“... who claimed to be a tenured professor of divinity was revealed instead to be a young college dropout...” and then “The notion that a false claim to knowledge is wrong is not part of Wikipedia’s culture.” Had not the deduction been taken too far? I suppose that claim to be a professor is not yet a claim to knowledge. Remember Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei, and others.

Cyril, Moscow, (Russia)

“... who claimed to be a tenured professor of divinity was revealed instead to be a young college dropout...” and then “The notion that a false claim to knowledge is wrong is not part of Wikipedia’s culture.” Isn't this deduction has been taken too far? I suppose that claim to be a professor is not yet a claim to knowledge. Remember Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei, and others.

Cyril, Moscow, (Russia)

“More reliable information emerges through continual revision.” Hardly Wikipedian fathers relied exactly upon this suggestion. Errare humanum est. I believe that main idea was to collect every possible fact, comment, and opinion about a subject and then to allow reader to adjudicate on his or her (or they) own (like to reach his or her (or they) own verdict). Every Wikipedian article is like a case put on reader's trial.

Cyril, Moscow, (Russia)

Critics of Wikipedia always seem to be completely deluded about the reliability of professionally edited sources. Actually they are all full of bias, sloppiness and inaccuracies - ones that rarely get exposed, and never get corrected.

Oliver Chettle, Bedford,

It speaks volumes of Jimmy Wales that he would strike such a dismissive, insouciant, arrogant pose in response to your critique of Wikipedia. There are arguments to be made for its consensus-based approach to knowledge, but to reply with nothing more than a characterization of your piece as "ignorant ranting" well illustrates what I believe to be the intellectual emptiness that lies at the heart of today's emerging digitocracy. Mr. Wales's responses to Wikipedia's crises and critics betray a shallow and blinkered perspective that quickly finds itself out of its depth when confronted with non-negotiable fact, and opinion based on it. His response, like that common within Wikipedia and other blogs, is to declare the opposing argument "disruptive" and its advocate a "troll," to use phraseology now popular. I'm with you on the substance, Mr. Kamm: when facts and truth are subject to consensus, conventional wisdom reigns. This is fine until conventional wisdom is at odds with reality,

Charles Wilson, Seattle, USA

I have to say that on the whole Wikipedia is very good at ferreting out self promoting content and they are actually quite quick to fix problems. But this is simply an issue that is going to appear any time you allow free, unfettered and in this case anonymous editing of company information. This is precisely why Bizwiki.co.uk took the decision to require registration. We even took it further by making some parts of the information require review before any edits are put live. I'm not suggesting that Wikipedia should do the same as they have such an army of active editors that they seem to be able to deal with issues by simply reverting and changing.

Teresha, Aldershot, Hampshire

The assertion that the purpose of Wikipedia or any effort is consensus rather than truth is an interesting assertion. The truth has always been a matter of consensus.

Virtually all matters of science and history operate in this manner. Pier reviews and popular agreement result in the "current view". Example: Theories in science are prepared then test methods developed then the observations and results are either consistent or inconsistent with the theory or hypothesis. Later when better test methods are developed, the previous results are often reversed.

Applying this sort of constant scrutiny to any assertion is not only worthwhile, but in the long term the only way to arrive at the truth.

Heck, without constant scrutiny, we might all still be looking for WMD's in Iraq or the edge of the world from which we would fall off. After all, the experts of the day claimed to know the truth.

Bubba, Lake Tahoe, NV

Wikipedia information is like junk bonds - extremely unreliable, but not worthless (people have become billionaires trading junk bonds). If I want to know about the planet mercury: Wikipedia gives about 20 basic facts about position, year length, composition etc etc. I wouldn't bet on any one of those facts being right but I would bet on the generality being roughly right and that is probably enough for my purposes.

