lets hope not. It may defeat Britannica but if it becomes the only source of knowledge then it will be tyranny "The letter killeth". As for "the sum of all human knowledge" that is ridiculous. Have you seen how much time is spent on talk pages sifting, deleting, tempering, summerising and liquidizing information. Where is the free expression, the crazyness, the humour, the nonsense, the speeling mistakes. There may be some but certainly not enough. There is so much it could, but would be better if it did not, contain. The Internet has the potential as a "sum" but it is still far from it, Wikipedia should only be one variable in the sum. MeltBanana  01:46, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Survey Response from Superm401
For your convenience, this response is released into the public domain.


 * 1) The Wikipedia project is successful primarily because of its intricate logging mechanisms. Any change can be quickly undone, and reputation is ensured because complete records of every person's action are kept.  The ease of editing is obviously the second most important factor.  Wikipedia is not built by solely the administrators, or the featured article writers, or even the registered users.  It is built up gradually, and sometimes awkwardly, by the newbies together with the vital people I mentioned before.
 * 2) The silver bullet to Wikipedia's credibility problems is not a central authority, "editorial validation" ( we're the validators ) or stable versions but simply to cite liberally. Of course it is not truly a silver bullet; nothing is.  People will cite unreputable and sometimes fictitious sources.  They will lie continue to lie about what sources contain.  However, Wikipedia will benefit greatly if everpresent citation, even of apparently minor details, becomes part of the culture here.  This barely restricts contributions, because it is usually easy to find a source for information you know well.  When citations are commonplace, though, the lies and misstatementes without them become glaring and more likely to be removed.  Free citation will have other beneficial effects as well, such as a more professional attitude.  Though this is a social problem, which technology alone can never solve, I believe standardizing on the Cite extension could be very helpful.
 * 3) I certainly hope Wikipedia does not become either the ultimate or sole encyclopedia, because either word requires the elimination of all other enyclopedias; this is not desirable. Wikipedia will never become the sum of all human knowledge either, but this is a worthy ideal. We have already overpowered Encyclopedia Brittanica in all possible senses except perceived crediblity.  Our traffic reach, according to Alexa, is already more than 50 times EB's; we have more than five times the content, as measured by words.  As for EB becoming obselete, that is uncertain.  What is certain is that many encyclopedias have in the past but Wikipedia probably never will.  This is because it is freely licensed content, and copies are held around the world.  Thus, it is highly likely EB will  cease to exist before Wikipedia.  This is not to say another proprietary encyclopedia won't replace it.

--Superm401 - Talk 03:26, 15 March 2006 (UTC) (Matthew Flaschen)
 * Thank you. I must confess that I read only part of the paper, but it appeared thoughtfully and fairly done; excellent job. Superm401 - Talk 22:45, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Survey response
(I've deliberately not read the rest of your talk page before posting this:)


 * 1) The fact that the base of interested editors seems to be scaling nicely with the size of the overall project.  This has two important consequences -- firstly, Linus Torvald's dictum "With enough eyes, all bugs are shallow" applies in spades, and secondly, there are enough people around keeping an eye on things that vandals get bored of being reverted.  There is a plausible catastrophic possible failure mode of Wikipedia where it's completely overrun by vandals, but it looks like we've avoided it.
 * 2) Like the spoon and the cabal, there is no silver bullet.  Some people are never going to be satisfied with Wikipedia's credibility because of the very nature of the processes that are also its greatest strength.  Frankly, the only reason those people come here is to find things that they can point-and-laugh at and we should stop pandering to them and getting all upset when they pooh-pooh us.  Being a wiki means that at any given time there are always going to be some pages that are bad in some way shape or farm -- as an extreme example, the other day the database was frozen just before I was about to revert a nonsense edit on evolution, and it was stuck that way for 45 minutes.  IMO the way for the vast majority of non-editing users to get to the stage where they can use Wikipedia well (which means not trusting it implicitly, but rather being able to recognise when they're looking at an article with problems) is for us to be completely transparent and leave all the construction work out in the open.  IMO the immediatist movement's attempts to deal with our credibility issues by trying to tidy everything up as quickly as possible and delete things that aren't unencyclopedic but just difficult to fix is immensely damaging to this user education process.
 * 3) There will always be a place for a thoroughly checked, comprehensive in "important areas of human knowledge" encyclopedia.  Wikipedia 1.0 might just possibly supplant Britannica (if it makes the "right" decisions about what to include).  But the failure of Nupedia is instructive -- trying to build something that fits in Britannica's ecological niche without paying a lot of people substantial sums of money is going to be tricky this side of the establishment of a post-scarcity economy.  And there will be a place for a paper encyclopedia for a lot longer than some people think -- old habits die hard.

