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Wikipedia - Press Coverage/2006gen-apr

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Unsorted: · 2001-2003 · 2004: gen-apr/mag-ago/set-dic · 2005: gen-apr/mag-ago/set-dic · 2006: gen-apr/mag-ago/set-dic ·
2007: gen-apr/mag-ago/set-dic · 2008: gen-apr/mag-ago/set-dic · 2009 · Scientific articles
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Indice

2006 January

CNET, 6 gennaio 2006

Terdiman, Daniel. "Newsmaker: Wikipedia's co-founder eyes a Digital Universe." CNET news.com. 6 January 2006.

The Village Voice, 10 gennaio 2006

Aviv, Rachel (January 10, 2006). "Mondo Wikipedia". The Village Voice. http://www.villagevoice.com/arts/0602,aviv,71632,12.html. Retrieved on 2007-03-25. 
Articolo interessante, con diversi spunti carini.
(Testo originale) (Traduzione)
«Last fall, students at the University of South Florida contributed to Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia, by writing entries for numpty, mohoger, japsoc, and gavilan. The definitions they gave were foggy (numpty, "tea from the land of nump"; gavilan, "a species of left-wing American focused solely on doom and gloom"). Their English professor, Alex Duensing, encouraged them to dream up more entries. When members of Wikipedia protested, he argued that his class had a "fundamental right to shape reality." »
«[1]»
(--Christian (discussione) 12:04, 12 mar 2009 (CET))
(Testo originale) (Traduzione)
«Clay Shirky, a technology and new-media professor at NYU, describes the site as a mix of political philosophies—"a creamy communist exterior with a crispy libertarian center." Wikipedia forces an uncomfortable issue for academics, he says. "Where does authority come from? Brands? Institutions? It's not so clear. And it never has been. That's why the site is so threatening." »
«[1]»
(--Christian (discussione) 12:04, 12 mar 2009 (CET))
(Testo originale) (Traduzione)
«In 2004, Robert McHenry, the former editor in chief of Encyclopaedia Britannica, wrote an essay for Tech Central Station comparing Wikipedia to a public restroom: You never know who's been using the facilities. "If this were a private enterprise, like a multiplayer game, that'd be fine," he tells the Voice. "It's like, 'Let's play the encyclopedia game, kids!' But to take the product of this game and call it an encyclopedia—that's where the deception comes in. The project is anti-educational, anti-science, and anti–everything that I think is a value." »
«[1]»
(--Christian (discussione) 12:04, 12 mar 2009 (CET))
(Testo originale) (Traduzione)
«In many cases, winning disputes is just a matter of having good friends. People gang up on each other to argue their points.»
«[1]»
(--Christian (discussione) 12:04, 12 mar 2009 (CET))
(Testo originale) (Traduzione)
«Wikipedia has many rules, but they're all highly breakable. (One essay states: "Ignore all rules.") »
«[1]»
(--Christian (discussione) 12:04, 12 mar 2009 (CET))
(Testo originale) (Traduzione)
«The site evolved into its own community before Wales and Sanger had a chance to evaluate how they should govern it. As Sanger describes it in his essay, Wikipedia "began as a good-natured anarchy, a sort of Rousseauian state of digital nature," but the community soon expanded out of control. Within months, Sanger felt he'd already missed his chance to assert himself as an authority. His biggest mistake, he writes, was failing to recognize that Wikipedia was more than just an encyclopedia: It was its own "polity." It needed "a representative legislative, a competent and fair judiciary, and an effective executive, all defined in advance by a charter." »
«[1]»
(--Christian (discussione) 12:04, 12 mar 2009 (CET))
(Testo originale) (Traduzione)
«Ward Cunningham, the man who invented the wiki 10 years ago, says he designed it in reaction to precisely this kind of assumption: the idea, barely thought out, that ordinary people can't be trusted. "No one has the right answers," he says. "Honest to God, what is truth? Can you tell me what truth is? If you want infallibility, go see the pope." »
«[1]»
(--Christian (discussione) 12:04, 12 mar 2009 (CET))
(Testo originale) (Traduzione)
«It's hard to predict whether it represents a paradigm shift or just an anomaly. The site is constantly changing, propelled by its obsessed community. "We forgive those who vandalize against us," writes one club, the Really Reformed Church of Wikipedia, on its user page. "Blessed art thou among Wikipedians/and blessed is the fruit of thy keyboard."»
«[1]»
(--Christian (discussione) 12:04, 12 mar 2009 (CET))


  • "The staff of U.S. Rep Marty Meehan wiped out references to his broken term-limits pledge as well as information about his huge campaign war chest in an independent biography of the Lowell Democrat on a Web site that bills itself as the "world's largest encyclopedia," The Sun has learned."
  • "Then the trusty editors at Wikipedia got together and compiled a list of over 1,000 edits made by Internet addresses allocated to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives."

