Wiki-maailm

Nädala ülesanne: Oletagem, et ühel päeval heliseb telefon ja toru otsas on Wikipedia looja Jimbo Wales küsimusega: “Kuidas võiks Wikipediat veelgi paremaks teha?” Mida talle vastata? Mõtted tuleks jällegi ajaveebi kirjutada.

So, here we are. The guy just called me one day and asked: “How would you improve wikipedia?” And frankly speaking I wouldn’t be able to answer such question if asked so suddenly, without preliminary thinking. So let’s try to investigate the topic a bit.

First thing, that comes into my mind is the fact that articles in wikipedia can be written and edited by any Internet user.  The users identity, his education level and knowledge base in the field, described in the article is totally unknown. Thus aricles in wiki can contain mistakes and unproven information. Of course, every article has to be proven by links to information sources, but this seems to be quite unreliable (links can also contain wrong information). Other can say: “Hey, but each article is verified by admin/editor before issuing!”, but come on, admins can also be lacking knowledge in particular field!

That is why my first proposal would be having content, controlled by professionals, which could be considered as true material.

Secondly, every single user can create an article on any topic. And now wikipedia now looks like a big trash bin with articles on any topic, starting with sience and finishing with descriptions of dirty language words.

So, second proposal is to keep separated serious articles, like science, arts from non-serios ones.