19.354 criticism of Wikipedia

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 354.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 08:01:17 +0100
         From: Norman Hinton <hinton_at_springnet1.com>
         Subject: [Fwd: [MEDIEV-L:44348] Founder criticizes Wikipedia]

-------- Original Message --------
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 22:22:17 -0700
From: Al Magary <al_at_magary.com>
Reply-To: MEDIEV-L_at_listproc.cc.ku.edu
To: Mediev-L <mediev-L_at_listproc.cc.ku.edu>

An article in the British Internet periodical, The Register, indicates
all is not well in the Wikipedia world:

     Wikipedia founder admits to serious quality problems

By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco

The Register, Tuesday 18th October 2005 03:48 GMT

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/18/wikipedia_quality_problem/print.html

Encouraging signs from the Wikipedia project, where co-founder and
=FCberpedian Jimmy Wales has acknowledged there are real quality problems
with the online work.

Criticism of the project from within the inner sanctum has been very
rare so far, although fellow co-founder Larry Sanger, who is no longer
associated with the project, pleaded with the management to improve its
content by befriending, and not alienating, established sources of
expertise. (i.e., people who know what they're talking about.)...

[The story reviews recent criticism and concludes as follows:]

One day Wikipedia may well be the most amazing reference work the world
has ever seen, lauded for its quality. But to get from here to there it
will need real experts and top quality writing - it won't get there by
hoping that its whizzy technical processes remedy such deficiencies. In
other words, it will resemble today's traditional encyclopedias far more
than it does today.

For now we simply welcome the candour: at least Wikipedia is officially
out of QD, or the "Quality Denial" stage.

--
Cheers,
Al Magary