Wikipedia
By Craig Newmark
Wikipedia
is an accomplishment of major proportions. It’s become the “first draft
of history” and gone beyond, since it’s a vital, living repository of
human knowledge, much in the manner of a traditional encyclopedia. More
importantly, it’s an exemplar and test platform for large-scale, global
collaboration. By that I mean large numbers of people working together
for common goals. Wikipedia, in that sense, is a major advance for all
humanity. It’s also dramatic proof of the supreme effectiveness of
collaboration: people work together on Wikipedia to build articles,
often in collaboration across the world, and often over long periods of
time. The style of collaboration is novel in that it balances expert
work with that of talented citizens. That’s the same balance we see
emerging all over the Net. It’s also the same balance between
representative democracy and grassroots democracy. In that sense,
Wikipedia is a democratic system, reflecting the best of what we see in
all human endeavors. People also get together to ensure the quality and
trustworthiness of material. That’s a slow process, requiring
collaborative fact-checking. And that’s because, lately, Wikipedia has
become a battleground, where the Wikipedia community develops means to
prevent disinformation attacks, often shilled by people in entrenched
power. Wikipedians are learning to defuse such attacks, and the methods
used to do so will prove applicable elsewhere. The trust issue
illustrates a significant, but transient, challenge faced by the
Wikipedia community. The work has only begun, however, and the problems
will be addressed fairly quickly, on a historical scale.
