Wikipedia Validity: Stop Reading and Start Writing Experts!

Karl Fish has a great post commenting on the recent article in the Denver Post that 4 out of 5 experts agree on the accuracy of wikipedia, Karl says.

“..there was no mention of whether any of the scholars contributed to the Wikipedia article they were reviewing…. It’s not like I expect the reviewers to take hours (or days) to clean up the articles, but you would think they might take an extra five or ten minutes to modify a few things since they’re there anyway. It almost seems like the thought never crosses their minds – or at least the mind of the reporter. It seems like such an obvious question to ask, and include the answer in the article.

… I find it interesting that the print version doesn’t include the URL for Wikipedia (much less for the particular topics), and that the online version doesn’t include links.

Here is what I said in response:

I agree – here is the difference — the expert can actually EDIT the entry (novel idea) so that the information IS accurate — can they do that with an encyclopedia? Can they do that with a magazine article?

Experts everywhere should be climbing into wikipedia and editing and not just reviewing.

I think the fact that the experts were asked to read and not write was a Web 2 article written in a very Web 1 way. Perhaps if they had been asked to review and edit and see if the information remained accurate would be a better measure of wikipedia's accuracy.

I had to share, this topic will really get me going!

tag: Wikipedia, Karl Fisch