Comments on: Why I pay to support Wikipedia (but I don’t trust it) and so should you …

By: Ajit Jaokar

Ajit Jaokar — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:29:46 +0000

very insightful comments Enrique and Davis. My
view is as follows:
I totally agree that the system needs to be revised – and there may even be a place for a new/ground up venture in this space .. however, the principle for me is: *** wikipedia is not the Internet. ***
if someone wants to establish their expertise, a system like wikipedia should not be ** obligated ** to leverage that in their system.
people should go to the open web(not wikipedia) and create a blog/twitter feed etc on their own so.
the flaw here is: we are asking others to change their system (which is an enterprise albeit non profit).
It is not the same as the open internet.
Its a subtle difference but I do acknowledge that the wikipedia system could be improved kind rgds Ajit

By: C. Enrique Ortiz

C. Enrique Ortiz — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:20:39 +0000

I have donated $ to Wikipedia a number of years, w/ 2009 last time I did.
I think Wikipedia has provided a wonderful service to people and people that continue to go back to it should donate.
At the same time, I echo what Davis wrote above plus there is a serious issue w/ lack of credit/attribution. I *used* to contribute content to the mobile pages and stopped; for one, some of my content, which not that I’m biased, but was good/accurate, was either wiped out or changed in ways I found unacceptable, plus as I said, there was no clear way of adding attribution for the content/work/knowledge that was added.
But perhaps things have changed from that angle and I should revisit the idea of contributing content.

By: Ajit Jaokar

Ajit Jaokar — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:41:56 +0000

Thanks Davis. I take your point. Thats why I also included the Doc Searls link(which in turn has links to other articles which talk of this problem). happy new year!

By: Davis Freeberg

Davis Freeberg — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 15:13:33 +0000

I like Wikipedia and would support it if I felt like they were running it in the interest of the general public, but the truth is that they’re not. As much as they’d like people to believe that anyone can make an edit, it’s really not the case. There are a small handful of people who spend their entire lives on the site making sure that any changes that people make get wiped out for a variety of reasons. The result is that instead of getting an informative post, you get an article that is heavily biased by whoever is willing to spend the most time policing it. You definitely have to think for yourself, but how useful is the site when any thinking that you share is obliterated in about 5 minutes? I don’t think that they need editors, but they do need a better way for people to defend the content that they removed from the trolls that hang out there. While in spirit the site is definitely worth donating too, I think their refusal to commercialize the site in any way has created this void. By allowing them to continue to operate on a support basis only, you may actually be making the problem worse. I would welcome the introduction of banner ads, if it meant that a couple of unbiased interns could start reviewing changes and adding a bit of independent thought to their articles.