arstechnica.com— A cyberlaw professor argues that Wikipedia is doomed. The online encyclopedia will need to choose between being "high quality" and "open," but both choices are fraught with risk.
Feb 12, 2009View in Crawl 4
I think they should make you sign in to edit. This may seem to be going against Wikipedia's principles but it's necessary for stability. If someone does blatant spamming, disable their account for a certain time or block the IP in extreme cases. This prevents spur of the moment impulses to vandalize pages. Personally I find that more annoying than some idiot putting his own (incorrect) two cents in an article without sources. Wikipedia is a place for collecting knowledge, but I don't there is a problem with separating incorrect/unsourced edits from obvious spam.
Its really about Wiki choosing between begging for money, or finding a way to monetize itself to keep existing.I think Wiki has pretty much proven itself a successful endeavour as an online information source, but the constant problems with them begging for donations just to stay online is what will ruin Wiki, not its moderation system.Wiki doesn't have to become a billion dollar website like Facebook or MySpace, but they can certainly put a few Google Ads to help pay for their operational costs and still maintain integrity as a non-greedy company.I think Wiki will go bankrupt long before they lose visitors because of their moderation system.
kd420Feb 12, 2009
I think they should make you sign in to edit. This may seem to be going against Wikipedia's principles but it's necessary for stability. If someone does blatant spamming, disable their account for a certain time or block the IP in extreme cases. This prevents spur of the moment impulses to vandalize pages. Personally I find that more annoying than some idiot putting his own (incorrect) two cents in an article without sources. Wikipedia is a place for collecting knowledge, but I don't there is a problem with separating incorrect/unsourced edits from obvious spam.
kisamaFeb 12, 2009
There is no Cabal
everthonvsFeb 12, 2009
IDEA: wikipedia should use a "digg-like" voting system as to control the articles edition.
topher06Feb 12, 2009
Its really about Wiki choosing between begging for money, or finding a way to monetize itself to keep existing.I think Wiki has pretty much proven itself a successful endeavour as an online information source, but the constant problems with them begging for donations just to stay online is what will ruin Wiki, not its moderation system.Wiki doesn't have to become a billion dollar website like Facebook or MySpace, but they can certainly put a few Google Ads to help pay for their operational costs and still maintain integrity as a non-greedy company.I think Wiki will go bankrupt long before they lose visitors because of their moderation system.