Wikipedia and Truthiness III

So, why is the debate over Wikipedia’s reliability so fascinating? I must agree with the hypothesis developed by Larry Sanger, the Wikipedia’s co-founder. In the New Politics of Knowledge, he mentioned the creation of online Republics, about the creative Public, collaborative projects, wisdom of crowds, politics of knowledge, political systems of governance, and the role of experts in online Republics. He sugests that Wikipedia should consider the creation of online Republics, and is in favor of an online constitutional representative democracy informed by experts. “In an online Constitutional Republic, authority remains ultimately in the hands of the Creative Public, but they entrust that authority temporarily to their representatives, and all agree to be bound by a charter”.

I believe that it is necessary a more reliable free encyclopedia by giving people a place to work and create  under the direction of experts and by expecting personal accountability, including the use of real names.

Jimmy Wales, who invented Wikipedia, let the community evolve its rules based on its real needs. I completely agree. Open communication is a wonderful and practical idea that most democracies are founded upon. Just like capitalist economies, which function based on the supply and demand.

Peer Response (3) to WHAT I LIKE ABOUT “PostGlobal”

Where does a writer stop and a human begin? On her blog, “Mediadiscussions“, Nur states, “…just reading writers’ opinions… make me feel more unsatisfied.” Yet, she enjoys reading a blog which consists of different “journalists’” opinions. Inferred in her article, What I like about “PostGlobal“, is the fundamental difference between a writer and a person, and a piece that is written by an employee and one that is written by an individual.

The constraints of newspaper writers are large. The author mentions availability and frequency: “their articles appear only once a week.” In addition, those who are employed by newspapers, frankly, have an obligation to adhere to the company’s agenda in terms of subject, timing, and bias. On a more positive note, written articles usually require more background research to be able to retaliate in cases someone claims that her writing is not legitimate.

On the other hand, bloggers are free. They can change opinions everyday, post whenever they have the time, and make their own rules. Bloggers come from everywhere and anywhere, whereas journalists employed by newspapers usually share similar educations, origins, and experiences. The author asserts that this results in “a truly global discussion.”

Nur also states: “moreover every single post is linky”. That is exactly what Robert Scoble advises in his book, “Naked Conversations“– tip #9: “be linky”.

In blogs there are no limits. Journalists are able to act as individuals—people are writing, not employees. In a blog, one’s argument is skinned of its obligations to the establishment, and widely available for review. Individuals are expressing information in a way that was impossible before the Internet, and the communication of international affairs is rapidly changing.

Peer Response (2) to War 2.0

In the relatively new world of online media, the most dramatic and influential change in information exchange is the ability of individuals to have a voice. I would agree with Cullen, who asserts in her blog, “War 2.0“, that “effective citizen journalism” is the way of the future.

Perhaps the most novel concept in news journalism is personality. Often, news programs express the public with a single word: “Americans.” They label the citizens of another country by their nationality. In my opinion, though practical, the practice of generalizing results in a response which is detached and unemotional. We often forget that when a headline reads “Fires in Southern California,” someone lost a brother in that fire. Or, as another example, “Microsoft Stock Plummets,” implies that a hardworking man might have lost his job that day.

The writer of the entry says: “… I had seen blogging as a pitching platform with bias, not as a story-telling platform.” She goes on to explain that reading a blog by a “citizen journalist” invoked “feelings” and “emotions.” This was the story of a single person, a human being, that made a headline real and an article relevant.

The news is, ultimately, an explanation of what is happening in people’s lives, at home and around the world. Yet often I forget that a meeting between two world leaders is supposed to symbolize the meeting of two groups of people, invoking the image of a leviathan.

The Internet has made individuals actors in the widest arena. The Internet is itself an international institution in its own category. Sites like Youtube, Myspace, and Facebook enable communication on a personal level, reminding us what we are really hearing about when we listen to a news program.

This is especially important for the next generation. Perhaps when this generation reaches its political prime, the emphasis will be more about the person than the profit and more about the citizen than the country. Cullen concluded her post: “Who knew web 2.0 could be used during a time of war to create art.”

Peer Response (1) to Wikipedia, Can You Prevail?

While reading my classmates blogs, I decided to analyze one of Dayo’s entries. In her blog, “Warlord Treatment“, Dayo made interesting points about Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is more powerful than we think. It is an aggregation of enormous, varied amounts of information, and it contains so many opinions, stories, and arguments that it is intimidating—yet how can something so big be so fragile?

There are discussions about the validity of Wikipedia everywhere: college lecture halls, water coolers in offices, and probably even in the White House. It is a controversial venue, ironically, for controversial issues.

One fundamental question is who has the right to post information on Wikipedia? PhD’s? Those over the age of 35? Home owners? There is no general way to define peoples’ abilities to convey information, and no way to reign in their opinions. In short, Wikipedia is enormous but held up by a shaky foundation.