A good analogy is the daily press. In my 45 years I had first hand knowledge of about 10 stories which have been reported in the national papers. In all cases there have been one or two trivial errors (misspelt surnames etc). In all but one the gist of the story has been correct and in one case it has been entirely wrong. Against that background, I regard it as rational to read and believe stories in the press. There isn't a problem with Wikipedia unless you think view that there are no intermediate grades of information between worthless and weapons-grade.

Robert Leigh, TAVISTOCK, Devon

Wikipedia has drifted very much like government policy in a representative democracy: yes, everyone in theory has an equal opportunity to affect policy in the case of government and the portrayal of truth in the case of Wikipedia; but in practice, it is mainly those with the means, the interest, and the willingness to exploit the system who are truly represented. And so we have ridiculous farm subsidies and (in the US) no universal health care; and on Wikipedia we have gushing articles on corporations and politicians, and a whitewashing of anything embarrassing to Zionism. And the few true believers either consent to keep out of the way of the manipulators or are driven out.

JD, Arlington, USA

Gillman's statements sound wonderful. However, these anonymous edits traced to various corporations and organizations are not really significant as most of these edits were quickly undone as are most anonymous edits made without explanation or which are obvious vandalism. What is much more significant and something which Gillman completely ignores is the fact that we don't know the origin of most of the edits on Wikipedia which are done by signed in users with usernames. We don't know these people's names, ages, or qualifications. More importantly, we don't know, and, really, it is impossible to know whether organized groups, whether political, religious or nationalist are manipulating Wikipedia content in order to present a certain version of events to the world which ties in with the aims of these groups. This is why Wikipedia can never be trustworthy source.

jor, Staines,

One particular minefield is the biography of a living person. The George Galloway article is a good example, with pro- and anti- factions regarding several different facets of Galloway's persona constantly in tit-for-tat edits. Then there is, for example, the Piers Morgan article, which is watched over by somebody to whom it is more important that the article is bland and inoffensive than that it should contain controversial items, no matter how good the references. On the other hand, several pop star and other "celebrity" articles contain unadulterated crap sourced from PR handouts which it is impossible to remove because somebody (maybe this will show it to be the PR themselves) re-inserts it again.

You can watch pages so that you are told if they are edited. This enables you to correct, or restore vandalism. However, it becomes an obsession, and often a spit into the wind of ignorance.

I am proud that my analysis of Humprey Lyttelton's humour made it to South Bank Show.

sweetalkinguy, bourne, lincolnshire

Oh sweet. Oliver back on how stupid us, the lumpen proletariat are. Stay in your ivory tower, Mr. Kamm, else you might get your hands dirty, mixing with the proles. Oooohhh horrid.

It's just another website. Even people - most of us - with lesser intellects than yourself use it with caution. Nonetheless, I find it most useful, and am glad that it is there.

But then, I'm just one of the dumb crowd.

Jeremy Poynton, Fromeville, 51st State

I have recently tried to post a social networking that allows voters to easily connect to candidates that are in their districts. It is a very interesting site because the politicians are actually participating in site but every time I post and article on the site one particular administrator takes it off. After looking into the wikipedia administrators page he was obliviously very interested in politics. The site called www.allballots.com is totally unbiased but he must have seemed threatened by the site. I think for wikipedia to give one administrator the power to decide the content that remains without any checks and balances is ridiculous.

Robert Touchton, Atlanta, Georgia

"It is quite as conceivable that an early version of an entry in Wikipedia will be written by someone who knows the subject, and later editors will dissipate whatever value is there."


This is very true, and particularly so if you replace the word "editors" with "well-meaning but clueless schoolboys".

"Wikipedia seeks not truth but consensus, and like an interminable political meeting the end result will be dominated by the loudest and most persistent voices."

This is almost its greatest flaw. But you'll never get Jimbo to agree! He thinks that articles become stable by consent, and is not clear that they become stable because the most committed editors will shout down and harass those who are not committed enough.