2006 February

President Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic, advocating the learning of English is cited "He said that the Wikipedia encyclopedia is in Spanish, French, Greek, Italian, Hebrew, English and other languages, which is most revolutionary that has been possible to obtain in terms of the diffusion of knowledge. But he pointed out that the greater amount of information in Wikipedia appears in the English language because of the English language’s hegemony in the digital world."
On the front page of Saturday's Washington Post.
Is television living up to its potential?
No. The only way to raise money is by advertising. Advertising has very great limitations, because they measure success by the size of the audience. When I started, the BBC got its money from the licence and there was no advertising. You were able to schedule programmes over a range of subjects, on the grounds that you ought to present a comprehensive view of the world around you, and not miss out those bits that were awkward, or that interested some people more than others. At that stage it seemed to me that television offered a huge and democratic way of providing education, interest and knowledge. And that has not been fulfilled because of the demands of advertising.
So, the potential will never be fulfilled?
I think that's so, but I think that there will be other ways now. We're approaching it with things like Wikipedia. So I don't despair, but I think that television hasn't produced the benefits to humanity that it could have done.
"Online reference site Wikipedia blames US Congress staff for partisan changes to a number of political biographies."
"I don't know why this is a story," said James Pendleton, a spokesman for [Sen. Conrad] Burns. "There is no sanctity in Wikipedia. Somebody will always come and change it."
Most of the article gives examples of vandalisms against biographies, calling Wikipedia the "hip alternative to Encyclopaedia Britannica" and claiming "cyber war has broken out". It says Wikipedia is "sometimes wickedly funny" and says "getekeepers are relying on a volunteer army". Somehow, vandals are called "hackers" and, apparently, "Wikipedia is now planning a fixed version of its encyclopedia which cannot be changed".
  • Martin Hickman and Genevi√®ve Roberts write in the UK's The Independent (online edition) an article titled: Wikipedia under the microscope over accuracy on 14 February 2006 :[1] After rehashing the history of recent notable wikipedia's blunders, several articles are reviewed and checked for accuracy by experts in each field. The resulting opinions on the articles are mixed from 'very naive' to 'excellent'. Most of the reviews were reasonably positive. See alsoWikipedia:External peer review/The Independent February 2006
Russian Revolution of 1917 is reviewed by Orlando Figes, professor of history at Birkbeck College, University of London. – Very Critical , "It is a simplistic account"
Kate Moss, model is reviewed by Marcel D'Argy Smith, former editor of 'Cosmopolitan' magazine. – Mildly critical, "Factually, this is dead accurate, though it is cloaked in po-faced language"
Ann Widdecombe, politician and writer reviews the article on herself, Positive, - "I think overall that the entry is much better than Dod's parliamentary guide" , "… I would give them 9.5 out of 10."
Tony Blair, Prime Minister, is reviewed by John Rentoul, biographer , Critical - "It is opinionated and written from an anti-war point of view"
Philip Larkin, poet , is reviewed by Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate, Positive – "A good and fair account. It sounds approving of Larkin, which is nice, but it is overall a dispassionate account, as one would expect from a dictionary."
Radio 1 , is reviewed by Simon Garfield, author of 'The Nation's Favourite: The True Adventures of Radio 1', Positive – "Accurate, but with an odd conglomeration of facts without a clear idea of what purpose Radio 1 serves or who listens to it"
Punt racing is reviewed by Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery , Positive - "…a lot has been put into this piece and it has been thought out. I am impressed"
In vitro fertilisation , is reviewed by Robert Winston, fertility expert and television presenter. , Positive – "I was surprised by the excellent section 'In vitro fertilisation'"
  • Sullivan, Andrew. "Islamo-bullies get a free ride from the West." The Sunday Times (UK). February 12, 2006. [2]