The post makes some valid points, however, in acknowledging its vast advantages while admitting to its faults. Dayo admits laughing at some ridiculous entries in Wikipedia for their humor just as she admits cringing at racist entries in the “real” encyclopedia. Not to say that Wikipedia is funny while Encyclopedia Britanica is racist, but generally her reactions are similar to others of her generation. The reason for this, as she rightly states, is the ability of Wikipedia to change.

The benefit of an online information source is that it can adjust quickly and efficiently in the matter of a click. The book, on the other hand, requires time and money for publication. Wikipedia is hardly perfect, but it is reflective of a broad range of opinions, interpretations, and voices. Some are factually incorrect, and others are wildly biased, but still others provide simply useful and fast information.

Is Wikipedia a catalyst for the Armageddon? I don’t know. I’m just grateful that I can familiarize myself with the history of, well, anything, without making the trip to the library.

The Iraq War Via de Web

The Internet is bringing so much information, debate, controversy and coverage of the Iraq war. The Washington Post writer, Howard Kurtz, wrote:

“For all the saturation coverage of the invasion of Iraq, this has become the first true Internet war, with journalists, analysts, soldiers, a British lawmaker, an Iraqi exile and a Baghdad resident using the medium’s lightning speed to cut through the fog of war. The result is idiosyncratic, passionate and often profane, with the sort of intimacy and attitude that are all but impossible in newspapers and on television.”

After the invasion of Iraq, bloggers –who are not always reporters, photographers, translators, and producers, but also soldiers and ordinary people–, have described the effect of the war on the life of Iraqis and the war conditions of the troops.

One of the most popular web logs is “Dear Raed“, which is also under criticism, because some people believe that this site is the work of U.S. or Iraqi propagandists. The popularity of “Dear Raed” has spread via e-mail, online discussion groups, and through the recommendations of other bloggers. In one of his posts, Salam wrote: “What is the right answer? Is it to have driven Saddam out (which requires a war), but with a truly United, worldwide coalition, along with a master-plan for the post-war? Is there another way to move Saddam? Basically, should the issue of Iraq been left 100% to the Iraqis from the beginning (no war)? On another note, is America too powerful?”

Salam Pax, the blogger, has given first-hand accounts of the bombing on Baghdad.

The bloggers have analyzed hard essential questions that have been asked in regard to the war in Iraq. For example, how do we bring our troops home within a reasonable and responsible time frame, while achieving what needs to be achieved in Iraq. In a speech delivered at Georgetown University, John Kerry called on the Bush administration to draw up- and present to Congress- a detailed plan with targets dates for the transfer of military and police responsibilities to Iraqis, so the majority of our combat forces can be withdrawn. Also, Rep. Baird voted with the Democrats in favor of bringing troops home.

Another question: Was the Bush Administration prepared for Iraqi resistance? The bloggers state that the Administration failed to equip troops and to plan adequately for the Iraq war. Unofficial study suggests that one-fourth of casualties in Iraq could have been prevented if troop were properly equipped at the beginning of the war. Newsweek reported: “A breakdown of the casualty figures suggests hat many U.S. deaths and wounds in Iraq simply did not need to occur”.

There was also a lot of blogging on war spending, but the reactions to this issue were mixed: some bloggers emphasized the Democrat’s weakness, while others considered the approval of the war spending as part of a political game.

Wikiscanner Report on the World Bank

Wikipedia calls itself as the “free encyclopedia that anyone can edit”, but Wikiscanner is an online tool that can generate a list of edits that can be traced back to their sources using Internet Protocol (I P) addresses, location, and type of changes they made.

The Website, Wikiscanner, was launched by Virgil Griffith, a graduate student from the California Institute of Technology, who downloaded the entire encyclopedia, isolating the internet-based records of anonymous changes and IP addresses, and helped uncover the scrupulous editors, who deliberately attempt to remove facts or reasonable interpretation of facts for the purpose of defaming.

For my Wikipedia project, I made an examination of data compiled by Wikiscanner– a searchable database that links anonymous edits on Wikipedia to the organizations where those edits initially originate– on the World Bank.

While I was researching on the World Bank Wikipedia page, I noticed that “this article needs additional citations for verification” and that “the neutrality of this article is disputed”. By using the Wikiscanner and examining the history of the page, as well as the “talk page”, I was able to discover that many Wikipedia edits are factual corrections, spelling, grammar fixes, and some alterations that involve removing unflattering information, as the examples bellow show.

