Some polish is beginning to rub off the Wikipedia’s blinding sheen.

Wikipedia co-founder, Jimmy Wales, who I read somebody suggest (I didn’t keep the link, sorry) should be given the Nobel Peace Prize for his work seems now to be admitting the open season process of wikis has turned out some real “crap.”

Surprisingly, Wales agreed that the entries weren’t up to snuff. “The two examples he puts forward are, quite frankly, a horrific embarassment. [sic] Bill Gates and Jane Fonda are nearly unreadable crap. Why? What can we do about it?” he asked.

I’m not surprised the Gates entry would be vandalized, poorly editorialized and/or some combination of both. The richest man in America certainly has his share of coarse critics and envious trolls. As for Fonda? Another public figure prime rewrite target in the wiki space.

This response seems a bit prophetic of Larry Singer’s detailed, excellent description of what he feels is wrong with Wikipedia when he exited the project in December 2004:

… the crying need to get more experts on board and a publicly credible review process in place (so that there is a subset of “approved” articles–not a heavy-handed, complicated process, of course). The only way Wikipedia can achieve these things is to jettison its anti-elitism and to moderate its openness to trolls and fools; but it will almost certainly not do these things.

Unfortunately, IMO, the biggest achille’s heel of the Wikipedia — which is also credited by many as its biggest strength — remains the system that powers it and also empowers almost a scary amount of user freedom: wikis. At least scary to webmasters who have been around awhile and have witnessed firsthand what happens when something is too open to the net at large.

Can you say vandalism?

Bottom line, what I wrote almost three months ago on wikis has only been further reinforced by Wales comments in Orlowski’s article. I wrote:

Put me in the group who doesn’t have faith in the wiki model (sorry, wiki fans). Yeah, the Wikipedia is cool and a few other wikis that are well policed but the vast majority of them end up vandalized. Sad, but true.

I wish Wales and the project the best of luck in getting Wikipedia to the next level where the realization than a truly open system, must still have a few, necessary closed doors to stop chaos from reigning.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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