August 31, 2007
Wikipedia and crowd-sourcing
I have a guilty confession to make. I love Wikipedia. I had not realised this was a particular source of shame until I went to a recent conference on the new media. Speaker after speaker said that, of course, no responsible journalist would take facts off Wikipedia, which is notoriously full of errors. I said nothing. I’m sure I’ve done this lots of times - usually uncontroversial little, fact-checky things. But data all the same.
In fact, I was at it again this afternoon - as I was researching my newspaper column for next week (small trailer) on sex scandals (out on Tuesday!!!!). Put in almost any name into Google - Bill Clinton, Jeremy Thorpe, Tony Blair - and it is likely that the Wikipedia entry will be the thing that comes up first. It’s really useful.
But is it also full of errors? Well, possibly. Over the summer somebody has seen fit to put up a very short Wikipedia entry about me. It’s only three sentences. But it does contain a mistake - the claim that my last job at The Economist was as the Charlemagne columnist. (Bizarrely, it was business editor.) It’s not a very serious error. And I’m too lazy and technically incompetent to correct it. But it’s hardly an encouraging precedent.
The backlash against Wikipedia - and the whole idea of user-generated content on the internet (sometimes called Web 2.0) - is now in full swing. There was an interesting Q&A with Andrew Keen, one of the anti brigade, on the FT web-site recently.
But I intend to persist. I thought my experiement with soliciting ideas for my column a few weeks ago was quite successful. I think I’ll drop the crowd-sourcing label since it strikes me a bit pretentious. Let’s just say I’d like to start a discussion. This is not so very different, from the way I’ve often written columns. Upto now, I’ve tended to wander around the corridors discussing my ideas with colleagues. I’ve even occasionally talked to real experts. By starting an online discussion of possible column topics, I’m simply broadening the range of participants in the discussion. (I think)
And what should the first topic be? Well, at the risk of making this post so circular that it disappears downs the plug-hole, I think I would like to look at Web 2.0.
At the conference I referred to at the beginning of this post (a Nokia-sponsored job in Finland), there seemed to me to be a big division of opinion between people from the rich world and from the developing world. Broadly, most of the people from poorer and less free places were very optimistic about the power of the internet. They saw it as empowering. There was talk of demonstrations organised over the internet and by text message in China; and of Kenyan farmers whose lives had been transformed by the use of mobile phones for the collection of market data and payments.
But people from Europe and the States were often more inclined to Keenian gloom. They talked about the spread of pornography, gambling, cults - and the destruction of the business models of the traditional media and with that the collapse of vital sources of authoritative information.
It seemed to me that this contrast between developing world optimism about the net, and the growing backlash in the west would serve as the opening point for a newspaper column. But I haven’t really pursued the idea much further. So if anyone can point me in the direction of new and interesting arguments and data, I would be very grateful.
Gideon, thank you for pointing out my mistake. I have already made changes to the entry in the English-language Wikipedia - I’ll correct the Hebrew one later.
Posted by: PL | August 31st, 2007 at 9:51 am | Report this commentUnreliable as Wikipedia may be (yes, I use it too), the Keenian gloom is grossly overdone and ignores all the lessons of history. More here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sitesearch.do?query=Brock+Keen&hitsperpage=10&nextOffset=0&offset=0&leftStartIndex=1&leftEndIndex=10&submitStatus=searchFormSubmitted&mode=simple§ionId=674
All technology change, such as the arrival of the web, unleashes of burst of chaos which in turn unleashes a flood of gloomy predictions. Two better things then happen, but more gradually.
A sense of proportion dawns. The fact that much new communications technology (polaroid and video before the internet) has spread because of the demand for pornography doesn’t cancel the greater benefits of the inventions, which outweigh the risks.
Secondly, thinking societies begin to use the new methods in more self-disciplined ways. To take the example of our own business: the very idea of “journalism” evolved from the idea that newspaper readers might appreciate - and even pay for - information backed by the assurance that efforts had been made to establish its accuracy. The same process will occur with “user-generated” and “crowd-sourced” material; it is already happening with Wikipedia, obliged to mediate from time to time in disputes over its content. We used to call this activity “editing”. Reliability is a value and people will eventually seek it out.
