Wikipedia is a "work in progress" says its founder
Amidst a whirlwind of controversy over the reliability of his product, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said in an interview with Business Week Online that Wikipedia should be viewed "as a work in progress -- it's our intention to be Britannica or better quality, and our policies and everything are designed with that goal in mind. We don't reach that quality yet -- we know that. We're a work in progress."
On Reliability
Charles Arthur of the Guardian technology blog highlights the results of an accuracy study performed on 42 Wikipedia entries by the science journal nature. The study showed that the Wikipedia entries were "not markedly less acurate" than those found in Encyclopedia Brittanica.
Wikipedia's entries averaged four inaccuracies each, and Brittanica three. Nature qualifies inaccuracies as: "factual errors, critical omissions or misleading statements."
Arthur gives an amusing, yet slightly alarming, comment on the results: "Is it just me, but does that not sound so good for either publication? "Good news, honey, I only made three inaccurate turns while I was driving home!"
On Anonimity
Wales asserts that anonymity is preserved for very valid reasons: "there are definitely people working in Wikipedia who may have privacy reasons for not wanting their name on the site. For example, there are people working on Wikipedia from China, where the site is currently blocked. We have a contributor in Iran who has twice been told his name has been turned into the police for his work in Wikipedia ... there are lots of reasons for privacy online that aren't nefarious."
Sources: cyberjournalist.net, Business Week online, Guardian technology blog
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