WikipediA Web 2.0 Collaboration By Andy Hoffner, Jason Held, Brian Sax
Dec 22, 2015
History
1999 Nupedia Founded Peer-reviewed Expert Authors
2001 Wiki-based System Created Anyone could submit articles No formal peer-review process Called it Wikipedia
History
Nupedia grew to only 24 articles Wikipedia grew to 5.3 million
articles Less restrictions meant more
participation Web 2.0 technology allowed dynamic
creation of new content, and community editing
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Traffic Rankings 2003-Present
Questions of Accuracy
Seigenthaler Incident May 2005 Brian Chase falsified
information on colleague John Seigenthaler, Sr.
September Seigenthaler finds falsified information
Writes out against Wikipedia
Questions of Accuracy
SeigenthalerArticle featured in USA Today Appeared on CNN, NPR Called Wikipedia a “flawed and
irresponsible research tool,” and “disapproved of its basic assumptions”
Questions Accuracy
Author Nicholas Carr also wrote in 2005 about Wikipedia’s poor writing quality “an incoherent hodge-podge of
dubious factoids”
Writing Quality Example
2005:Gates married Melinda French on January 1, 1994. They have three children,
Jennifer Katharine Gates (born April 26, 1996), Rory John Gates (born May 23, 1999) and Phoebe Adele Gates (born September 14, 2002).
In 1994, Gates acquired the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci; as of 2003 it was on display at the Seattle Art Museum.
In 1997, Gates was the victim of a bizarre extortion plot by Chicago resident Adam Quinn Pletcher. Gates testified at the subsequent trial. Pletcher was convicted and sentenced in July 1998 to six years in prison. In February 1998 Gates was attacked by Noël Godin with a cream pie. In July 2005, he solicited the services of famed lawyer Hesham Foda.
According to Forbes, Gates contributed money to the 2004 presidential campaign of George W. Bush. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Gates is cited as having contributed at least $33,335 to over 50 political campaigns during the 2004 election cycle.
Wikipedia’s Quality Control
13,000 volunteer contributors, many of whom are experts in their field, edit previously submitted articles.
These are in addition to general users who may edit articles at any time
Tens of thousands of edits are made daily
Nature Study
December 2005 Peer-review of scientific entries in
both Wikipedia and Britannica Reviewers were asked to look for
errors but not told about the source of the information
Only 8 serious errors were detected, 4 from each encyclopedia
Nature Study
Reviewers also found many factual errors Over 42 articles:
Wikipedia: 162 errors Britannica: 123 errors
Wikipedia’s error rate was comparable to Britannica
Wikipedia’s errors were quickly corrected by the community. Britannica’s errors could not be corrected immediately.
Administrators
1,182 currently registered administrators
Have special permissions to trace IP’s, make changes to the main page, some handpick featured articles
Why People Contribute
Fun, Educational, Social To contribute is to gain It helps others Will be used for years and years It’s free
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_on_Earth_would_I_want_to_contribute_to_a_wiki