June 30, 2008
U. of California Researchers Hold Wikipedia Authors Accountable
How do you know if what’s in Wikipedia is trustworthy? Researchers at the University of California at Santa Cruz’s WikiLab have a created a color-coded system that they believe reliably answers that question. The system, called WikiTrust, colors suspect words orange. The deeper the orange the less trustworthy the author who added the words.
Researchers measure contributors’ reputations based on how long their entries last without being revised. Showing their faith in the wiki process the researchers have—you guessed it—created a wiki to describe WikiTrust. —Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Monday June 30, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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Is WikiTrust aimed at making Wikipedia entries acceptable for academic citation? If so, it rests on the assumption that the duration of unedited shelf-life is an index of reliability, and on the further assumption that edits are improvements. Neither assumption is reliably true. Entries in need of improvement may go unedited because they attract few hits, and factually correct entries may be edited because they irritate an anonymous editor. As long as editors are personally unaccountable,
efforts to improve Wikipedia’s reliability will be insufficient.
— Neil Waters Jun 30, 11:32 AM #
So, let me get this straight – they’re measuring trustworthiness by how long entries last without being changed? So, if I’m a right-winger, and I want all those evil left-wingers to appear untrustworthy, all I have to do is go change their entries as soon as they post them???????
Tell me that’s not how this works.
— gl Jun 30, 11:36 AM #
Clueless.
Jon Awbrey
— Jon Awbrey Jun 30, 11:52 AM #
#2 brings up an excellent point.
— Kyle David Jun 30, 04:56 PM #
Wow. Professionals outside the world of Wikipedia really don’t understand the core nature of power and the facsimile of “truth” on that site, do they?
— Gregory Kohs Jun 30, 10:18 PM #
History will record that WikiLabbers at UCSC invented the science of Wikiphrenology. Other centers of research will rush to imitate their great leap forward. It’s easy enough. Just find something you can measure with great precision — any old thing will do — and consensually proclaim that it must have some kind of objective validity. No fussy reality-testing required.
— Jon Awbrey Jun 30, 11:12 PM #
In the writing courses taught at my University, among the first points made to students is that “Wikipedia” is not in any way a credible source for academic or professional writing. This is at best a lopsided attempt to legitimize an interesting if unprofessional source of only sometimes valid information. Cyber-junk.
— Anna Johnson Jul 1, 08:25 AM #
“Wikipedia is not in any way a credible source”? I believe it has been shown to be about as accurate as conventional encyclopedias. I find it excellent for scientific and mathematical topics, and would not hesitate to check it first when I wanted to know something.
Would I cite it in a scholarly journal? Probably not, but then, I probably wouldn’t cite an encyclopedia there either. It’s expected that for such articles you consult encyclopedias, and then move deeper.
But do I accept Wikipedia citations for student papers? Absolutely.
Do I expect critical thought? Absolutely. After all, I did see a Wikipedia page briefly say that most amphibians had “between 3 and 6 legs”. I blinked, hit refresh, and the phrase was gone.
— Charles Twardy Jul 1, 10:49 AM #
I just Googled Wikitrust and played around with UCSC’s demo. According to Wikitrust, it’s untrustworthy that Waterbury, Connecticut is located in Connecticut.
Trust me, that’s where it is.
— Former resident of Waterbury, CT Jul 1, 05:47 PM #
There’s a double meaning in that
— Jon Awbrey Jul 1, 10:00 PM #