    • "We have the mainstream media whose job is increasingly not actually to disseminate information but to act as a moral steward for what is fit to print, to become an arbiter of sensitivity, good taste and political correctness. And we have web pages like Wikipedia or the blogosphere to disseminate actual facts, data, images and opinions that readers can judge with the benefit of all the facts, not just some of them."
  • Mehegan, David. "Bias, sabotage haunt Wikipedia's free world." Boston Globe. February 12, 2006. [3]
    • "The revelations that political bias has crept into articles raises new questions about an Internet phenomenon that some are acclaiming as the future of information."
  • Mehegan, David. "Many contributors, common cause." Boston Globe. February 13, 2006. [4]
    • "Wikipedia volunteers share conviction of doing good for society"
  • Mehegan, David. "The idealists, the optimists, and the world they share."Boston Globe. February 13, 2006. [5]
    • "Here are some faces and voices of Boston-area Wikipedians."
  • Demmel, Jordan. "UNL Wikipedia posts not raising alarms for officials"
    • The opening strike "The freedom to post anything on Wikipedia.org has caused not only controversy but also factual errors." is followed by a description of the calm attitude of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln officials towards the information about UNL in wikipedia: "What distinguishes this from other examples <<of the buzz around the UNL>> is that we have control over the editing of Wikipedia.com." Daily Nebraskan February 14, 2006 [6]
  • Geoffrey A. Fowler, "Chinese Internet censors face 'hacktivists' in U.S." [7] post-gazette.com of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette February 14, 2006
    • "U.S.-based groups help mainland surfers get around 'Great Firewall of China' "
  • Richard C. Morais, "Cracks in the Wall." Forbes, February 27, 2006
    • "The [Chinese] government can issue a decree to Google and it will be obeyed? How does it go after Wikipedia? This is the lay encyclopedia, authored by anyone who wants to chip in. It's available in 100 languages and its documents are on almost 100 servers spread across the globe. It has no income source in China to protect. The English version...includes a nice 12-page illustrated article on the Tiananmen Square protests. All Wikipedia documents are blocked in China, except to computer users who have downloaded proxy technology...States the Wikipedia Web site [at Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China]: 'Many sysops and other users from mainland China have remained very active on Wikipedia using these means.'"
  • Marcel Berlins, "Why is the government seeking the power to pass far-reaching laws without parliament's approval?" The Guardian, February 15, 2006
    • "I realise that an entry in the Britannica, written by one person with lots of degrees and honours, can be just as misleading and biased as an all-hands-on-deck Wikipedia stew. Those with deep knowledge and expertise are not immune from being unbalanced or even eccentric about their specialisms. But at least I'm dealing with, and can allow for, the foibles of one learned person, and not the collected prejudices of perhaps dozens of self-selected know-alls. Wikipedia's is an open-door policy, heart-warmingly inclusive of the whole world. That, regrettably, does not ensure intellectual validity."
  • Mitch Kapor "Why Wikipedia is the next big thing" [8], February 15, 2006
    • "Wikipedia has chosen not to monetize traffic, but it if just used Google Adsense on it search pages, it could generate hundreds of millions of dollars. Mitch said that despite the contentious nature of the issue, the Wikipedians would eventually get around to monetizing the site."
  • "Sub Pop Not Releasing Liz Phair EP", Aversion, 16 February 2006
    • "Contrary to what you've read on Wikipedia, Sub Pop has absolutely no intention of releasing anything by Liz Phair this year." Someone from the label states, "And, yes, we understand how this Wikipedia deal is supposed to work. We keep removing Sub Pop as the label associated with this particular release and someone (or several someones) keeps changing it back."
  • Royal Society of Chemistry, "Information free-for-all", Chemistry World, 24 February 2006
    • "The online encyclopaedia Wikipedia could become the main source of chemical information in 5‚Äì10 years, according to a professional chemist who contributes to the site. [...] Many of the Wikipedia contributors are quite young, but Walker estimates that there are around 10 PhD-qualified chemistry contributors, as well as several knowledgeable graduate and undergraduate chemists. More professional chemists should get involved, urged Walker. ‚ÄòWe have come a long way, but there is still a huge amount to be done,‚Äô he said."

