Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-12-05/In the news

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In the news

By Catherine and Mwanner, 5 December 2005

Wikipedia and Seigenthaler

John Seigenthaler Sr., a retired journalist and USA Today editor and founder of the First Amendment Center, wrote an opinion piece entitled "A false Wikipedia 'biography'", published on November 29 in USA Today (see related story). The column was re-published verbatim in other sources as far afield as The Tennessean and China Daily.

Seigenthaler has been talking to many other media outlets as well; see a transcript of his brief interview with Tucker Carlson, host of The Situation with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC, and will appear today on CNN discussing the issue with Jimbo Wales.

The story of Seigenthaler's disillusionment and Wikipedia's reaction was given extensive coverage in online and mainstream media, including:

Restricted editing

Partially in response to the Seigenthaler problems, Jimbo Wales announced on December 5 that for the time being anonymous users would no longer be allowed to create new articles (see related story). The first story about it was the widely syndicated "Growing pains for Wikipedia", by CNET reporter Daniel Terdiman; his story went live even before the announcement was widely posted within the encyclopedia, so many Wikipedians first learned of the new policy through other outlets.

The change to Wikipedia's mechanisms was also reported in several places, most using information from "Wikipedia Tightens Rules", by Associated Press writer Dan Goodin. However, many outlets misunderstood and misrepresented the nature of Wikipedia's editorial process. "Wikipedia Tightens Rules For Posting" from Information Week is an example. A BBC report implied that only 600 volunteers were responsible for monitoring the entire site. [1]

Adam Curry and podcasting

A new flurry of commentary on Wikipedia was prompted by a blog post by Kevin Marks (see related story).

More external applications

On November 29, CNET's News.com published "Web tool puts new face on Wikipedia", reporting that German designer Harald Hanek has invented Gollum, a new "Wikipedia browser" that presents Wikipedia articles in a simplified interface. It strips Wikipedia's menus and tabs, replacing them with a graphical toolbar and a prominent search bar. The story was also picked up by ZDNet, Search Engine Watch and other technology news sites.

LuMriX Wikipedia Search and WikiWax Search are two other external applications which simplify searching the Wikipedia article namespace.

Additional tools can be found at the internal page Wikipedia:Tools, as well as AKA's Wikipedia Tools and Qwikly WikiTools.

Micro Persuasion

Citizen's media and marketing expert Steve Rubel, has written extensively about Wikipedia in his popular blog Micro Persuasion lately, including:

His column "Wikipedia is the next Google" has drawn many comments and trackbacks.

Introductory articles

Taiwan's leading English-language newspaper The China Post ran an article describing how "Wikipedia democratizes information", and invited Chinese readers to contribute to the encyclopedia. "I'm a little disappointed, however, to see that the Chinese-pedia has fewer than 50,000 entries. Anyone want to help out with that?"


Also this week: Page creation limitations — ArbCom election — ArbCom update — False biography — German copyrights — Podcasting blanking — News and notes — Press coverage — Features and admins — B.R.I.O.N. — T.R.O.L.L.

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