Gideon, you might find these useful…
Posted by: George Brock | August 31st, 2007 at 10:25 am | Report this commenthttp://www.editorsweblog.org
http://www.ifocos.org/blog
http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/blogs/index.html
It seems to me that what the “Keenians” are really lamenting is the loss of a monopoly that journalists once held. In any case, there are risks as well as opportunities in Web 2.0: I see an analogy here between the diffuse nature of information on the new Internet to the new model of asset securitisation which led to the current subprime crisis. But this same model also helped drive economic growth in the past decade - by helping bring-in cheaper credit.
Posted by: PL | August 31st, 2007 at 10:33 am | Report this commentDear PL,
Your analogy is very apt. At the heart of the subprime crisis lies the fact that people somehow led themselves to believe that the securitised product, made up of mortgages to people with dubious abilities to repay, is somehow more trustworthy than its underlying constituents.
A similar criticism can be made of Wikipedia in that the plausible sounding article may (just may) have been put together from contributions by people with inadequate knowledge or by those wishing to push their own prejudices upon the unwary (lazy?) enquirer who put his trust in this source as one that frequently pops up as the first item in a Google search and carries an aura of scholarship and respectability.
Of course, biased viewpoints, prejudiced theories and doctored “facts” also appear in mainstream academic works too but the processes of refereeing and peer reviews are likely to ameliorate the situation somewhat.
As in such matters a “trust but verify” strategy is best. Wikipdia can act as a readily available, cost-free first port of call but if one is serious about what one is doing, then one ought to extend one’s enquiry further
Mr. Rachman’s observation about the differing attitude of the West and the developing world also makes sense.
In the developing world, information is hard to come by and such information that is available is often already filtered (distorted) by the authorities, hence the advantages of any source which provides free and abundant access to information are considered to outweigh its disadvantages. On the other hand, in the West, information was already relatively abundant and trustworthy, therefore less value is put on the new source and more notice is taken of the downsides (porn etc.)
Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | August 31st, 2007 at 1:37 pm | Report this commentAfter the 1990s and the “web 1.0″ stock market collapse the Internet has matured for most people in the west and the negative aspects come to the fore more often whereas people have become oblivious to the positives. The internet (and its services such as email or the web) is like having freedom or a functional loo; you’ll only discover what they’re like once you’re cut off from them.
Many people in the 3rd world are only now connecting and are seeing the possibilities; their enthausiasm is like our first foray with altavista, the yahoo index and the hubble site a decade ago. And also for many people in the west the Internet continues to be an astounding celebration of our diversity and complexity. Just visit http://www.galaxyzoo.org if you want to taste some of that thrill.
I read a piece about the uses of the mobile phone amongst fishermen in India who can now call around and negotiate prices with people in different ports instantly; if I recall matters correctly an NGO helped pilot the project through microloans to the fishermen. The great new technology to many in the 3rd world is not the internet.
As for the wikipedia, an article there only is as good as the authoritativeness of the sources it can quote. On many pages the article itself isn’t what’s interesting, it’s the discussion on the talk pages that really shows the shine; many if not most critics of the wikipedia have no clue what the wikipedia is and can’t seem to be bothered to find out.
Posted by: Felix Drost, Amsterdam | August 31st, 2007 at 1:51 pm | Report this commentI think dividing information sources into two camps, ‘authoritative’ and ‘crowd-sourced’, isn’t a very useful way to think about information sources.
The reality is that all sources of data fall somewhere on the spectrum of reliability.
And what is important is not how reliable they are, but that journalists know how reliable they are, and that they represent it accurately.
For example. The Drudge Report has come to play a central role in political news cycles in the US. The fact that the information there might be wrong doesn’t stop it from being a popular online destination, because its readers know that it might be wrong; they go there for rumour!
Innovations like Google’s facility for those in news stories to comment on them ( see http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201307255 ) are an interesting way of making crowd-sourced platforms more authoritative.
But ultimately, the important thing is that the users of the information understand how authoritative it is, and use it accordingly. Just like real-world information.