2006 March

  • Clem Everdene, "Wikipedia hits the million mark", Media Guardian online, 1 March 2006 (registration required)
    • "Wikipedia has recorded its millionth registered user for its English-language website and anticipates a milestone double-whammy this week as the millionth article is published."
Republished on c|net Australia, 3 March 2006 and ZD Net Australia, 3 March 2006.
Quotes Nach0king's userpage. Created for IDG News Services, also posted on Computerworld, PC Advisor and ITworld.
Direct copy of press release.
Excerpt of release.
Template:No icon"Little more than five years after the start of Wikipedia, the creators can look back on a true fairytale of an internet venture."
Subscription required. Includes original interview with Jimmy.
Includes original interview with Jimmy.
A story about the neutrality of NYU President John Sexton's page in light of the GSOC labor dispute.
Includes the sentence: "The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia has taken a bit of a beating - a brow beating - ever since news came out that virtually anyone can write or rewrite its electronic entries."
Discusses milestone as well as station.
"A train station in Glasgow's west end has become the millionth English-language entry to feature in an online encyclopedia."
Note: also contains a slight misunderstanding where it ascribes the Congressional staff edits to US Embassy staff.
Includes interviews with Jimmy Wales and Nicholas Moreau (zanimum).
Includes a link to Wikipedia as an example of how wikis can be made to work.
"Still, anonymity blocks credibility. One thing that Wikipedians have exactly right is that the current form of the encyclopedia is a beta test. The quality level that would permit speaking of Version 1.0 is still in the future."
Letter to the Editor from a college professor responding to the Stross article: "Having perused and occasionally contributed to articles in Wikipedia in my field of expertise -- Hispanic languages, literature and culture -- what has impressed me has been the general accuracy of the material presented, as well as the obvious conscientiousness of a number of the contributors."
First interview question: "With the recent controversy over false entries in Wikipedia, an open-source encyclopedia, how can you assure Web users that Firefox won't be vandalized?"
Overview of the project's strengths and weaknesses. Interview with David Gerard. Also in The Hindu, albeit edited.
Searcher is a magazine for librarians, researchers, and information professionals. The article compares the processes of Wikipedia and Britannica in detail and decides they’re different. It concludes "It's (Wikipedia's) consensus model represents a shift in management styles and away from hierarchical organization. You might say that Wikipedia is Zen-like." Includes Jimbo Wales quotes on time-delay vandalism defenses.
"Openness has been both the making of, and a curse to, Wikipedia."
Includes a very odd graph attributed to the Wikimedia Foundation showing a 0.4 million article drop in late 2005.
Critical commentary on previous Economist article. Compares accuracy of Wikipedia to that of mainstream press.
Wikipedia comes in at number 3, "Best for: band biographies and free classical music".
"Almost everyone knows about Wikipedia - the free-content web-based encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers. Evidently, those volunteers include their fair share of music fans as you can find a vast store of musical knowledge here, covering pretty much every base. But one further really noteworthy aspect of Jimmy Wales's creation - and one that's little-known - is that Wikipedia also contains a vast reservoir of free sound files. Due to copyright laws, the site doesn't feature much by contemporary artists but its classical collection is growing by the day. Mozart and Beethoven are best represented with more than 20 pieces each, to be found in the 'media' section of their entries. Other composers have fewer files, and the files are in the 'Ogg Vorbis' format which won't play on an iPod, although they are compatible with most computer players. But, as with all things Wikipedia, it's probably only a matter of time before they launch a new, amazing service..."
"Encyclopedia company publishes a 20 page PDF file tearing apart Nature's December study comparing them to Wikipedia, saying that as an overall study it 'was without value'." The story has been picked up by other media such as the BBC. Nature responded to Britannica's statement with a statement of their own (PDF), defending the original article and its conclusions.
The leading British journalist Mark Lawson comments on the entirely false claims that he is from a Jewish background made in former edits of his Wikipedia article.
Story about vandalism of the article on University of Cincinnati president Nancy Zimpher.
Concludes, "One of the biggest threats to printed encyclopedias is the availability of information online. With over a million articles, compared with Britannica's 65,000 in its print version and 120,000 online, Wikipedia eclipses its competitor in terms of sheer number of entries. It has, for example, an entry on Encyclopaedia Britannica. The gesture has not been reciprocated."

