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WIKIPEDIA WINS USERS AND CRITICS
Anchors: Renee Montagne
National Public Radio (NPR)
SHOW: Morning Edition 10:00 AM EST
September 11, 2006 Monday
We turn now to a source of information for millions each day. The
online encyclopedia Wikipedia is the evolving work of hundreds
of thousands of volunteer writers and editors. During peak hours,
a half-dozen new contributors sign on every minute.
The site has grown to more than a million entries in its English
edition alone. But questions remain about what information should
make it into a legitimate encyclopedia and who should put it there.
>From Chicago Public Radio, Jenny Lawton reports.
JENNY LAWTON: Twenty-one-year-old Shane Phillips(ph) is a typical
college student. He's got specs and a goatee and he's into science
fiction and video games. He's also a Wikipedia administrator -
a volunteer who monitors and corrects articles.
Right now he's working on a subject that's been debated by historians
and government leaders for almost a century.
Mr. SHANE PHILLIPS (Administrator, Wikipedia): Armenian genocide, which
is a big issue because, you know, basically the Turkish government
claims it didn't happen. So, of course, the Turks that edit the page
say, well, it didn't happen. You have to put the Armenians claimed
this, the Armenians claimed that.
LAWTON: Using a Web page called a wiki, one that anyone can edit
to include new information, lots of people will be attracted to a
sensitive topic like this one.
Mr. PHILLIPS: I can see right now, it's currently protected from
editing, which means no one can edit the page. And that happens when
just people are arguing back and forth and they need to just sit down
and talk about things.
LAWTON: Phillips wants to help both sides of the conflict follow
Wikipedia's rules for presenting balanced and truthful information.
An acceptable article, he says, will probably list both opinions as
long as they can provide appropriate citations.
But this consensus method makes Wikipedia an easy target for criticism
and ridicule.
(Soundbite of TV show, The Colbert Report)
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. STEPHEN COLBERT (Host, The Colbert Report): What we're doing is
bringing democracy to knowledge.
LAWTON: Comedy Central talk show host Stephen Colbert recently logged
onto the site to point out just how easy it is to rewrite facts.
(Soundbite of TV show, The Colbert Report)
Mr. COLBERT: Find the page on elephants on Wikipedia and create
an entry that says the number of elephants has tripled in the last
six months.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. COLBERT: It's the least...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. COLBERT: ...folks, it's the least we can do to save this noble
beast. Together, we can create a reality that we can all agree on.
LAWTON: Just minutes after Colbert rewrote the article on elephants,
exchanges were disputed by Wikipedia readers and undone by an
administrator.
To Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, that's proof that the system works
and has value.
Mr. JIMMY WALES (Founder, Wikipedia): I want information that's
been vetted by a community. It's not just the voice of one expert;
it's the voice of a community of regular people who are interested
in the topic and come to some consensus view.
LAWTON: Wales founded Wikipedia using a model from the world of
computer programming. It's called open source, and its supporters
maintain that the more variety there is in terms of who's tackling a
problem, the more efficient the solution. That means that hobbyists,
even teenagers, are just as valuable as experts, as long as they can
come up with viable solutions.
But even one of the most outspoken advocates for open source software
development, Eric Raymond, says it's impossible for that tactic to
work with an encyclopedia.
Mr. ERIC RAYMOND (Spokesman, Open Source Software): Given that there's
no objective criteria for what the truth in an encyclopedia entry is,
the Wikipedia process has a strong tendency to diverge to nonsense
rather than converging to good code.
LAWTON: He says that means the tried and true editorial model of
experts and scholars used by traditional encyclopedias will always
be more reliable overall.
Theodore Pappas is executive editor of Encyclopedia Britannica. He
says the online edition, Britannica.com, gets its entries from Ph.Ds,
Nobel laureates and other experts, just like the book version. Users
can get about 28,000 articles for free and another 44,000 for a
subscription of $70 a year.
Though they won't compete with Wikipedia's coverage of the latest
trends, Pappas says there are more than 300 articles on rock &
roll alone.
Mr. THEODORE PAPPAS (Executive Editor, Encyclopedia Britannica):
What we might not have is the person who just won at American Idol
the other night. But what we will have, of course, are the Madonnas
and the Elvis' and these seminal folks who have changed the history
of rock music or popular culture.
LAWTON: That can't compare with Wikipedia's thousands of entries on
everything from the latest fall sitcoms to Norwegian fjords.
But as vibrant and contentious as the site is now, it could disappear
in a flash, says University of Illinois at Champaign scholar and
Wikipedia researcher, Michael Twydell(ph).
Mr. MICHAEL TWYDELL (University of Illinois at Champaign): Wikipedia
and all those Wikiepdians - the people who get involved in adding
articles, improving articles and addressing vandalism - if too many
of them got bored and just went off to, you know, the next cool Web
thing, whatever that might be, if they did that tomorrow I think
Wikipedia would just degenerate into a froth of spam, porn, graffiti,
lies and drivel in less than a month.
LAWTON: But for the time being, Wikipedia is thriving. From his living
room in suburban Chicago, volunteer administrator Shane Phillips
wrote an article on his own area of expertise, the D.C.
Comics superhero, the Green Lantern.
Mr. PHILLIPS: Britannica might say, oh, that Green Lantern mini-series
that was out last year isn't notable. But the way we look at it is,
it was printed by a multi-national corporation, millions of issues
were printed in about 17 countries, tens of thousands of people read
it. That's a phenomenon.
LAWTON: And for the 10,000 users who click on Wikipedia every second,
it's a phenomenon worth checking out.
LAWTON: For NPR News, I'm Jenny Lawton in Chicago.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: And this is MORNING EDITION. With Steve Inskeep, I'm Renee
Montagne.
