Wikipedia To Experiment With Color-Coded Warnings On Quality
from the good-ideas dept
It always seems misguided when people complain about quality problems in Wikipedia while ignoring identical quality problems in other media -- and the fact that it's easier and faster to make corrections in Wikipedia when those errors are discovered. One thing that defenders of Wikipedia often point out, is that it's easy to check the history page of any Wikipedia entry to get a sense of whether or not a particular tidbit of info has survived the test of time or was just recently dumped on the page (or if there's been any controversy over it). However, the truth is not too many people actually bother to check the history page (even among those who bring it up as a defense of Wikipedia). It appears that Wikipedia may start experimenting with a creative idea to help deal with this: color coding sections of Wikipedia entries. If a change was made by a new or untrustworthy user, Wikipedia could color code it as red so any readers would know to be even more skeptical than usual about that information. As the information survives the test of time, then it could fade to black (so to speak). At the same time, users who have a long history of making trustworthy edits would have their edits more quickly "trusted" within the color coded system. It's a creative idea that seems to make a lot of sense for improving the overall quality of Wikipedia. It's almost a shame we can't do the same thing with other forms of media as well. The plan is apparently to test this system on the smaller Wikia community before rolling it out on Wikipedia, but it seems like an experiment worth following.
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Red for left
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Re: Red for left
The left are worst there are tons of them and they whine and ask for my money.
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Re: Red for left
Maybe you wanted this heaping pile of steaming horse crap instead:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page
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Re: Re: Red for left
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A far simpler alternative
I suggested this to wikipedia and was informed that they don't keep records of how many users visit a page. Wouldn't tracking page views (and calculating the reliability) be far easier than analyzing every edit ever made?
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Re: A far simpler alternative
Yup, all those things must be true.
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Re: Re: A far simpler alternative
Because wikipedia is edited by people and the information is never verified it can only be considered a representation of what people believe, not what is true. Therefore, even by analyzing all the edits as proposed they'll only have a measure of how a user's edits contrast with the wider user base. "Facts" that don't get replaced aren't necessarily true, they're just not widely refuted.
In response to your overly sarcastic comment, a wiki article stating that 'toyotas have the best quality' would be edited by numerous people, possibly sparking an edit war. Therefore, the number of edits in proportion to the visitors would be higher than normal and would signal that the information wasn't widely accepted. So it would work in that instance. As for your iPod example, that's an opinion and therefore not capable of being fact.
Your comment wasn't productive and doesn't foster problem solving. Try contributing something worthwhile. Instead of bashing someones idea, suggest how it could be improved.
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Re: Re: A far simpler alternative
Umm..those things are not widely accepted.
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Wiki Terror Threat/George Bush quote Level : Cyan!
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Wait a minute
Why is that?
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Re: Wait a minute
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Great idea
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This will be great
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Re; Wait a minute
I think a cool thing would be to actually change the darkness of the text as it remains unchanged over time. Probably unusable and annoying, but it seems like I could get a decent sense of the stability of a sentence that way. Between the number of edits and the similarity after changes, it would be pretty easy to do.
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Wikitastic!
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Consistent Voice
Of course, even the BBC occasionally puts a cab-driver on the air, which proves that even reliable, consistent sources can be fallible. But that fact actually provides a strong telling point -- if the trained media with something to lose and who are committed to upholding standards can fail, then a website with anonymous posters and anonymous fact-checkers for all topics is a whole wide universe of failure.
Wikipedia is a tool that provides a good entry point for basic facts on basic topics. If I want to know Justin Timberlake's birthday, I'll use wikipedia. If I need to know which pitcher gave up Hank Aaron's home run, yeah, Wikipedia is probably find. But if I need a summation of the history of Algeria; I'll find another source I've come to trust more (such as the Country Profiles on the BBC).
If a site needs color-coding to identify worthless or unsubstantiated content, it's probably not worth using very much.
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Re: Consistent Voice
Wikipedia isn't verified - how could it be, when it is constantly changing? - but it's supposed to be VERIFIABLE. It's up to the reader to check the citations and decide if the source is trust-worthy or not.
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The veracity of information
If I create a web site, for example, stating that "the Empire State Building is constructed primarily of cheese," it is my experience that some structural engineer will soon put up a competing web site explaining why this couldn't be true because of the laws of physics, and an architect will put up yet another web site referencing historical documents (carefully scanned and posted) showing how it was actually built, etc.
If I posted to Wikipedia that "the Empire State Building is constructed primarily of cheese," then those same experts will quickly correct the information.
If the NYT, however, states in a front-page article that "the Empire State Building is constructed primarily of cheese", then at best a week later I might get a correction on page B-17 that no one reads. Of course, we all know the NYT would NEVER print something that wasn't factually correct, either by mistake, bias or intent. My friend tried to assure me that such a thing could never happen at the NYT, because of tradition and fact-checking and the like, but there simply isn't a mechanism for outside review.
The Internet is nothing BUT outside review! The fact that any whacko can post any old thing on the Internet (such as I'm doing right now) means that there is no "filter" to keep any and all information from being accessable - or from someone from correcting a whacko post such as I'm currently typing (like the post you're about to type in response to my whacko comments herein.)
Sure, trust the NYT (or the BBC) - but even they get it wrong sometimes, and it's fun to see how ticked off they get when the blogosphere catches them on it!
And that is the beauty - and the power - of the Internet, as exemplified by Wikipedia.
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