Word Play
For Wikipedia creator Jimmy
Wales, there's no such thing as too
much information.
It's one thing to introduce a revolutionary idea. It's an entirely
different concept to reinvent the wheel - or in this case, the
modern encyclopedia. But Jimmy Wales thinks he has the task
covered. Five years ago, the St. Petersburg,
Florida, resident
advanced the idea of letting the masses write entries to an
encyclopedia and then posting all the material online for the world
to see. It was bold, it was brash, and it seemingly had no chance
to succeed. ¶ Skip forward to 2006, aim your
web browser at
www.wikipedia.com, and you find out how wrong the pundits were.
Wikipedia has grown - "exploded" might be a more apt description -
into the world's largest and most widely used source of reference
information, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 million
entries and five billion page visits each month. It's free, it's
easy to use, and it's more detailed than any other encyclopedia on
the planet. There are articles on topics as arcane as navel lint
(with links to accompanying photos, no less) and the Huraa Dynasty
of the
Maldives, and as common as cats and cornflakes.
While every era produces a few standout ideas and products, it's
apparent that the 39-year-old Wales - who cut his teeth working as
a futures and options trader in
Chicago and later introduced a
photo search portal that specialized in allowing end users to build
"web rings" of content of their own choosing - is rewriting the way
people think about and use information. If traditional resources
like
Encyclopædia Britannica and
Columbia
Encyclopedia aim for the scholarly elite, Wikipedia has quite
literally emerged as the everyman's encyclopedia.
Consider: Volunteers write every article - and anyone with a web
browser and an Internet connection can update them at any time.
What's more, it is possible to search the entire Wikipedia database
and use the material for any purpose. Already, Wikipedia appears in
123 languages, including Hebrew, Croatian, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and
Esperanto. "We're able to harness more brainpower than other
encyclopedias," says Wales. "Our approach and format give a
distinct advantage over other encyclopedias."
However, not everyone considers Wikipedia a beacon of progress. In
recent months, a spate of inaccurate entries have garnered
headlines and raised questions about the encyclopedia's integrity.
Articles about high-profile and controversial figures, such as
President Bush and Sen.
John Kerry, have become the target of
vandals. Finally, some argue that a highly successful and free
Wikipedia could undermine established providers of reference
materials and threaten their viability. If these encyclopedias
falter, the theory goes, society could wind up with a set of
less-than-accurate reference books.
Consider it an irony that the word
encyclopedia derives from
a classical Greek phrase meaning "a general or well-rounded
education." Although such reference sets have existed since the
sixteenth century - and were once viewed as essential learning and
study guides - they have slowly evolved into a source for quick
information. Moreover, the advent of CDs, DVDs,
broadband, and the
web has moved the emphasis away from print and toward pixels. Let's
face it: The luster of owning a $1,500 set of encyclopedias isn't
what it once was - especially when you consider that they're
obsolete as quickly as they are printed.
Wales saw the handwriting on the wall in the late 1990s. The
self-professed information freak, who spent countless hours poring
over the
World Book Encyclopedia as a child growing up in
Huntsville,
Alabama, embarked on a project called Nupedia - a
peer-reviewed academic encyclopedia that he now describes as a
"complete failure." Although Wales was able to attract "a group of
very smart, academic people who were really passionate about the
idea, it was too much work for volunteers to deal with," he
says.
Rather than toss in the towel, Wales decided to wrap himself around
a slightly different approach. Around that time, he was fascinated
by wikis - websites that allow users to add and edit content at
will (
wiki is a Hawaiian term that means "quick" or "fast").
Building on the idea of collaborative effort used for Nupedia, why
not create a collaborative encyclopedia and tap into the brainpower
of the masses? He reasoned that he could harness the same core
group that contributed to Nupedia and make content available at no
charge - while allowing users to copy and reproduce the
encyclopedia at will.
Thus, Wikipedia was born on January 15, 2001. Since then, it has
ridden the crest of the Internet wave and emerged as the leading
tool for gleaning basic knowledge on almost any given subject.
"People are attracted to Wikipedia because it is incredibly easy to
use and useful," observes
Barry Parr, a media analyst with Jupiter
Research. "It's frequently updated, the material can be reproduced
freely, and, because of the collaborative way it's written, you get
a sense that there are multiple perspectives on any given
issue."
What makes Wikipedia remarkable is that you can type in almost any
word or subject in the English language and wind up with an article
displayed on your computer screen in a fraction of a second.
There's no jaunt over to the bookshelf and no shuffling through
indexes and cross-references to find a nugget of knowledge. What's
more, Wikipedia's million-plus articles in English eclipses
Britannica's 80,000,
Columbia's 51,000, and Encarta's 63,000. Even
more mind-boggling is the fact that Wikipedia adds somewhere around
2,000
entries a day.
Of course, quantity and ease of use don't necessarily equate to
quality. Some people, including Joel Waldfogel, Ehrenkranz
Professor of Business and Public Policy at the
Wharton School of
the University of
Pennsylvania, question how effectively a spirited
cadre of volunteers can produce articles compared to top
professionals and luminaries. For instance, Britannica boasts
entries from Carl Sagan, Milton Friedman, and numerous Nobel
laureates. World Book verifies any fact appearing in any article
with at least three respected sources - not including other
encyclopedias.
