| Wikipedia: Communal Knowledge Building |
Wikipedia has turned the world of encyclopedia publication on its head, drawing from a massive, largely non-expert contributor base, with only a few editorial measures in place to control the publication process. This content creation model draws on the principles of self organisation, collective intelligence and open source development (see our KM articles on Collective Intelligence and The Cathedral and the Bazaar). So how does Wikipedia actually work? There are 3 components to look at: software, content creation and content administration. 1. Software: Wikipedia runs on Mediawiki's open source software. Every article has a history so nothing is ever truly deleted and revisions can be undone if needed. There are also various IT tools that are run on articles to keep track of edits and potentially bad edits. 2. Content creation: Anyone can write or edit articles. There is no judgement on what topics should or should not be covered. This gives Wikipedia the enormous scope and breadth it's known for. Wikipedia articles take time to achieve the ideals of becoming a well-written, balanced, neutral, comprehensive and verifiable source, any single article's life cycle may take weeks, months or even years. Content deemed by the community to have reached the standards are noted as 'Featured Articles'. 3. Content Administration: There are 3 levels of Wikipedians: writers, editors and administrators. All three levels work together, and decisions are made by consensus, posted online and open for discussion. Editors watch specific pages, track changes and make suggestions for improving article quality. Administrators have the right to remove or lock content , and block users who try to vandalise articles. There are currently 1500 administrators. Wikipedia's detractors frequently cite unreliability as a major flaw of the site, and Wikipedia itself includes disclaimers warning that: "Wikipedia can be a great tool for learning and researching information. However, as with all sources, not everything in Wikipedia is accurate, comprehensive, or unbiased. Many of the general rules of thumb for conducting research apply to Wikipedia"2. Given these disclaimers about article quality and reliability, it's interesting to note the numerous studies conducted3 to evaluate Wikipedia on these points. Some studies assess article quality by comparing Wikipedia to other encyclopedias. Often quoted is the 2005 Nature study that compared Wikipedia favourably with Encyclopaedia Britannica: "The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three"4. Interestingly, a 2007 study by Pew Research claims that readers of Wikipedia include the well educated and college aged. "More than a third of American adult internet users (36%) consult the citizen-generated online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, according to a new nationwide survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project"5. As argued by James Surowiecki in his book The wisdom of crowds ,"large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future6. Projects like Linux have also demonstrated the viability of open collaborative models for achieving results that would normally be done by a closed, elite group. Wikipedia operates using an open collaborative model, which is the source of both its power and pitfalls. Ultimately, it is the openness of the content, the ease with which information can be reused and syndicated by other sites, and the quality of articles that has made it one of the most popular web sites on the internet - it is consistently listed in the top 10 for most popular web site. Wikipedia provides a fascinating look at a massive self organising model at work. It demonstrates that wikis can be used to harness the power of collective intelligence and change the way that the whole world looks at information, knowledge creation and open collaboration. See further discussion of the value of Wikipedia in our KM article An Open Approach to Modelling. Sources: 1. "Wikipedia: About". Wikipedia. September 20, 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About 2. "Wikipedia: Researching with Wikipedia". July 10, 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Researching_with_Wikipedia 3. "Wikipedia: Relability of Wikipedia". September 21, 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia 4. Giles, Jim. "Special Report: Internet Encyclopaedias Go Head to Head". Nature 438:900-901. December 15, 2005. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html 5. Rainie, Lee. "Wikipedia: When in Doubt, Multitudes Seek it Out". Pew Research Center Publications. April 24, 2007. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/460/wikipedia 6. Surowiecki, James. The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations. New York: Doubleday, 2004. |
