Wikipedia's Crisis of Authority

As you know, I'm not crazy about Wikipedia, the huge internet-based encyclopedia that allows anyone from anywhere to write and/or edit its articles. Although some people think it is an expression of the collective intelligence of the people, I can't get past the fact that it is sorely lacking in Authority, the last and most important component of the COCOA-A rubric for the evaluation of web sites. I guess you could say that I don't have much faith in the collective intelligence of everyone from everywhere. It's not that people don't know stuff; it's that their motives for writing may be mixed, at best. And if you don't know who the writers are, you can't judge what those motives may be.

It was only a matter of time before Wikipedia suffered from a crisis in authority, and now it has happened. John Seigenthaler, a former assistant to Robert Kennedy, wrote in the newspaper's op-ed column that for "for 132 days," the Wikipedia article about him (Seigenthaler) falsely accused him of being involved in the Robert and John F. Kennedy assassinations. Some of its other facts (including some that implied Communist sympathies) were wrong too. And to make even things worse, annotations on the site called him a "Nazi" and other nasty things (I'm not sure that you can be a right-wing Nazi and a left-wing Communist at the same time, but no matter, Seigenthaler denies both allegations).

It did not seem to occur to Seigenthaler that he, too, could sign up for a Wikipedia account and remove the libelous words himself. Maybe he just wanted to see how long the article would remain uncorrected. Wikipedia, for its part, claims the libelous words have been removed, and has instituted a new registration system for the authors of new articles. The idea is that if authors of new articles are required to register, fewer people will write new articles, and then the 600-strong, all-volunteer editorial staff will get a better handle on what appears in Wikipedia But anyone from anywhere will will still be able to modify existing articles. Considering that the Wikipedia people claim that "impulse vandalism" is a major cause of ill-considered additions to the site, this approach doesn't seem likely to solve the problem.

Legal expert Eugene Volokh says, "I sympathize with [Seigenthaler], but it's really not any different than a posting on an anonymous Web page." I don't agree. Wikipedia entries often come up at the top of Google results lists (an anonymous web site is unlikely to achieve that kind of popularity), and even the "pedia" ending of the site's name confers an air of authority.

The New York Times (registration required) quoted a researcher as saying "Instead of figuring out how to 'fix' Wikipedia - something that cannot be done to our satisfaction, we should focus our energies on educating the Wikipedia users among our colleagues." And among the general public, too, I would add.

Updates: The man allegedly responsible for the fake information on Seigenthaler claims that he created the inaccurate entry as a prank to trick a co-worker. According to the BBC, Brian Chase "did not realise that the online encyclopedia was taken so seriously." Chase was unmasked as the culprit thanks to online detective work by Wikipedia critic Daniel Brandt, founder of Wikipedia Watch. Chase has since apologized to Seigenthaler.

Meanwhile, the scientific journal Nature found that articles on science in Wikipedia are about as accurate as those that appear in the online edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica. In a side-by-side study, the Nature panel of experts found that "the average scientific entry in Wikipedia contained four errors or omissions, while Britannica had three...Of eight "serious errors" the reviewers found — including misinterpretations of important concepts — four came from each source."