Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-01-07/In the news

Wired Editor changed mind about Wikipedia
The World Question Center 2008 - Kevin Kelly, editor-at-large of Wired, initially believed that an encyclopedia that could be edited by anyone an impossibility, because it would be subject to a "propensity for mischief", which would exaggerate and falsify information. However, he admits that he was wrong, and that Wikipedia has surpassed his expectations. He states that the tools provided have helped allow the collaborative community to outpace the number of individuals "competing", and he makes a comparison with similar systems of collaboration in open-source systems. He believes that Wikipedia is an indication of something more fundamental that is happening - a new respect for sharing and collaboration, and a new obligation of the individual to the collective.

Analogy with traditional publishers
Wikipedia: A community of editors or a community of authors? The key idea from this article is that the model of production of content on Wikipedia is not that much different to that of traditional publishing houses, in the sense that the content is produced by a large number of authors, often with no interest in the editing process, while the content is edited and polished by a smaller core of editors. Valuing contributors in projects like Wikipedia, even when they are not in the committed core, is important, and the disdain for user-generated content from the traditional publishers is "so perplexing". The author believes that publishers should take note of what is going on, because it is "a different and better way of doing some tasks that publishers already perform".

Other mentions
Other mentions in the online press include:
 * Five Things Wikipedia's Founder Has Learned About Online Collaboration - Jimmy Wales identifies five factors that lead to success with online collaboration, including speed.
 * 10 people to watch in 2008 - Two of Veropedia's key people - Danny Wool and Terry Foote - have been involved with Wikipedia in the past.
 * Wikipedia founder launches search engine - Jimmy Wales' recent foray into search engines invites numerous mentions of Wikipedia.