Dr Zen, Brisbane, Australia

I'm a long-time Wikipedian who's edited the site for years, and am generally favorable about it. However, I've lately become a bit disillusioned due to the presence of a clique of powerful editors and administrators who use their power and influence to stifle debate and suppress criticism. Particularly offensive to me is the blatant censorship of their policy banning all links to so-called "attack sites", sites like Wikipedia Review that criticize WIkipedia and its administrators.

Dan, Boca Raton, Florida, USA

Reality is agreement. Agreements change. Experts "peer-review" to set agreement/reality.

So the question is, whose "agreement" do you want? The wisdom of crowds theory says there are more experts available within the crowd than in the brain bunker. The truth will out. But it takes time, as usual. Vide the current raging expert and doofus firestorms raging over the Global Warming issue(s).

Brian H, Vancouver, Canada,

Oh dear, you mean unlike every history and political book ever written Wikipedia is biased? It rarely gets facts wrong (who was born where for example) but almost everything else is opinion and viewpoint, and anybody who believes that there is an unbiased opinion or view out there, grow up!

Tim, London,

I suggest you look over the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections -- it addresses many of your points.

Is Wikipedia perfect? No, and it never will be. But I think it will always be *useful*. Readers should always know how it's built and what they're getting, and read with a critical eye, but in my experience, bad work is removed quickly and good work does tend to last and be improved.

imo, California, USA

Wikipedia has it's value but just as sample size is important in statistics, so is fact source. Is it not foolish to rely on Wikipedia for the majority of your knowedge? No, in fasct it is idiotic.

John, Knutsford, UK

Mocking Wikipedia's inability to measure up to high standards is fine, maybe even good. However, Wikipedia has acquired much influence among those who don't have a scholarly respect for facts. It has become the first source far too many people look up when they want to know more about something.
I labour away in a print publication and I know for a fact that Wikipedia is what many writers rely on for background information. The more sloppy ones don't even have any problems with copying stuff verbatim from Wikipedia. A great deal of this gets into print and acquires respectability. I'm not saying facts are wrong. Only that things other than facts are also becoming "right" via Wikipedia. I've seen or heard many people repeating opinions derived from Wikipedia about things they have little knowledge of. Most of them have no hesitation in citing Wikipedia as an authoritative source.

Farid Yunus, New York, United States

All knowledge is based on continuous revision. In the 14th century, every educated person 'knew' that the sun revolved around the earth. In the 17th century everyone 'knew' that God had created the universe in six days. Gradually, these positions were reversed, by the cumulative arguments and information provided by countless people - some of whom were right, some of whom were wrong. The thing is, we remember Galileo and Darwin, but not those who made wrong turnings. Wikipedia operates on the same basis, except that the wrong turnings are preserved in perpetuity, alongside the right ones.

Tim Footman, Bangkok, Thailand

Yet just about every time I refer to it, the content is helpful and often expert. You can tell when there's bias, that's part of the reader's responsibility, to exercise critical judgement.

John, London,

There is a lot to knowledge besides political opinion and religious dogma. Wikipedia is a mine of extremely valuable technical information that is generally not only reliable but up to the very minute.

Rosemary Roberts, Germany,

The motivating force behind Wikipedia is not that the knowledge is absolute. But exactly the opposite, to find our own truth. To find a truth confirmed by more than a long dead professors and philosophers. We have had knowledge dispensed to us in a top down fashion, with no ability to determine the bullshit from the truth, e.g. The Catholic Church, Bush/Blair administrations. Wiki provides the masses with control of knowlege. If every man woman and child can contribute to the collective knowledge then these "incremental improvement's," you speak of are merely incremental in the sense that now only small pieces of knowledge need to be modified, or small tid bits need to be added.
WikiScanner is a creation driven by corrupt top down leadership that has force fed us "truth." With corporations and senators anonymously editing this truth to make it more congruent with there worldview if you will. Wiki Scanner is indeed a valuable tool that will help create a single unified truth.

Gilman, Houston, USA