Wikipedi A Web 2.0 Collaboration By Andy Hoffner, Jason Held, Brian Sax

History  1999 Nupedia Founded  Peer-reviewed  Expert Authors  2001 Wiki-based System Created  Anyone could submit articles  No formal peer-review process  Called it Wikipedia

History  Nupedia grew to only 24 articles  Wikipedia grew to 5.3 million articles  Less restrictions meant more participation  Web 2.0 technology allowed dynamic creation of new content, and community editing

Traffic Rankings 2003-Present

March 2001

January 2002

February 2004

April 2007

Video  ms/umlaut.html

Questions of Accuracy  Seigenthaler Incident  May 2005 Brian Chase falsified information on colleague John Seigenthaler, Sr.  September Seigenthaler finds falsified information  Writes out against Wikipedia

Questions of Accuracy  Seigenthaler  Article featured in USA Today  Appeared on CNN, NPR  Called Wikipedia a “flawed and irresponsible research tool,” and “disapproved of its basic assumptions”

Questions Accuracy  Author Nicholas Carr also wrote in 2005 about Wikipedia’s poor writing quality  “an incoherent hodge-podge of dubious factoids”

Writing Quality Example  2005: Gates married Melinda French on January 1, They have three children, Jennifer Katharine Gates (born April 26, 1996), Rory John Gates (born May 23, 1999) and Phoebe Adele Gates (born September 14, 2002). In 1994, Gates acquired the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci; as of 2003 it was on display at the Seattle Art Museum. In 1997, Gates was the victim of a bizarre extortion plot by Chicago resident Adam Quinn Pletcher. Gates testified at the subsequent trial. Pletcher was convicted and sentenced in July 1998 to six years in prison. In February 1998 Gates was attacked by No ë l Godin with a cream pie. In July 2005, he solicited the services of famed lawyer Hesham Foda. According to Forbes, Gates contributed money to the 2004 presidential campaign of George W. Bush. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Gates is cited as having contributed at least $33,335 to over 50 political campaigns during the 2004 election cycle.

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Wikipedia’s Quality Control  13,000 volunteer contributors, many of whom are experts in their field, edit previously submitted articles.  These are in addition to general users who may edit articles at any time  Tens of thousands of edits are made daily

Nature Study  December 2005  Peer-review of scientific entries in both Wikipedia and Britannica  Reviewers were asked to look for errors but not told about the source of the information  Only 8 serious errors were detected, 4 from each encyclopedia

Nature Study  Reviewers also found many factual errors  Over 42 articles:  Wikipedia: 162 errors  Britannica: 123 errors  Wikipedia’s error rate was comparable to Britannica  Wikipedia’s errors were quickly corrected by the community. Britannica’s errors could not be corrected immediately.

Wikipedia Community Policies  NPOV - Neutral Point of View  Verifiability  No original research

Administrators  1,182 currently registered administrators  Have special permissions to trace IP’s, make changes to the main page, some handpick featured articles

Why People Contribute  Fun, Educational, Social  To contribute is to gain  It helps others  Will be used for years and years  It’s free

Why We Have Contributed  Sense of pride from being part of the community  Easy to fix small errors  Interesting to view sources of information correctly