--Bth 08:47, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Grumpy geeky PS: .htm is not "old school", it's the unfortunate consequence of DOS-based file-extensions-must-be-three-letters-no-more-no-less systems being used for web authoring. .html is far more authentic. The fact that the web seems to have caught back up to it is a great source of joy to me. Kudos in writing your backend in C, though.

Response from Taxman
1. The biggest is probably the desire to contribute something to helping people. Combine that with the enjoyment of doing good work and producing something of quality and having people see that. The next is probably the fact that the Wiki tools allow healing damage with basically less effort than it takes to damage the content which keeps content quality high enough to get and keep people interested.

2. Verified citations and stable versions. There are a number of tools in the works to provide these, though the stable versions is farther ahead and seems ready to go real soon now. Verified citations would allow marking a citation by a number of trusted editors or verified experts that the cited resource does in fact assert what the citation says it does. Stable versions could come in a number of forms anywhere from marking the oldid of an article that is considered to be very good, to a separate branch allowing only expert or trusted contributors to edit.

3. The combination of the tools mentioned in my second answer could concievably bring some Wikipedia content to the limit of information quality that could be achieved by a group. If that's too optimistic it seems likely those processes could easily bring higher information quality than Britannica or other traditional reference works. If that does happen it certainly won't be for quite some time as the current content is of very uneven quality. The volunteer based process we have probably can't solve the unevenness so it will take time to get all basic articles to a certain very high quality level. - Taxman Talk 15:13, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Survey
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful?
 * Why the collaborative aspect of course. Setting aside the obvious point I think that a high level of democracy, transparency and flexibility have been the key factors. Flexibility meaning few rules which is open to interpretation - this opens up for a lot of "erroneus" posts but dosn't limit the flow of posts either which is important if we wish to keep the momentum. The size of Wikipedia also limits the inevitable formation of cabals as seen on many other websites - which is extremely important.

2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?
 * It will remain a fundamental problem. However, as time goes by I'm certain focus will shift to improving articles rather than creating new ones. New methods and techniques will be improved as well. Wikipedia is still in its infancy and I'm certain it will improve vastly over time.

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run?
 * No. Brittanica will always have a place for serious research. You can't base your Phd. or Bach. on Wikipedia - you need something else for that. But for the common man who dosn't have 500 quid for an encyclopedia - and needs more than just academia related articles - wikipedia will be the thing'. The vastness of Wikipedia also ensures that it is a much better reference tool for some things - the amount of information is technically endless and it can in theory be organized in any number of ways. Limitless potential.Celcius 17:23, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

response to your survey
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful? The community of Wikipedians. The wiki technology enabled the encyclopaedia to be written, but it is the community who writes it, checks it and defends it from vandals.

''2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?'' I don't think there will be a single silver bullet, but a combination of growing accuracy, and slowly increasing realisation of this by more and more people. A few comparative studies, like the Nature one shortly before Christmas, that show that Wikipedia is more accurate than Britannica, et al will bring this belief in Wikipedia to more people, in a series of small bullets.

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run? I don't think that Wikipedia will ever be the sum of all human knowledge, but I can see a time when Wikipedia is considered the gold standard of encyclopaedic knowledge as Britannica is now. Paper based encylopaediae will become obsolete much sooner I think. Thryduulf 19:41, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

reply to survey
1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful?
 * A large group of people making a lot of small contributions (micro-investments).
 * (As a result of the above) a very broad coverage of subjects.

