Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-12-11/In the news

Wikipedia revolutionary but has shortcomings
CBS News covered Wikipedia on Sunday, 10 December. A Sunday Morning correspondent interviewed Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger regarding Wikipedia's revolutionary method of information sharing. The article discusses the Nature survey and mistakes which appear in articles since it can be edited at anytime by any person. Wales is quoted, "You need to have some consideration if you ... read something that seems a little crazy you should stop and think about it." Sanger confirmed the article's premise, "It is absolutely revolutionary. Scholarship, learning, is gonna change forever."

One year down, Law Professor still predicts Wikipedia's demise
Information Week covered a recent blog post from law professor, Eric Goldman that affirmed his prior blog from 4 December, 2005 that predicted that Wikipedia would fail within 5 years. Goldman focused on three perceived weaknesses: maintenance by a small core group of contributors, additional "bureaucracy and tight editorial control" diverge from the open-access claims, and a lack of incentives to keep contributing. Goldman notes that the attacks continue, sometimes spurred on by major media figures, but interestingly, Goldman failed to note the emergence of anti-vandal bots on Wikipedia, and their use to do some of the repetitive and unsatisfying tasks.

Japanese Wikipedia wins Web of the Year 2006
The Japanese Wikipedia won the Web of the Year 2006 from Yahoo! Japan Internet Guide. Wikipedia won the annual prize and was ranked 1st by many polls. Noting that Wikipedia is often cited as the beginning of Web 2.0, the article claims that Wikipedia is now utilized generally for information gathering (Article in Japanese).

Community collaboration to cost less
In a widely syndicated story from Reuters, Wikipedia was frequently mentioned in conjunction with the latest announcement from Wikia. Jimmy Wales announced that Wikia would provide free hosting services which would include providing open source applications, web storage, and bandwidth. See also The Age and InfoWorld.

Wikipedia as source

 * builder.com refers to Grace Hopper on the 100th anniversary of her birth.
 * honestreporting.com refers readers to Salam Daher to explain the confusion surrounding his name.
 * Editor and Publisher quotes the introduction from William Nolde in an article on the last soldier to die in the Vietnam War.
 * A press release from TD Canada Trust refers to Wikipedia for history on Automated Teller Machines.
 * An article on subsidsidized healthcare by KXMB-TV cites Wikipedia as a definitive source for the number of Americans signed up for Medicare and Medicaid.
 * The Statesman Journal refers to Wikipedia for a definition of governance.

Other news

 * Google announced on its Official Blog that Google Earth will now make Wikipedia articles available while looking at geographic information. Information from Wikipedia will be identified by the Wikipedia globe.
 * IT Week in discussing risks of allowing internet access at work, identified Wikipedia as susceptible to "pesky malware writers" while recognizing the "threats are mainly theoretical."
 * The Roanoke Times noted that a local dispute regarding Carilion Health System included recent edits on Wikipedia criticising chief executive Dr. Edward Murphy.