New Yorker Magazine, July 31, 2006 (unfortunately, no longer available
online), has an interesting article in the Annals of Information section
titled "Know it All - Wikipedia takes on the Experts" written by Stacy
Schiff.  

The article begins with a subtitle "Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?"
and goes one to provide a good history of the site and the founder Jimmy
Wales, and many other additional facts which help to explain this
phenomena.  

One of the interesting aspects of Wikipedia that is highlighted is an
incident pertaining to an article on global warming and the political
aspect of some of the editing that takes place.  "It can still seem as
though the user who spends the most time on the site -- or who yells the
loudest -- wins.  Connelly believes that Wikipedia "gives no privilege
to those who know what they're talking about" a view that is echoed by
many academics and former contributors, who argue that too many
Wikipedians are fundamentally suspicious of experts and unjustly
confident of their own opinions."

Later in the article, the author states "For software, there is an
objective standard; wither it works or it doesn't.  There is no such
test for truth."

And "Part of the problem is provenance.  The bulk of Wikipedia's content
originates not in the stacks but on the Web, which offers up everything
from breaking news, spin, and gossip to proof that the moon landings
never took place."

I could go on, but won't with some of the pithy thoughts and quotes from
the article.  If you have a chance to pick up this copy of the New
Yorker and are interested in the issue of how we get information and
validate information in today's web wired world, then this article will
provide lots of food for thought.

I am sorry I was unable to find an online version of it, and if anyone
else can, please provide the link in case anyone else thinks this is as
interesting for us records managers as are other issues related to data
integrity, provenance, etc.

Mary Hilliard

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance