Category: News

D’oh

I forgot about my 5th blogiversary. 17 June 2004 on Blogspot. Oh my.

(Although it won’t be 5 years at this URL until the end of July. Maybe we should have a party then.)

Wikipedia in the news (again): reputation and status

Yesterday I noted this Guardian article, ‘Wikipedia editors may approve all changes’.

Now, as it turns out, that headline is highly inaccurate. It seems that the ‘Flagged Revisions’ system would in fact only apply to a certain subset of Wikipedia articles (biographies of living people) and (I think) to new/unregistered users. The article doesn’t tell you this, and in spite of the fact that this is an article about the internet, it contains no links to further external sources of information that might.

Today, the [sarcasm alert] well-known Web2.0 expert Marcel Berlins has waded into the debate. His piece does at least contain some links to Wikipedia pages, possibly because it’s a CIF (“C*ntishness is Free”) blog post/op-ed, rather than a news article. But still no links to the sources of the story.

Why is it too much to ask for a link to the actual web page where Jimmy Wales and the Wikipedians are discussing this right now*, so we can find out for ourselves what’s going on? If you want that, you don’t search the news sites; your best bet is to head for the blogosphere (eg).

This isn’t just a dig at the Graun; check out the story at other newspaper sites – how many do any better (except from within their blogs, eg here)? The Telegraph doesn’t here; nor does the Times here – and the latter contains the line “In his blog, Mr Wales said the “nonsense” of the false reports would have been “100% prevented by Flagged Revision” and said he wanted the changes to be implemented as soon as possible.” So you can have a direct quote from an online source, but still no link. On top of which, the source isn’t a blog, it’s Jimbo’s user talk page at Wikipedia.

Wikipedia articles, in contrast, generally contain extensive external links and references, not to mention having discussion pages and a full history of revisions just a click away. Wikipedia may be unreliable, but it’s transparently unreliable, and at least it attempts to document its sources (and its creation process).

Newspaper websites continue to get away with far more shoddy practices (I use the word deliberately: frankly, I think there’s no excuse for the absence of links to important sources in online versions of newspaper articles – and even in print versions too – and I’d also like to see wiki-style access to the full history of articles). OK, they’re in the business of news – the ‘rough draft of history’ – not reference.** The genre does make a difference.

But it’s also because of reputation and status, and assumptions about ‘amateurism’ vs ‘professionalism’.

Marcel Berlins (if I must):

The brutal fact is that a work of reference which depends mainly on volunteer amateurs, whose good faith, ability and expertise are unknown, and whose contributions are largely unchecked, cannot be other than unreliable.

Marcel perhaps needs to read some of the research comparing Wikipedia with works of reference by paid professionals. (And, as I noted very recently, the idea that ‘contributions are largely unchecked’ is phooey.) The issue is not ‘reliable’ vs ‘unreliable’ – it’s ‘how unreliable?’, and ‘is it good enough for a given purpose?’ (And of course, ‘how can you tell, if you’re not an expert in the subject?’)

Newspaper journalism, by default, is trusted to get things roughly right, to be good enough – regardless of how often we see mistakes in subjects we know something about, regardless of how many articles are just regurgitated press releases and uncritical plugs for somebody or something (cynics might say that newspapers can’t afford to have a general policy of linking to sources, because if they did, we’d be shocked by just how much of their content is of this type). Wikipedia, by default, isn’t trusted. And it’s still got a long way to go.

…

* I found this fascinating, but I also find Wikipedia’s ‘proposed deletions’ discussion logs fascinating. So YMMV.

** And no small part of the issue in this particular case is that Wikipedia itself is blurring the line between news and reference.

Cliopatria Awards

Nominations for The Cliopatria Awards for the best history blogging are open until the end of November.

The award categories are: Best Group Blog, Best Individual Blog, Best New Blog, Best Post, Best Series of Posts, Best Writer.

Forgetful types may find the following resources useful for memory jogging:

Cliopatria’s History Blogroll
The History Carnival Archive

Final selections will be made by judging panels of history bloggers and announced at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting in early January.

Reasons to be cheerful hysterical

Stop Worrying About Obama Losing Already
  because he's going to win. *bites nails, sacrifices another chicken, does rain dance*

OMG!!! Exclusive!!!! Must Credit LGM!!!
  "If Obama were some sort of secret, DFH terrorist front candidate, who exactly would he be signaling with this logo? Is America filled with Weatherman sleeper cells, just waiting for a sign of the revolution?"

Philosophy in the news ….
  more on the Bill Ayers ghostwriting scandal! (not)

Malcom X II and the Fuschia Fascists
  is it satire? is it lunacy? who can tell any more?

More seriously: of course it’s not over until it’s over. But think about these polling numbers.

2 November 2004: RCP Electoral College Count: Bush 227 – Kerry 203 – toss-up 108. (270 EC votes needed to win: result on 4 November: Bush 286, Kerry 252.)

3 November 2008: RCP Electoral College Count: Obama 278 – McCain 132 – toss-up 128.

This is 1997, not 1992. (Except I don’t want to push the 1997 analogy because we all know how that turned out…)

Slightly downsized me this week

Well, it’s been a bit quiet here lately. Recently this has been mostly because I was spending a few days as a guest of the NHS to get rid of this little bugger. (Google tells me that Youtube has some video. Having already heard the surgeon’s detailed explanation of what he was going to do to me, I’m really not sure I want to look…) All gone well, and now I’m back at home, it’s not a bad time to be skiving off work for a couple of weeks and surfing blogs all day, now is it?

Whatever happens next Tuesday, there is something rather wonderful about observing the great wingnut-blogger meltdown. Although some of it is not really safe for reading when you’ve got holes in your tummy and the district nurse hasn’t been round to take out the little staples yet. Laugh-Sting-Ouch. So much to choose from, but Jon Swift’s Great Moments in Election-Year Blogging should be remembered as a true classic.

So much lunacy in one short season…

Winking hell

I had been steadfastly avoiding pictures of Sarah Palin’s VP debate performance. It sounded a bit nauseating.

Well, yeah. (What a thing to inflict on your unsuspecting bloggy readers on a Sunday. Evil man.)

Palin could never get away with that schtick over here. Everybody would laugh and point and spread rumours that she must be Anne Robinson’s unacknowledged love child. Wink, wink.