To Open The Sky

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia anyone can edit, was founded by Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales and Larry Sanger on January 15, 2001. (The expert-written Nupedia was founded first; it is now defunct, and Sanger is developing a successor called Digital Universe.)1 It has grown rapidly and as of this writing contains 1,426,958 articles in the English-language version. There are versions of Wikipedia in 228 other languages; sixteen of these have more than 50,000 articles each.

Wikipedia's main servers are in Tampa, Florida, with additional servers in Amsterdam and Seoul.

There has been controversy over Wikipedia's reliability and accuracy, with the site receiving criticism for its susceptibility to vandalism, uneven quality and inconsistency, systemic bias, and preference for consensus or popularity over credentials. Information is sometimes unconfirmed and questionable, lacking proper sources that could legitimize articles. However, a 2005 comparison performed by the science journal Nature of sections of Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica found that the two were close in terms of the accuracy of their articles on the natural sciences. However, this study has now been challenged by Encyclopedia Britannica, who described it as "fatally flawed."

I signed up as a volunteer editor in late 2005 and since then have been involved in editing various articles on an intermittent basis. What follows reflects my personal experience, plus some recent research and discussion on Usenet.

The central feature of Wikipedia's operation is that it should be open to anyone to edit. This idealistic precept has, not unexpectedly, led to less than ideal results in the real world. The problems can be grouped into three areas: Invalid information, pranks and vandalism, and the so-called "edit wars" or "revert wars".

Incorrect information

Sources

• Wikipedia and the rise of the latrines
  (A snide reference to the Terminator movies)
  The "Aetherometry" site -- possibly has an axe to grind.
• Wikipedia site filled with major mistakes (Warren Boroson, 4/11/2006)
  Cites about 15 errors, many of which are grammar errors (and arguably negligible, since he echoes the EB's complaint that the Nature study did not differentiate between serious and trivial errors.)
  The core of his grievance seems to be that "some jerk" dismissed his complaint about the article on Barry Goldwater without even contacting him.
• WikiTruth
  "The truth was there three revisions ago."
  But the best criticism, I feel, is from the Register itself:
• Why Wikipedia isn't like Linux
  Yes, Carlo Graziani's analysis applies to me as well, since I conflated the two.