Ask Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales About Online Collaboration

Back in 2001 we did a "double" Slashdot Interview with Michael Hart of Project Gutenberg and Jimmy Wales of the then-brand-new Nupedia, which has since become the amazingly useful Wikipedia. This is a perfect time to catch up with Jimbo (as friends call him), and learn not only how he managed to make Wikipedia work and grow so well, but what we can do to help -- and what future plans he has for this outstanding Web resource. (10 of your highest-moderated questions will be sent to Jimbo by email. We'll post his answers as soon as we get them back.)

Donations

[southpolesammy]

What's the current state of donations and what is the future of Wikipedia if fund raising without advertisements does not increase?

Re:google ads..

[Neil Blender]

When is wikipedia going to get google ads or some other form of text ads?

Hopefully, never.

User system complexity.

[xconslash]

Do you foresee having to add more complexity to your user system? Some kind of rating/karma system to discourage people who have a tendency to write libel?

Re:google ads..

[gl4ss]

how about making the ads optional, in the way that you would have to enable them?

sometimes there could be some intresting stuff from google ads on some weird pages.

In response to "It's difficult to see why"

[sindarin2001]

It's because Britannica plans to provide a good product and a warrantee that Wikipedia can't. Microsoft is scared because it knows it doesn't provide as good of a product as it should, and the fact that there is a competive product that does the job almost as well (leave that up to debate) for the perfect price leaves Microsoft just a little scared.

Re:Licensing and the Wiki

[Donny Smith]

>seems to cause a few hurdles as well (i.e. publishing a print version of the Wikipedia).

If true that's only good news - it's going to save quite a few trees...

competition

[asyncster]

Wikipedia has experienced trememdous growth over the last couple years. It has surpassed all other encyclopedias in terms of article count and up-to-date content. However, it seems that wikipedia could have a stifling effect on other encyclopedia companies that are simply unable to compete. Has wikipedia's presence hurt the market for printed encyclopedias?

Re:Complement or Competitor to Traditional Encycs?

[wcrowe]

Good post.

"How do they know it's accurate?" Ross asks.

I would answer Mr. Ross's question with a question: "Has the Encyclopedia Britannica ever had to correct an article?" The answer, of course, is yes. So you can't trust the EB to be entirely accurate either.

I've been contributing for a short time now, and it's clear there are a lot of eyes on the work. As time goes on, the articles become more correct. There is no way the EB can put the same number of people on any given topic. Ultimately, Wikipedia may become more accurate than the EB. It is certainly more detailed.

Oh yeah. He's watching it all right.

Re:One area Wikipedia seems to lack

[cascadingstylesheet]

Other encyclopedias cite sources for their work. Wikipedia does not seem to have a facility for this, and I have yet to see sources cited in any of the articles. Am I correct in my assumptions? Why aren't sources cited? It would add credibility to the project.

I have seen sources cited in some articles. But it seems inconsistent, true.

Anyway, citations only mean that some other schmuck said it too ;) OK, it may help somtimes...

I think that Wikipedia and similar efforts highlight how we should question all media. The mere fact that something appears in video or dead tree does not necessarily make it more likely to be true. Nor are expert reviewers infallible or free of bias.

Re:Advertising?

[Raul654]

Good thought, but (IMHO) it's probably third after Linux and Mozilla/Firefox. (And I say that as a wikipedia admin)

Re:wikipedia

[Brandybuck]

The trolls don't bother me. It's the software hackers thinking it's so cool now that they can write articles on nuclear physics that worries me.

I'm fricking serious about this. The first time I saw a scientific article in Wikipedia that used a science *fiction* novel as reference, I just about screamed. These articles aren't being written by experts, they're being written by fanboys.

Re:Webservices ? Data Formats ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the data formats so much as the access mechanisms that the grandparent is getting at.

The data is written and stored in wiki syntax, not in HTML or XML. To deliver the current HTML/web browsing interface, the server loads and parses the wiki text into HTML.

The suggestion is that I be able to query via XML-RPC, SOAP, or other alternative machine-friendly mechanisms, so I can write a different front-end to the Wikipedia. The server might parse its wiki-text into HTML and return that, or return the raw wiki-writing, or transform it to something else (XML). The point is that I can get to it a different way than a point-and-click web browser.

Re:Complement or Competitor to Traditional Encycs?

[cos(0)]

It's an interesting idea, but as you suggested, all votes would HAVE to tied to a specific revision of each page. Besides, if someone votes "Inaccurate", others have no way of knowing exactly what the voter had a problem with.

For this, every Wikipedia article has a Talk page where anyone (anonymous and logged-in) can write whatever they want about the article: inaccuracies, suggested additions, etc., without directly affecting the article itself.

In my opinion, openly and specifically discussing inaccuracy is much more effective than seeing a vague "Inaccurate" rating.

Re:wikipedia

[Brandybuck]

No I didn't fix it! I was not an expert in that field. That's my whole point, for Peetsake! I don't want random unnamed nimrods writing scientific or technical articles for an encyclopedia.

Wikipedia is the real world HHGTTG. Serious people won't accord it any respect, but Wiki/FOSS fanboys will think it's the next best thing to sex.