Entries in wiki (2)

Monday
Nov302009

Jennifer Leggio of ZDNet is Wrong (Wikipedia 2008)

Date20091130 at 17:33

FROM THE ARCHIVES: November 30, 2008

Wikipedia is getting a fresh round of scrutiny amidst observations that contribution has dropped precipitously in the last year.

Related Post: Unabashed Plea: Leave Wikipedia Aloooooone (sob)

See Also: Communications During Terrorist Attacks are Not Bad - Schneier on Security


ZDNet article by Jennifer Leggio (November 28th, 2008)

Mumbai attack coverage demonstrates (good and bad) maturation point of social media

The content on Page 2 leaves me with two choices. Either she does not understand Wikipedia, or is using it as a punching bag to make some grandiose claim about the shortcomings of social media and citizen journalism.

I attempted to clarify. See that FriendFeed conversation here. Note that she issues me a “correction” and did not respond to my concern that she flat out does not understand how Wikipedia works.


The Wikipedia article pictured on page 2 was seeded with valid information and grew from there. She saw it defaced for a moment, but didn’t manage to get a “screen shot.” She got the “screen shot” from a friend.

Here is the latest revision of the Wikipedia entry titled “November 2008 Mumbai attacks”. I looked for the revision she cites, and failed to find it. Needless to say, that’s beside the point See below.

At the time of this writing (half-past Midnight the morning of November 30) the article has extensive information, time lines, pictures, and 179 references. The number of entries in the Page history is in excess of 1500.

Is it possible Jennifer and her friend don’t understand that a Wikipedia article about a disaster such as this is the result of thousands of contributions? Does she not understand that for it to appear as she shows it, someone has to delete all of the content and replace it with “Bush Sucks?”

Does she not know that this sort of defacement is extremely noticeable to the hundreds of people making contributions in real time, and the next contributor will simply “undo” the defacement before making their changes?

She is betraying a stunning ignorance or bias here. I have less and less patience with lazy opinion pieces, or pieces that take cheap shots to make some trumped-up case. And in light of the tragedy of the actual events in Mumbai, I am appalled that it is reduced to “Bush Sucks.” I must say, in this case “ZDNet Sucks” also.

How many more ways can “main-stream media” fail? I’m not sure I know the answer to that one.

UPDATE:
Found the notorious defacement(s). Two of them. Lasting 5 and 7 seconds for a grand total of 12. 


OMG STOP THE PRESSES. WIKIPEDIA IS BROKEN. I CAN HAZ PULITZER NOW?



My last comment on the article:

I will eagerly anticipate articles from ZDNet on how wikipedia has attained the success it has now, and what can be improved.

I will not entertain casual sniping at one of the best examples of a massive collaborative effort to date.

I wonder if Jennifer, and others at ZDNet would care to take an “official” anti-wikipedia position, and explain that this in no way is affected by business motives and an erosion of the authority of such as ZDNet. Looking forward to it!

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Wednesday
Sep302009

Google Sidewiki - Another front in the Content Wars

Date20090930 at 14:52

UPDATE: Sidewiki “policies”:

Keep Sidewiki spam and malware free. Spam includes, but is not limited to, unwanted promotional or commercial content, or posts with gibberish such as keyword spamming.  We also don’t allow the transmission of malware, viruses, or anything that may disrupt the service or harm others. 

Speak your mind without being hateful or threatening to others.  Lively discussions can happen without posting hateful, threatening, harassing, or bullying content.  We encourage you to work out disputes or disagreements on your own. However, in serious or egregious cases, we will take action.  

Keep it legal.  Don’t engage in unlawful activities on this product.  If we are notified of unlawful activities, we will take appropriate action, which may include removing access to Sidewiki, your Google account, or reporting you to the appropriate authorities.

Respect copyright laws.  We will respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement.  Repeated infringement of intellectual property rights, including copyright, will result in account termination.  For more information on Google’s copyright policies, please see here

Don’t post or link to sexually explicit material.  Posts that are irrelevant and serve to drive traffic to material with nudity, graphic sex acts, or sexually explicit content are considered spam and aren’t allowed. We also don’t allow posts that promote unlawful or inappropriate sexual acts with or depictions of children or animals.   

Google has a zero-tolerance policy against child pornography. If we become aware of child pornography on our properties, the content will be removed and we will report it and its owners to the appropriate authorities.

Don’t pretend to be someone else. We don’t allow impersonation of others or other behavior that is misleading or intended to be misleading.

Don’t share personal or confidential information.  We don’t allow unauthorized publishing of people’s private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, driver’s and other license numbers, or any other information that is not publicly accessible. 

 


I was engaged in the constant and tedious chore I call “twitter gardening” when I noticed that Google Sidewiki had content attached to Twitter’s home page: (image linked to Sidewiki comment pictured)

Setting aside questions about Sidewiki’s purpose, originality, et cetera, it seems that Sidewiki has opened a new front in the Content Wars. There is a clear incentive to adding Sidewiki content: Google exposure, such as quick access to your Google profile, and traffic to whatever links you include.

This is one more place for spammers and scammers to go crazy, to say nothing of self-promoting “social media experts” and the like.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not at all excited about the prospect of more “gardening chores,” especially since Google has not done a good job in preventing and removing Google Groups spammers or Google Maps errors.

What do you think? Be the first and tell me in a Sidewiki comment on this site if you dare.

 

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