By comparison, Wikipedia is a virtual free-for-all, with more than
13,000 participants churning out articles. If you're inclined to
add your two cents' worth, you simply click on a tab at the top of
any entry that reads "Edit this page." You make desired changes and
click "Save page." Your words are then visible for the entire world
to see - though "page patrollers" dutifully track changes (another
tab displays the entire history of an article) and verify that the
information is appropriate and correct. They also undo vandalized
pages - usually within five minutes, Wales says.
Nevertheless, the wiki approach has also led to several faux pas
and problems. In 2005, a Wikipedia article linked former newspaper
editor and publisher John Seigenthaler Sr. to the assassinations of
both John and Robert Kennedy. Seigenthaler, who served as
administrative assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy, went
ballistic. Instead of simply changing the Wikipedia entry - which
had appeared from May through October - he penned an editorial for
USA Today about the "flawed and irresponsible research tool"
and his frustration at not being able to identify the anonymous
poster. Editors quickly corrected the bio, and a sleuthing book
indexer from
Texas eventually identified the culprit.
Another high-profile incident occurred last December, when Adam
Curry, a former
MTV VJ who helped pioneer podcasting, confessed
that he had deleted references to rival innovators. That led to
charges of "vanity editing." Meanwhile, a summer intern for
seven-term
Massachusetts Congressman Martin T. Meehan altered his
profile to remove an old promise that he would limit his service to
four terms. Even Wales has gotten into the act, tweaking his
Wikipedia bio at least 18 times - an act that
Wired magazine
referred to as "immature behavior."
Criticism and accusations don't seem to faze Wales. The way he sees
it, building Wikipedia doesn't happen overnight - and he is
learning on the fly. "We're constantly tweaking and changing to
improve the way we manage the process," he says. "While I think the
quality of the content is pretty good, I'm cautious about bragging
about it, because it's not as good as it should be or will be." In
fact, the Seigenthaler incident coincided with changes Wikipedia
made to require that new contributors register before submitting
articles. It also locked some articles that attract vandalism, yet
it still allows open editing by contributors who have editing
experience.
Controversy aside, experts insist that Wikipedia is evolving into a
reputable source for information. Says Parr: "Wikipedia is climbing
into the same league as respected reference guides. It is gaining
greater respect every day."
THE BURNING QUESTION IS: Why do so many people volunteer so
much time to write and edit entries for Wikipedia? Wales, who
spends about 200 days a year crisscrossing the globe to support his
passion, says that while contributors' names appear in the
"history" section of an article, everlasting glory is the last
thing on their minds. "They view this as a charitable and
worthwhile mission. They believe that sharing knowledge is
beneficial for society," he says. "Many of them also enjoy the
social aspects of discussing and debating the finer points of
articles and belonging to a community."
David Gerard is a perfect example. The UK-based computer-systems
administrator spends upwards of 50 hours per week overseeing pages
and handling an assortment of other functions. The self-described
trivia fanatic says that Wikipedia offers him a chance to exercise
his editing and interpersonal skills. "It's interesting to be able
to go into as much depth as you like on a subject without worrying
about running out of paper. It feels good to create a useful
resource," he says.
Gerard is convinced that Wikipedia's neutral approach resonates
with the public. Rather than advocating a single truth or a
particular position, Wikipedia articles typically offer a variety
of viewpoints, Gerard explains. While absolute neutrality is
impossible, and editorial decisions always come down to judgment,
"neutral-point-of-view writing on subjects seems to be drastically
rare. That's something Wikipedia does that no one else in fact has
as a key goal," Gerard says.
The bigger question is how the emerging encyclopedia wars will play
out. Some observers, such as Wharton's Waldfogel, believe that
Wikipedia has the potential to alter the entire business model for
reference materials. "If enough people find that free information
is an acceptable substitute for the verified and edited information
in traditional encyclopedic sources, they will stop buying and
using traditional tools," he says. "The question then becomes: Who
is handling the process of gathering and presenting information,
and are they producing a reliable product?"
At this point, there's also no proof that Wikipedia can succeed
financially. So far, Wales has eschewed advertising and depended
solely on contributions to keep the web-based encyclopedia afloat.
Last year, the Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees the project,
raked in approximately $750,000 in donations
(www.wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/fundraising) and pursued grants
to help cover costs. Several large companies have also tossed their
support behind Wikipedia, including Internet giant Yahoo!
Currently, Wikipedia operates with a staff of only three paid
employees.
Nevertheless, in addition to Wikipedia, the organization has
introduced Wiktionary, the world's largest multilingual
dictionary; Wikiquote, a compendium of quotations in more than
three dozen languages; Wikibooks, a collection of free,
open-content textbooks; and Wikinews, which features stories based
on feeds from news agencies as diverse as
ABC Online and Al
Jazeera. The latter is part of Wales's ongoing attempt to provide
"different perspectives and not wind up as a slave to ratings."
Wales also runs a for-profit business called Wikia, which oversees
an assortment of online communities supported by ad revenue.
In the end, only one thing is clear: Wales wants the entire world to read and write his book — and so far he is succeeding. In March, Wikipedia ranked as the 18th-most popular site worldwide, ahead of heavyweights like
BBC,
CNN, and
AOL. These days, countless students, journalists, professionals, and others depend on Wikipedia to provide a chunk of knowledge on almost everything. Says Wales: “Wikimedia’s mission is to give the world’s knowledge to every single person on the planet in their own language. We’re on the right path.”