Posted by: Asher Dresner | August 31st, 2007 at 1:51 pm | Report this commentSurely wikipedia is another example of James Surowiecki’s Book ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’ (much like Linux)? And so in theory its accuracy should be near perfect. Studies have also found that between 60-70% of all articles on wikipedia (i forget the exact figure) are infact more accurate about their subject than official online encyclopedias.
Regards
Alec Gibb
Posted by: Alec Gibb | August 31st, 2007 at 1:56 pm | Report this commentDear Pacifist,
You have added an interesting further interpretation to my analogy. What I myself alluded to is that with securitised assets, no one knows where the risk lies. The money market crisis is a crisis of confidence: with risk being so diffused, it could anywhere raise its head - even as the totality of risk is dispersed. So too with the dispersed nature of Web 2.0 content making.
Posted by: PL | August 31st, 2007 at 1:57 pm | Report this commentOddly enough Gideon your wikipedia entry has it that you yourself claim to have been one of the Charles the Great editors!
Even more odd is this story out today:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/30/europe/EU-GEN-Netherlands-Royals.php
So beware before they find you spinning your own wikipedia entry!!
Enjoy your weekends everyone.
Posted by: Felix Drost, Amsterdam | August 31st, 2007 at 3:34 pm | Report this commentGideon, I think your next article should be about this financial implication of the mismanagement and cross-management of Wikipedia and the Chairman Emeritus’ for-profit venture, Wikia, Inc. Your readers would love a scandal, and it ties right in with your Wikipedia fascination.
http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20070821/the-tight-knit-web-of-wikimedia-and-wikia/
Posted by: Gregory Kohs | August 31st, 2007 at 4:44 pm | Report this commentDear Gideon, in the few hours since this last blog post was published, your Wikipedia entry has expanded and improved greatly. I think that’s an apt live display of the power of Wikipedia. The following links to the user page of the person responsible for this, someone who deserves many kudos for his contributions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JoJan
Posted by: PL | August 31st, 2007 at 6:56 pm | Report this commentDear Gideon, I don’t get the silly fuss about Wikipedia. What are the Keenians and others on about? I find Wikipedia a perfect “first port of call” in a hierarchy of information options. So why bemoan it? When it comes to factual material (historical or scientific) it seems to me to be better than anything else online for a speedy introductory overview. Britannica.com entries for instance are a), restricted to subscribers; and b), often quite thin. What you get on Wikipedia is admittedly often a jumble — but therein you can frequently find the salient details of what you’re looking for. (Who would doubt, for instance, that you can trust it to give the correct place and date of Charlemagne’s death, or the atomic weight of Selenium?) Also the links often added by “Wiki writers” are convenient short cuts to more nuanced and fine grained material — all accessible in a flash. So why the guilt? No-one in their right mind would trust Wikipedia entries when they are about contentious contemporary stuff, which often consists of fairly blatant propaganda full of spin, counter-spin and nonsense. So one merely learns to approach that kind of entry with caution. However, for the rest, I find Wikipedia indespensible. I no longer can be bothered to make the twenty foot journey to my bookshelf to consult ancient and increasingly dusty reference tomes for the simple stuff — who?,what?,when?,where? — though I do still obviously have to go to the library if I am working on a subject in depth.
Peter Foges
Posted by: Peter Foges | August 31st, 2007 at 8:08 pm | Report this commentPark Slope, Brooklyn
NY, USA
Wikipedia is usually an authoritative source on high-profile issues. At Wikipedia articles where many people are looking at the information, this too means that many people are amending claims, rewording unclear information, and fact-checking. Wikipedia has policies regarding the use of reliable sources, and strictly prohibits original research.
This model is in many ways superior to the traditional media model, especially since anyone can call “foul” at any time, inquiring as to the sourcing for any claim, and removing with prejudice any controversial claims that lack sources.
However, since Wikipedia does not allow original research, Wikipedia doesn’t break stories. Wikipedia articles must refer to published information from reliable, verifiable sources. Effectively, the Wikipedia community acts an organic vetting mechanism, composed of tens of thousands of watchful eyes, each belonging to an editor with his own views and positions on things. This crucible of editors who in their personal lives harbor opposing views to each other, insure that in articles where the community’s consensus really comes to bear, the POV-pushing and baseless assertions get deleted.
