At last! Wikipedia’s Growth Comes with Concerns is a news story about Wikipedia that interviews librarians and discusses Wikipedia from the users’ point of view, not just in terms of the quality of the content but in terms of what’s included. It’s a balanced perspective, and Laura Sydell’s conclusion that in the future “the traditional encyclopedia will be hard to sell” is not without merit. This is a much more balanced discussion of Wikipedia than the February 10 article in the Times, “The Unassociated Press” (registration required), where the reporter, Aaron Weiss, fawned over Wikipedia, exhumed the retired director of Encyclopedia Brittannica for a straw-man quote Weiss quickly shot down, and ignored the user-related concerns.
Posted on this day, other years:
- The 21st Century Library... - 2006
- NPR's Talk of the Nation to Talk Libraries 2/21 - 2006
- The Bells are Ringing - 2004
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I realize this is old news by now, but I only just ran across this blog entry citing my New York Times article titled “The Unassociated Press.”
I’m a little disheartened at the interpretation editorialized in this blog entry. It represents the opposite of my own position, and not at all what the story attempted to communicate. First, this story was not an editorial — my personal opinion about Wikinews (which the story was about, not Wikipedia except for a brief background note) was not the focus. The focus was to present to the reader a clear view of what Wikinews is, how it operates, and the goals of its creators. It is up to the reader to draw conclusions about whether the project is worthwhile or not given the facts.
Including the opposing voice of Mr. McHenry formerly of Encyclopedia Brittanica was no strawman. It was included for the very purpose of giving air to his strong critique, which represents the array of criticisms expressed about the Wikimedia projects.
I happen to agree with his arguments against Wikinews and, most likely, yours. I have strong reservations about the ability of Wikinews (and Wikipedia) to achieve its stated goals given its existing procedures. If anything I worried that people might take my article as an attack on Wikinews, when in fact my job as reporter was to present the project fairly with the facts, and let readers draw their own opinions.
Thanks for listening…Aaron