2006 April

April 2006, p. 56. Dave Taylor writes about his failed attempts with a wiki (not WikiMedia) and concludes they work only when not everyone can edit content. Cites the JFK assassination articles of Wikipedia. Article appears to base much of its basic information about wikis in general in terms and expressions used in the Wikipedia pages.
April 2006, pp. 62-65. Reuven Lerner describes, step by step, how he successfully created his own wiki from MediaWiki sources.
"Information about the e-mail conversation was added to Tuttle’s entry on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, and shortly thereafter, an entry for Taylor himself was created."
"The more likely escape clause is simply the complexity and confusion of the case. Wikipedia's entry on the Plame case already runs to more than 20,000 words."
"You'll find out more about the passion and history of Britain's best ever pop voice from Dusty Springfield's brief biography on Wikipedia than from tomorrow night's gloomy - and largely unilluminating - South Bank Show profile..."
p. 84: "Wikipedia profiles of politicians have become battlegrounds for spin doctors, hacks and people pushing agendas."
About Alan Mcilwraith: "On the wall next to his desk, he has pinned an entry on his "military career" from the internet encyclopaedia Wikipedia alongside a photo of him in a Royal Highland Fusiliers uniform. The entry has now been pulled from Wikipedia, which is compiled from entries made and revised by members of the public."
Brief introduction to the site. "You may already have come across Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia written and edited by its own readers..."
"Wikipedia is a new paradigm in human discourse. It's a place where anyone with a browser can go, pick a subject that interests them, and without even logging in, start an argument."
Lists a dozen or so factual errors and omissions the author found in Wikipedia and dismisses the whole project in scathing terms.
Warren Boronson's revised opinion after receiving feedback and spending more time on the site: "I concede that I went too far.... I criticized Wikipedia for not providing enough information on mutual funds, but... [a correspondent] pointed out that the Encyclopedia Britannica is a far worse offender in this regard.... There are good articles in Wikipedia."
British Conservative MP Boris Johnson visited China in April 2006 and observed: "With every group of students I tried, in a flat-footed way, to raise issues of academic and intellectual freedom, in particular the notorious restrictions on the internet. Wasn’t it absurd that the state was blocking access to Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, particularly since it seemed to have been written by Maoists anyway?"
Noting the web's comparatively slow pick-up of the news of UK Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's marital infidelity. "Good old Wikipedia are on the ball straight away, mind. At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prescott they were already carrying a piece about the affair, but with the warning: "This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses." But, tsk tsk, they have spelt Tracey wrong. Traceys get uppity about that sort of thing, though Ms Temple is probably not going to email them to complain."
"Morton Brilliant, [Washington] Gov. Christine Gregoire's former campaign spokesman, resigned this week from his latest campaign job amid allegations that he changed an online Wikipedia biography of an opponent in Georgia's gubernatorial race."
"ATLANTA - Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that can be altered by anyone with a computer, has proved remarkably useful for pulling political dirty tricks."
The Onion's A.V. Club article on Matt Groening references a detail in Wikipedia's article. Groening confirms the content about one of his early jobs in Los Angeles, as well as adding more about the "elderly director" who employed him.
Discusses the announcement of the name of Nintendo's Wii and in part it's effects.
  • Kluth, Andreas. "The wiki principle" (in "A survey of new media"). The Economist. 22 April, 2006. The wiki principle (which is premium content and so only the first few sentences can be read by someone who is not logged in...).
Begins by telling the story of the John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy, but goes on to say: "For the most part, it is much more worthwhile to dwell on the phenomenal opportunities than on the poison pens. Wikipedia's promise is nothing less than the liberation of human knowledge - both by incorporating all of it through the collaborative process, and by freely sharing it with everybody who has access to the internet". He notes that Wikipedia's size makes it "an anomaly among wikis" (the article is about wikis generally, although it devotes most of its space to Wikipedia). Then there are some quite shocking quotes from people involved with Encyclopaedia Britannica: "[Wikipedia is] a faith-based encyclopedia [based on] the moist and modish notion of community and some vague notions about information wanting to be free" (Robert McHenry, a former editor-in-chief). Jimmy Wales is also interviewed. The Nature study comparing the accuracy of Wikipedia with that of Encyclopaedia Britannica is mentioned (162 errors in Wikipedia, 123 in Britannica) - as is the current Britannica editor-in-chief's condemnation of it ("Nature did everything wrong that they could possibly have done wrong"). Overall the article is positive, noting the great potential of Wikipedia and noting that while "old media" such as Britannica feel threatened and attack us, "whereas Wikipedians are not the least bit tempted to reciprocate".
"It's now over 1 hour and no sign of of Wikipedia coming up again in sight. It can't be routine maintenance or reboot of servers that's causing this. It must be something more serious. "
""Wikipedia is now up again after several hours down time. I found the Wikipedia/Wikitech Server Admin Log which provides some insights about what happened...."
"WikiTruth.info is a site that was started by 12 Wikipedia Administrators that "left" Wikipedia after years of contribution due unbearable "bureaucratic warfare" and especially after seeing an increase in active censorship taking place at Wikipedia.org at an alarming rate. "
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