“Dr. Meltzer also served, from 1973 to 1999, as the Chair of the [[Shadow Open Market Committee]], a group of economists, academics, and bankers that met to critique the actions of the [[Federal Reserve]]’s [[Federal Open Market Committee]]. He served on the [[Council of Economic Advisors]] for both Presidents Kennedy and Reagan, and is currently a visiting scholar at the [[American Enterprise Institute]] and was the first ever recipient of their [[Irving Kristol]] award in 2003[http://www.aei.org/events/seriesID.8/series_detail.asp]. Dr. Meltzer was honored by [[George W. Bush|President George W. Bush]] at the dinner, who remarked “I know I’m not the featured speaker;” (old edit).

“Dr. Meltzer also served, from 1973 to 1999, as the Chair of the [[Shadow Open Market Committee]], a group of economists, academics, and bankers that met to critique the actions of the [[Federal Reserve]]’s [[Federal Open Market Committee]]. He served on the [[Council of Economic Advisors]] for both Presidents Kennedy and Reagan. He is currently a visiting scholar at the [[American Enterprise Institute]], and was the first ever recipient of their [[Irving Kristol]] award in 2003[http://www.aei.org/events/seriesID.8/series_detail.asp]. Dr. Meltzer was honored at the award dinner by [[George W. Bush|President George W. Bush]], who remarked “I know I’m not the featured speaker;” (new edit).

By researching the DomainTools, I found two names for the World Bank, with the same street address: World Bank with IP range from 204.192.0.0- 204.192.255.255, and the World Bank Group with IP range from 138.220.0.0- 138.220.255.255. I analyzed a database of 1190 edits within the ranges 138.220.56.0-98.255 through 217.14.98.0-255 performed by organizations and individuals since 2005. By comparing the old and new edits, I noticed that most of the edits were performed by World Bank employees. Many of the changes are related to: the history of the bank, the organizations within the bank, speeches, educational institutions, countries, scholars and authors, leadership, etymology, adding to category government agencies, synchronicity, cultural background, funding, economies, biographies, international development, governance, democracy, and so on. Here are some examples.

A computer with IP address 138.220.89.98 was used on 10-19-2005 to add a link to a new World Bank report on AIDS. On 04-26-2006, someone corrected biographical information about Galileo Galilei using a computer with IP 138.220.62.39.

The paragraph in older edit: “Galileo was born in [[MOON]], in the [[solar]] region of [[space]] on February 15th, 1564. He was the son of [[Vincenzo alilei]], a mathematician and musician born in Florence in 1520, and Giulia Ammannati, born in [[HEY!]] and got his balls cut off in 1563. Galileo was their first child”.

“Galileo was born in [[Pisa]], in the [[Tuscan]] region of [[Italy]] on February 15th, 1564. He was the son of [[Vincenzo alilei]], a mathematician and musician born in Florence in 1520, and Giulia Ammannati, born in [[HEY!]] and got his balls cut off in 1563. Galileo was their first child”.

The same computer was used by an employee on 06-05-2006 to remove “Good Blogs” for subjective material. On 03-26-2007, a computer with IP 138.220.110.182 is identified as the source of an edit that corrected the population of Burkina Faso (according to the World Bank, it is 13,227,835 and not 43 millions). An outside computer (IP 192.86.106.208) purpostedly was used on 04-22-2007 to remove “dead & irrelevant” web links. Someone using the computer with IP address 192.86.106.81 updated on 07-17-2007 the external links for Public Expenditure Section.

The examination of the “talk page” suggests that the biggest controversial issues are about neutrality and objectivity. They dispute the neutral point of view (NPOV) of the bank, the nature of organization, conspiracy, its economic policy, possible distortion of the truth, and its leadership. In this respect, the edits seemed to remove the criticism of the bank. Many comments are not written in the NPOV manner, and the negative content is removed from the World Bank Wikipedia page, as the example bellow shows.

“Many academics and popular movements have argued that the World Bank is in fact a key cause of contemporary poverty. A number of intellectuals in developing countries have argued that the World Bank is deeply implicated in contemporary modes of donor and NGO driven imperialism and that its intellectual output functions to blame the poor for their condition.<ref>For arguments with regard to both of these claims see, for instance, David Moore‘s edited book ‘‘The World Bank”, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007</ref>” (older edit)

“The Bank supports certain kinds of poor people‘s organisations such as the Self-Employed Women‘s Union and Shack/Slum Dwellers International” (new version).

In sum, I think that Wikiscanner searches are not always an indicator of the accuracy of the article. For example, the simple fact that World Bank edits an article relating to itself, does not necessarily imply that the edit produces a false statements. Most likely, the edit creates an article more favorable to the World Bank, but are we sure that the most favorable edit is not the correct one?

Still, I think that Wikiscanner is a great internet tool. Griffith did not intend to eliminate anonymity, but rather to preserve Wikipedia’s credibility. He says: “For any sort of “open” project, I strongly prefer allowing people to remain anonymous while also doing various back end analysis to counteract vandalism and disinformation”. Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, told the AP: “it is fabulous, and I strongly support it”.

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