'''2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?'''
 * I think Wikipedia should eventually turn to a more closed form of editing for certain articles (articles which could be called "finished") and only allowed certain editors to modify the article or aprove changes suggested by the other editors. This should be done carefully though, as it would interfere with 1.1.

3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run?
 * I believe it would. I think EBs readership can be divided in two groups: the ordinary guy and the academic. For the oridinary guy Wikipedia's (acceptable) accuracy is good enough and value-for-money wise Wikipedia will by far out-do Britannica. For the academic EB will no longer suffice in the future; the number of articles in EB is far to small, forcing him or her to turn to either a specialized publication or Wikipedia.

Cheers, —Ruud 14:24, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Survey response by PS2pcGAMER
PS2pcGAMER (talk) 09:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Without a doubt, the credit goes to all of the hard working contributors, everyone from the anonymous editor who only has ever made a single typo fix to the editors with 30,000+ edits.
 * 2) That's a tough one.  For Wikipedia to gain the credibility that Encyclopedia Britannica, etc have may never happen.  However I believe it can get close.  Everyday the encyclopedia is improved and with more and more media exposure (well positive exposure), it helps to give Wikipedia credibility.
 * 3) That's another tough question.  I feel that Wikipedia in its current form will never gain credibility of a professional level.  However, if there were a fork that contained just the best articles it has the potential to be reliable, but it will take years until there are enough articles of that caliber to be of the level that Britannica is.

Even more responses

 * 1. In your opinion, what factors made the Wikipedia project so successful?
 * Free/unhindered contribution: everyone who gets the urge can click "edit" to correct/amend something.  This doesn't come without a price, though, as the vandal problem is evidence of.
 * Simple interface: getting to know wiki markup is simple, and then contributions improve. Being web-based makes it even more simple for end-users.

It depends on how you define "credible". If you feel that a single author (or a very limited amount of authors/reviewers) that have some form of "pedigree" can deliver a better, objective and neutral article than one that is constantly refined by multiple authors with varying POVs and backgrounds, then it would be an issue. I feel that any article on Wikipedia needs to be considered with that in mind, and then credibility should be weighed using a different scale: how many editors have been involved so far, how long has it existed, talk pages, etc.
 * 2. In your opinion, what "silver bullet" does Wikipedia need in order to resolve its credibility problems? Or is it the case that a lack of credibility is a fundamental property of Wikipedia?

It's already done that; we've surpassed the 1'000'000 article mark, and it continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. The issues that need to be overcome now isn't so much the management of information, but more the social/political aspects, such as managing the community better, how to be all-inclusive and friendly to people from various walks of life, etc. Human knowledge will never be completely recorded, which is why a dynamic platform such as Wikipedia will win over more 'static' ones such as E.B. and the rest of the 'traditional' encyclopedias.
 * 3. In your opinion, would Wikipedia emerge as the ultimate and sole encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge, overpowering Encyclopedia Britannica and driving it into obsolescence in the long run?

dewet|&trade; 14:54, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

thanks shou
I look forward to reading it and probably [i NEVER make promises any more] will drop you another line after wards, Life is good. Carptrash 23:27, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad with you
Go on, Shuo! be B.O.L.D! We rejoice with you! --DLL 20:05, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Congrats
I really enjoyed your work and I was glad that my response was at least partially useful. I was also thrilled to see my Wikipedian moniker listed at the bottom. Very good work. ProfMoriarty 22:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Essay suggestion
Hey, your essay has a bit of an awkward title. It'd probably be better off at Wikicommons... (it is under a free license, right? I mean, the irony of using GFDL replies to your survey, on a GFDL project, and having the final product be proprietary, while deeply amusing and hilarious, would also be a bit much to bear), or at least renamed to something more descriptive like. After all, someday someone else might want to write a similar essay. :) --maru  (talk)  contribs 01:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks and Glad to be of help
Hi Shuo Xiang,

I think the expression "You better do this... or I'm gonna get you!" is an excellent variation to the one I suggest, in fact, I think it's even better. Thanks for the award =), I'm glad I could be of help.

Good luck with your essay-project!

Alex Ng 19:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)