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Wikipedia in the news

Wikipedia revolutionary but has shortcomings

CBS News covered Wikipedia on Sunday, 10 December. A Sunday Morning correspondent interviewed Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger regarding Wikipedia's revolutionary method of information sharing. The article discusses the Nature survey and mistakes which appear in articles since it can be edited at anytime by any person. Wales is quoted, "You need to have some consideration if you ... read something that seems a little crazy you should stop and think about it." Sanger confirmed the article's premise, "It is absolutely revolutionary. Scholarship, learning, is gonna change forever."

One year down, Law Professor still predicts Wikipedia's demise

Information Week covered a recent blog post from law professor, Eric Goldman that affirmed his prior blog from 4 December, 2005 that predicted that Wikipedia would fail within 5 years. Goldman focused on three perceived weaknesses: maintenance by a small core group of contributors, additional "bureaucracy and tight editorial control" diverge from the open-access claims, and a lack of incentives to keep contributing. Goldman notes that the attacks continue, sometimes spurred on by major media figures, but interestingly, Goldman failed to note the emergence of anti-vandal bots on Wikipedia, and their use to do some of the repetitive and unsatisfying tasks.

Japanese Wikipedia wins Web of the Year 2006

The Japanese Wikipedia won the Web of the Year 2006 from Yahoo! Japan Internet Guide. Wikipedia won the annual prize and was ranked 1st by many polls. Noting that Wikipedia is often cited as the beginning of Web 2.0, the article claims that Wikipedia is now utilized generally for information gathering (Article in Japanese).

Community collaboration to cost less

In a widely syndicated story from Reuters, Wikipedia was frequently mentioned in conjunction with the latest announcement from Wikia. Jimmy Wales announced that Wikia would provide free hosting services which would include providing open source applications, web storage, and bandwidth. See also The Age and InfoWorld.

Wikipedia as source

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KEY: (c) Continuing Coverage • (s) Wikipedia as Source
Topic Source type Source name Notes
Wikidemise Major comp mag Information Week Law professor Eric Goldman, in a recent blog post Goldman confirmed his earlier prediction that Wikipedia will not exist in its current format by 2009. In doing so he affirmed his postition from December 4, 2005 that Wikipedia had less than 5 years left.
Disputes ITN ~30,000 The Roanoke Times Carilion Health System edited to criticise chief executive Dr. Edward Murphy's plan to convert to Carilion Clinic
Amazon invests Wikia city news Houston Chronicle
San Jose Mercury Times
Information Week
Amazon invests in Wikia
? College News Bowdoin Orient College editor uses Wikipedia to become a "celebrity" by inserting himself in the college's article and creating an article on himself.
source city news The Statesman Journal References wikipedia for definition of governance, "Wikipedia is this touchy-feely, democratic version of an online encyclopedia. ... Wikipedia has been criticized for occasionally getting things wrong, but most people who understand governance probably would go along with..."
workplace comp news IT Week (UK) companies that allow access to Wikipedia could be putting their company at risk.
Good/Bad major news CBS News We're a bunch of geeks," Jimmy Wales, the inventor of Wikipedia, told Sunday Morning correspondent Serena Altschul. "

"Wikipedia says it takes fact-checking seriously, too, but since it only has volunteers and a shoestring budget funded by donations, everything about it is radically different."

linking blog Google Official Blog Google Earth will now make wikipedia articles available while looking at geographic information. When Wikipedia information is available it will be visually identified by the Wikipedia Globe.


















Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-12-11/In_the_news