As for your article, well, I am sure it is fixed now. For others whose articles lie in the dusty back corners of Wikipedia’s rather sizable warehouse of ideas?: Get more notable!
Posted by: Dick Clark | August 31st, 2007 at 10:23 pm | Report this commentPS, the Pew Research Center did this fascinating demographic study of Wikipedia users:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/460/wikipedia
One word describes these Keenians: reactionary
Posted by: DMGPT | September 1st, 2007 at 12:32 pm | Report this commentThe people who scoff at Wikpedia are the ones with degrees from name Universities, who believe that a piece of paper equates with being an “expert” in some field.
Turns out that most academics are ivory tower recluses that have no way of relating their powerful vocabulary into words that mean anything to the broader population. If thrown into the private sector, they are more likely than not to fold under real competition.
Their authority on “thought” is dimished greatly by such advances as wikpedia and other social networks.
They had better all get on the ball, and take their minds into the now, if they hope to remain relevant.
Our colleges and universities, by and large, have become a four year camp for too many adolescents.
Posted by: razorsedge4444 | September 3rd, 2007 at 12:31 am | Report this commentIn my mind, its finally what applications that the users end up using. Young & old across Asia get access to pornography over the net, just as the people in the west. They are also developing web applications that help, for example, farmers in rural india check commodity prices.
Could this be because the developing nations have a younger population profile and are able to tap into the power of the internet faster & better? Worth a thought?
Also, I don’t know if you can generalize about internet pessimism in the West. European cities like Barcelona use the bcn.es city ‘intranet’/internet site to interact with its citizens, fill out municipal forms, find places on the city map, in addition to providing information.
The Internet, or Web 2.0 if you please, in my mind is just a platform or canvas. Societies will pretty much see what they paint on it.
Posted by: Amrit Singh Deo | September 3rd, 2007 at 10:37 pm | Report this commentI’m an old-fashioned scholar in a house full of books, but I too love Wikipedia. The articles I’ve consulted have always been well organized and written by people who apparently know their subject. Perhaps I’ve been lucky, but I’ve never detected an error. “Slant” is more of a danger, but that goes for printed reference books too. What I like most is that it’s open to correction and improvement. Those who find an error should not complain but correct it, which is easy to do. Likewise with subjects Wikipedia hasn’t covered. Looking up a Bulgarian poet, I found only a “stub”, and have now persuaded an authoritative Bulgarian scholar to supply an article.
Posted by: Derek Roper | September 3rd, 2007 at 11:12 pm | Report this commentDSR
Your comments about different perspectives of the internet from developing and developed countries are interesting. I’ve been involved in running a series of seminars around the world to discuss whether new communications technologies present new opportunities for advancing freedom of expression.
Our findings so far are in line with yours - people in developing countries are generally optimistic about the potential for mobiles and the internet to advance democracy, free speech and other social goods. There’s also a lot of hope that new technologies will help countries leapfrog their way to catching up with the developed world. But there’s also recognition that this potential won’t automatically be realised, and a wariness of corporate and government takeover on the net. In my view, the world of networked communications is still in its early stages of evolution, and it’s up to those who want to see it develop in a positive way to make sure it happens. Getting involved in collaborative projects like Wikipedia is just one way to do that.
You can find more information about the seminars and our research at http://www.freedomofexpression.org.uk.
Posted by: Lisa Horner | September 5th, 2007 at 10:37 am | Report this commentA problem is that Wikipedia/Web 2.0. being popularity-mining systems, support a lot of cheerleaders, but not much in the way of criticism. There’s a whole set of standard attacks against critics:
1) You’re a reactionary (in some cases, this is true, but it’s more because bona-fide reactionaries aren’t cowed by it)
2) You’re an elitist
3) I half-remembers this PR puff piece. Prove me wrong, now!
4) It’s about “conversation”, which means being wrong is just an opportunity (for more “conversation” …)
And so on.
It makes it very tedious and unrewarding to write a well-argued critique.
