Wikipedia Editing Model
The Wikipedia model allows anyone to edit, and relies on a large number of well-intentioned editors to overcome issues raised by a smaller number of problematic editors. It is inherent in Wikipedia's editing model that misleading information can be added, but over time quality is anticipated to improve in a form of group learning as editors reach consensus, so that substandard edits will very rapidly be removed. This assumption is still being tested, and its limitations and reliability are not yet a settled matter. Wikipedia is a pioneer in communal knowledge building of this kind. It contrasts with many more traditional models of knowledge and publishing, which attempt to limit content creation to a relatively small group of approved editors in order to exercise strong hierarchical control. In order to improve reliability, some editors have called for "stable versions" of articles, or articles that have been reviewed by the community and locked from further editing.
Wikipedia allows anonymous editing: contributors are not required to provide any identification, or even an email address. A 2007 study at Dartmouth College of the English Wikipedia noted that, contrary to usual social expectations, anonymous editors were some of Wikipedia's most productive contributors of valid content. The Dartmouth study was criticized by John Timmer of the Ars Technica website for its methodological shortcomings.
While Wikipedia has the potential for extremely rapid growth and harnesses an entire community—much in the same way as other communal projects such as Linux—it goes further in trusting the same community to self-regulate and become more proficient at quality control. Wikipedia has harnessed the work of millions of people to produce the world's largest knowledge-based site along with software to support it, resulting in more than nineteen million articles written, across more than 280 different language versions, in less than twelve years. For this reason, there has been considerable interest in the project both academically and from diverse fields such as information technology, business, project management, knowledge acquisition, software programming, other collaborative projects and sociology, to explore whether the Wikipedia model can produce quality results, what collaboration in this way can reveal about people, and whether the scale of involvement can overcome the obstacles of individual limitations and poor editorship which would otherwise arise.
Another reason for inquiry is a growing and widespread reliance on Wikipedia by both websites and individuals, who use it as a source of information, raising concerns over such a major source being susceptible to rapid change, including the arbitrary introduction of misinformation. It is the responsibility of those who intend to use such a dynamically changing, multi-authored source to ascertain the quality and reliability of articles, and the degree of usefulness, misinformation or vandalism which might be expected, in order to decide what reliance to place upon them. A helpful safeguard is always to reference Wikipedia accurately when it is quoted to allow false or unreliable material to be identified and corrected.
Read more about this topic: Jossi Fresco
Famous quotes containing the words editing and/or model:
“In this century the writer has carried on a conversation with madness. We might almost say of the twentieth-century writer that he aspires to madness. Some have made it, of course, and they hold special places in our regard. To a writer, madness is a final distillation of self, a final editing down. It’s the drowning out of false voices.”
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