How the mighty have fallen. While perhaps arguably not the best encyclopedia in the world, Encyclopedia Britannica was the best selling. However, the transition to internet-based resources has caused its sales to plummet. And to add insult to injury it’s been outdone by Wikipedia in its attempts to provide online offerings.
However, Wikipedia is having its share of problems as well. Its founder, Jimmy Wales has been the subject of much scrutiny over whether he made inappropriate edits and misspent nonprofit funds. Further the site has had some embarrassing pranks played on it of late. The entries for Sens. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) were changed to report their "death". Janis Joplin's entry was also wildly changed multiple times, including by cast members on an episode of the TV show "30 Rock".
Mr. Wales spoke with Wired recently about the problems, and said that the pranks should be a wake-up call for Wikipedia and its struggling rival, Encyclopedia Britannica. He writes, "This nonsense would have been 100 percent prevented by Flagged Revisions. It could also have been prevented by protection or semi-protection, but this is a prime example of why we don't want to protect or semi-protect articles -- this was a breaking news story and we want people to be able to participate (so protection is out) and even to participate in good faith for the first time ever (so semi-protection is out)."
For Wikipedia, while gaining fresh attention this whole conflict is old news. It has long struggled with such prankery, and has worked closely with its community to overcome it without adopting harsh protections. The site uses Germany as a proving ground for its flagged revision technology.
Flagged revisions would only be applied to certain "high risk" entries. The key reason would be that with less high profile entries, the review process for the small subset of edits that got flagged for editorial attention might take up to a week to review. While supporting the use of such flagging, currently undergoing testing by Wikipedia, Jim Wales says he doesn't want to restrict users' participation via protections. He states, "I am not advocating for that at all. In fact, I am advocating for opening up entries that have been protected for years."
He points out that the quick fixes to the malicious edits are evidence of the strength of community editing, not a weakness.
Current polls suggest 60 percent of Wikipedia users and contributors support the idea of flagging certain content for editorial supervision. Wikipedia contributor Ned Scott is among these, but is upset by Mr. Wales' comments on the Encyclopedia Britannica problems.
He states, "I really like the idea of flagged revisions, and I'm sure that discussion has spread somewhere else. However, I wanted to comment here about Jimbo's (Jim Wales') original post where he uses the Post's article as an example of something that went wrong: Are you nuts? It took less than five minutes for the vandalism to be removed, and that's damn impressive. Instead of being proud of your users you instead take it as an opportunity to push for flagged revisions."
While Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica are mulling the public image impact of changing their editing systems, Wikipedia, which recently celebrated its millionth article, is in the process of cooking up additional new ways to simplify the editing process. It received $6M USD in funding to help with this, and to improve efforts to monitor some content.