Posted by: Seth Finkelstein | September 5th, 2007 at 10:35 pm | Report this commentFirst, Web 2.0 is a nebulous marketing term which vaguely means “please invest in my startup”.
The rich/poor divide is false. The rich take for granted the market and government transparency enabled by the ‘Net, but this is a radical improvement for poor countries. For example, my friend is teaching a course on financial regulations to post-grads in developing countries over the Internet. They are ecstatic to get first-hand instruction from a former SEC guy. But in rich countries, Internet classes are frowned on (except in niche cases).
I think the poor countries recognize the impact of the Internet more so than jaded rich countries. We want movies on demand, they want uncensored info on their government.
Posted by: projectshave | September 6th, 2007 at 6:00 am | Report this commentGideon, you are an FT columnist. Do you really not have access to a real encyclopaedia?
On Keen:
Andrew Keen is not keen. On Web 2.0. Ok, we get it. Now if he is so against it, how come he has a blog to flog, a podcast to broadcast? Sounds like duplicity at best, hypocrisy at worst to me!
On his view that bloggers do not read:
He probably means that bloggers are not reading his book. Well you see, we blog so we have very little time for other things. So we really have to be discerning about what we read.
I would invite him home to show him my enormous library of well-thumbed books (and I am not even your age, Gideon!) but I do not invite strangers and unless they are at least my regular readers, they are all strangers to me.
Posted by: Shefaly | September 6th, 2007 at 8:51 am | Report this commentAs to the rich/poor issue, I agree with the viewpoint expressed earlier that one big aspect is that poor countries don’t yet have direct experience with how the fantasy is false.
There’s a lot of marketing hype about The Internet - It’s uncensorable! It’s The People’s VOICE! It’ll bring down tyranny, and bring forth community, blah, blah, blah …
It’s very easy to get caught up in that story, since there are very clever emotional manipulators who work on selling it.
The reality is that authoritarian governments react by censoring the Internet, new monopolies arise to take the place of the old, new techniques of oppression are created, new financial scams arise.
This should not be as difficult to recognize as it seems to be (sadly, because of all the propaganda to the contrary).
Posted by: Seth Finkelstein | September 6th, 2007 at 1:49 pm | Report this commentThe attack on the “amateurism” of the internet is widespread. Polly Toynbee devoted her Bagehot lecture to it and spoke of the importance of the moderating effect that “real” publishers and editors have on the material published by columnists in “real” newspapers. Just four names explode that argument: Robert Maxwell, Conrad Black, Silvio Berlusconi and Tiny Rowland .
The attack on Wikipedia, I suspect, comes from a similar motivation: misplaced paranoia.
Wikipedia comes in for flack because it is put together by “amateurs”. But many are experts in their own fields who give their time and expertise for free. And while it may also attract partisans with their own axes to grind, they are watched by opponents who can quickly redress the balance. It is not hard to distinguish the rant from information. And Wikipedia does much to excise rant masquerading as fact.
Wikipedia has the advantage that it is continually updated and corrected. This is not true for many conventionally-published referenced books. My wife, who is a historian, is continually frustrated by inaccuracies in the online Dictionary of National Biography. Her efforts to get simple mistakes corrected are met with a wall of silence, even though, in one case, she is sited by the author of a DNB article as the main source. Conventional-publishers need time and money to scrutinise material for accuracy before they go into print and there is often too little of that.
This “holier than thou” attitude is misplaced. I used to be an researcher and analyst in the days before the internet was available so I fully appreciate what a wonderful resource it is. I did my grunt work in dusty basement libraries and, there too, I had to learn to distinguish between the accurate and the misleading. I am preparing a series of articles on how to make the most of the internet, this wonderful new resource, and Wikipedia is always my starting point.
I have written a reply to Polly Toynbee’s attack at http://www.thinkhard.org/2007/07/the-art-of-the-.html . And my guide to using the internet for research is ironically entitled “A really simple explanation of Sunni/Shia tension and the Middle East crisis”. I am using my efforts to understand the Middle East better as an example of how much can be achieved by the motivated and diligent “amateur”. It starts in three of four weeks time on my blog at http://thinkhard.org .
Posted by: Paulus | September 11th, 2007 at 9:20 am | Report this comment