Anchors: Renee Montagne
National Public Radio (NPR)
SHOW: Morning Edition 10:00 AM EST
September 11, 2006 Monday
We turn now to a source of information for millions each day. The
online encyclopedia Wikipedia is the evolving work of hundreds
of thousands of volunteer writers and editors. During peak hours,
a half-dozen new contributors sign on every minute.
The site has grown to more than a million entries in its English
edition alone. But questions remain about what information should
make it into a legitimate encyclopedia and who should put it there.
>From Chicago Public Radio, Jenny Lawton reports.
JENNY LAWTON: Twenty-one-year-old Shane Phillips(ph) is a typical
college student. He's got specs and a goatee and he's into science
fiction and video games. He's also a Wikipedia administrator -
a volunteer who monitors and corrects articles.
Right now he's working on a subject that's been debated by historians
and government leaders for almost a century.
Mr. SHANE PHILLIPS (Administrator, Wikipedia): Armenian genocide, which
is a big issue because, you know, basically the Turkish government
claims it didn't happen. So, of course, the Turks that edit the page
say, well, it didn't happen. You have to put the Armenians claimed
this, the Armenians claimed that.
LAWTON: Using a Web page called a wiki, one that anyone can edit
to include new information, lots of people will be attracted to a
sensitive topic like this one.
Mr. PHILLIPS: I can see right now, it's currently protected from
editing, which means no one can edit the page. And that happens when
just people are arguing back and forth and they need to just sit down
and talk about things.
LAWTON: Phillips wants to help both sides of the conflict follow
Wikipedia's rules for presenting balanced and truthful information.
An acceptable article, he says, will probably list both opinions as
long as they can provide appropriate citations.
But this consensus method makes Wikipedia an easy target for criticism
and ridicule.
(Soundbite of TV show, The Colbert Report)
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. STEPHEN COLBERT (Host, The Colbert Report): What we're doing is
bringing democracy to knowledge.
LAWTON: Comedy Central talk show host Stephen Colbert recently logged
onto the site to point out just how easy it is to rewrite facts.
(Soundbite of TV show, The Colbert Report)
Mr. COLBERT: Find the page on elephants on Wikipedia and create
an entry that says the number of elephants has tripled in the last
six months.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. COLBERT: It's the least...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. COLBERT: ...folks, it's the least we can do to save this noble
beast. Together, we can create a reality that we can all agree on.
LAWTON: Just minutes after Colbert rewrote the article on elephants,
exchanges were disputed by Wikipedia readers and undone by an
administrator.
To Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, that's proof that the system works
and has value.
Mr. JIMMY WALES (Founder, Wikipedia): I want information that's
been vetted by a community. It's not just the voice of one expert;
it's the voice of a community of regular people who are interested
in the topic and come to some consensus view.
LAWTON: Wales founded Wikipedia using a model from the world of
computer programming. It's called open source, and its supporters
maintain that the more variety there is in terms of who's tackling a
problem, the more efficient the solution. That means that hobbyists,
even teenagers, are just as valuable as experts, as long as they can
come up with viable solutions.
But even one of the most outspoken advocates for open source software
development, Eric Raymond, says it's impossible for that tactic to
work with an encyclopedia.
Mr. ERIC RAYMOND (Spokesman, Open Source Software): Given that there's
no objective criteria for what the truth in an encyclopedia entry is,
the Wikipedia process has a strong tendency to diverge to nonsense
rather than converging to good code.
LAWTON: He says that means the tried and true editorial model of
experts and scholars used by traditional encyclopedias will always
be more reliable overall.
Theodore Pappas is executive editor of Encyclopedia Britannica. He
says the online edition, Britannica.com, gets its entries from Ph.Ds,
Nobel laureates and other experts, just like the book version. Users
can get about 28,000 articles for free and another 44,000 for a
subscription of $70 a year.
Though they won't compete with Wikipedia's coverage of the latest
trends, Pappas says there are more than 300 articles on rock &
roll alone.
Mr. THEODORE PAPPAS (Executive Editor, Encyclopedia Britannica):
What we might not have is the person who just won at American Idol
the other night. But what we will have, of course, are the Madonnas
and the Elvis' and these seminal folks who have changed the history
of rock music or popular culture.
LAWTON: That can't compare with Wikipedia's thousands of entries on
everything from the latest fall sitcoms to Norwegian fjords.
But as vibrant and contentious as the site is now, it could disappear
in a flash, says University of Illinois at Champaign scholar and
Wikipedia researcher, Michael Twydell(ph).
Mr. MICHAEL TWYDELL (University of Illinois at Champaign): Wikipedia
and all those Wikiepdians - the people who get involved in adding
articles, improving articles and addressing vandalism - if too many
of them got bored and just went off to, you know, the next cool Web
thing, whatever that might be, if they did that tomorrow I think
Wikipedia would just degenerate into a froth of spam, porn, graffiti,
lies and drivel in less than a month.
LAWTON: But for the time being, Wikipedia is thriving. From his living
room in suburban Chicago, volunteer administrator Shane Phillips
wrote an article on his own area of expertise, the D.C.
Comics superhero, the Green Lantern.
Mr. PHILLIPS: Britannica might say, oh, that Green Lantern mini-series
that was out last year isn't notable. But the way we look at it is,
it was printed by a multi-national corporation, millions of issues
were printed in about 17 countries, tens of thousands of people read
it. That's a phenomenon.
LAWTON: And for the 10,000 users who click on Wikipedia every second,
it's a phenomenon worth checking out.
LAWTON: For NPR News, I'm Jenny Lawton in Chicago.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: And this is MORNING EDITION. With Steve Inskeep, I'm Renee
Montagne.