Critical views of Wikipedia/Background

From Wikinfo

Critical Background of Wikipedia:

Wikipedia was the first large scale test of wiki technology for general purpose, public, knowledgebase gathering and distribution. As of early 2005 the English Wikipedia has several hundred-thousand articles and tens of thousands of contributors, by far the largest wiki system. The second largest wiki is the German Wikipedia. This volume reinforces the Wikipedian community, and so Wikipedia has spread as an umbrella over many international wiki systems as the owner (until late 2003), Bomis, provided servers and bandwidth for any language of wiki for which contributors were willing to set up a version.

After experimenting with Nupedia, which relied on approved editors for quality control, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales concluded that a top-down "cathedral" development model would not allow the project to be successful. Wales sought a method whereby a larger group of users could asynchronously or simultaneously review content. Wiki software, which allows casual users easier access to editing tools, offered Wales an alternative to the problems he saw in the Nupedia model.

Wales operated the project with volunteer assistance for several years on Bomis equipment, and for a year paid an employee to get the project going. Until the establishment of a foundation in 2003, Wales declared himself "God King" of Wikipedia policy. In late 2003, the entire project was transferred from Bomis to the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit organization founded by Wales.

The foundations three original trustees were partners in ownership of Bomis.com. In May, 2003, Jimmy Wales, chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation board of directors, announced that he is resigning as CEO of Bomis to more fully reflect that he spends most of his time working for the Wikimedia Foundation. Wales also announced in May, 2004 that he envisions himself as eventually being paid to run Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikipedia soon developed a large group of regular users who controlled content by reviewing recent changes and individual watch-lists of users they did not trust. In a contrast to the Nupedia model, in which edit privileges were difficult to come by, Wikipedia offered edit privileges by default. Administrators revoke edit privileges at their discretion based on policies, and on their opinion of content or contributors.

Wikipedia, more so than other wiki services in early 2004, had become a main source for encyclopedic content redistributed by other sites. While this means that a much greater body of Internet content is freely available, it also means that any errors, political biases, or even subtle slander found on Wikipedia would be reproduced across multiple wiki websites. Wikipedia is often cited, then, as a bad example in discussions about the "wiki way".

Open elections were held that allowed Wikipedia contributors to elect two Foundation members to the five member board. Wikimedia Foundations bylaws do not allow open elections for the original appointees' seats on the board of trustees, but allow the board to elect replacements. Wikipedia's volunteer administration executes policy with technical interventions, with brief votes open to most users, with a volunteer mediation process and with a volunteer arbitration committee process based on public airing of evidence or opinions about various grievances. While Wikipedia offers venues for conflict resolution, participation in those venues can be intimidating. A process for criticizing administrators emerged in early 2004, but Wales later wrote that anyone he has investigated who was critical of his administrators "turned out to be a complete and total ass." But he maintains polite and thoughtful users, even those prohibited from on-line discussions, are welcome to join mailing lists to comment on policy.