Wikipedia as an example of how online communities evaluate quality.

Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that “anyone can edit” (Wikipedia, 2008a), and it can be used as an example of how online communities evaluate quality. As Wikipedia is maintained by users worldwide who constantly update and revise (Bruns, 2007) the content of articles, I feel confident (most of the time) that the information I gather from Wikipedia is reliable and valid. However, there have been concerns that politicians, large companies and even bands are using the collaborative and multi-sourced nature of Wikipedia to change information in order to “polish their image” (National Public Radio, 2007). An example that I can recall from a couple of years ago is that an American Senator changed the Wikipedia article about him to read that he had voted against the Iraq war, when in fact he had voted for it. The Wikipedia community was quick to pick up on this inconsistency and revise the page, however this example shows that the concept of ‘anyone can edit’ can raise some problems.

National Public Radio (2007) gave the below example of how Wal-Mart changed information on Wikipedia in their program Scanner Tracks Who's Changing What on Wikipedia.

Wal-Mart changed the page dedicated to them from this:

Wages at Wal-Mart are about 20% less than at other retail stores. Founder Sam Walton once argued that his company should be exempt from the minimum wage.

To this:

The average wage at Wal-Mart is almost double the federal minimum wage (Wal-Mart). However, founder Sam Walton once argued that his company should be exempt from the minimum wage.

After visiting the Wal-Mart article on Wikipedia I discovered that neither of these statements exist anymore, and I believe that the information has been reviewed and revised by produsers to make it more reliable. While exploring the Wal-Mart page, I came across the discussion page for the Wal-Mart entry. The discussion page is described as “the talk page for discussing improvements to the Wal-Mart article” (Wikipedia, 2008b). By skimming this page I found that produsers are constantly evaluating the quality of their own and their peers’ work, and I believe that this collaboration leads to the information being more reliable and valid. Therefore, if any questionable changes are made to articles by companies, I believe that produsers who are active in the Wikipedia environment would quickly question the neutrality and quality of the article, collaborate via the discussion page, and re-enter more neutral information.

To counteract this problem of companies editing their own pages, Virgil Griffith created a database called WikiScanner (National Public Radio, 2007), which “list(s) anonymous wikipedia edits from interesting organizations” (Griffith, 2007). I used this database to discover that Wal-Mart and its subsidiary ADSA had indeed made changes to the Wikipedia article in 2005 and 2006 (Griffith, 2007). The invention of this WikiScanner is another example of how online communities evaluate quality, creating their own instruments to do this.

Wikipedia has “introduced the … means for users to themselves enact their responses and change, extend, and correct existing content” (Bruns, 2007), however as it is open for anyone to edit, there is the potential for politicians, companies, brands or ANYONE to enter incorrect or misleading information. While I believe that the collaborative nature of produsers will result in the quality of such information being maintained, there are limitations. While Wikipedia is a great source of information, I hope that this blog shows that it cannot always be used as a source of information to be relied upon. I believe that users of Wikipedia should themselves evaluate the quality of articles by further research of both online and offline resources.

References

Bruns, A. (2007). The Future Is User-Led: The Path towards Widespread Produsage. Retrieved April 27, 2008, from http://snurb.info/files/The%20Future%20Is%20User-Led%20(PerthDAC%202007).pdf.

Griffith, V. (2007). WikiScanner: List anonymous wikipedia edits from interesting organizations. Retrieved May 12, 2008, from http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/.

National Public Radio. (2007). Scanner Tracks Who's Changing What on Wikipedia. Retrieved May 10, 2008, from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12823729.

Wikipedia. (2008a). Welcome to Wikipedia. Retrieved May 12, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.

Wikipedia. (2008b). Talk: Wal-Mart. Retrieved May 12, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wal-Mart.