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In the media

The world's press says "Happy Birthday!" with a few twists

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By Smallbones and Bri

Media throughout the world have written congratulatory articles about Wikipedia on the encyclopedia's 20th birthday. The Wikimedia Foundation has done a good job letting the press know that we're big, popular, appear in about 300 languages, and are frequently edited, mostly by volunteers. See, for example this list. But what else is new? A couple of dozen newspapers just focus on these numbers and add some seemingly random or local-interest facts. The more interesting stories take different angles, often telling as much about the author and their relationship with the encyclopedia, as about Wikipedia itself. Fair enough! No journalist can be expected to summarize Wikipedia in a single article.

United States Capitol protests/storming/riots/insurrection

  • The Washington Post focuses on Wikipedia's ability to sort out misinformation and disinformation. The Post uses the article 2021 storming of the United States Capitol as an example of how editors cooperate and contend to create articles on news events as they happen, quoting Molly White, Katherine Maher, and Anne Clin on several examples throughout the article. Other topics covered include the pandemic, the gender gap, hoaxes and vandalism and the reliability of Wikipedia.
  • Time magazine also uses the "Storming the Capitol" article as a starting point, and then goes on to describe the generally self-healing nature of knowledge management in the Wikipedia community. More directly, they write "why does Wikipedia seem to have a general immunity to bullshit?" Anybody who disagrees might wish to take Time to ANI.
  • The Guardian: "Wikipedia at 20: last gasp of an internet vision, or a beacon to a better future?" chronicles the building of the 2021 storming of the United States capitol article from a one-editor effort by Another Believer to an in-depth community collaboration, as an indication of Wikipedia's growth since its early days to what it is today, potentially a "shining beacon lighting the way to a better future".
  • Fast Company examines the insurrection story, again mentioning Another Believer, in "As a mob attacked the Capitol, Wikipedia struggled to find the right words".
  • Connecticut Public Radio interviews administrator and former ArbCom member Molly White in "Wikipedia at 20: The Promises and Pitfalls of the 'Free Encyclopedia'". White, who was the second editor at the Capitol storming article (see further details in the Special report), describes its development and wider issues of Wikipedia's relationship with its editors and readers including how to handle situations where there is no clear "accepted truth" and the "weaponization" of neutrality.

With a twist

Where we go from here?

  • Wikipedia is twenty. It’s time to start covering it better Stephen Harrison and Omer Benjakob, in the Columbia Journalism Review address their fellow journalists using many of the same examples as they use to address academics in their chapter in Wikipedia @ 20 and to address Wikipedia editors in this issue's In focus. They conclude that "journalism should help readers better understand Wikipedia’s policies and inner workings." Since "Wikipedia’s diverse and often divergent community is the secret to its success," journalists should report on the community with more nuance than writing as if all editors have a single point of view or engage in a constant free-for-all.
  • Wikipedia's Biggest Challenge Awaits in 2021 in Wired by the dean of Wiki-journalists Noam Cohen, starts with a retelling of Wikipedia's many achievements but then moves to the Universal code of conduct and why it is sorely needed. The changes proposed by the WMF and many others to diversify the editing community raise existential questions for the online encyclopedia. He uses the examples of the articles Mythology of Benjamin Banneker and Der Giftpilz, a Nazi children's book. The mythology article is not really about Banneker, an accomplished African-American, but a strong critique of stories made up about him. Why don't we have similar articles about the mythology of George Washington or Albert Einstein? The Nazi children's book article included a link to the book's contents and might promote the book in other ways. Both articles will make editing Wikipedia a harrowing experience for some editors. "This is the gnawing challenge for Wikipedia. After a period of wild, unrestrained growth, it needs some civilizing laws. The equivalent of a fair housing act and safety inspections to ensure it won’t exclude certain groups from its pages and allow hateful material to grow and fester."

In brief

Hunters and busybodies-Infographic (Melissa Pappas (UPenn))

Notes

  1. ^ The page was being discussed for deletion on ja.wiki when this issue was being prepared, and was deleted on January 27.



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  • I thought StandardPoodle was the standard unit of "dog".[1]davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:32, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Biglobe News is just a syndicator of that (now dead-link) Japanese article, and its original outlet is a site called Buzz Plus News, which I'd never heard of before. It looks like a bottom-of-the-barrel content farm and its Twitter account is currently suspended. Nardog (talk) 22:51, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • It looks like more reliable sources have covered the same content regarding the arrest e.g. Sankei Shimbun 1/19 [3] and MBS TV 1/22 [4] -- I'll let Smallbones decide if this needs updating. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:05, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Those don't mention Wikipedia though. Nardog (talk) 00:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • (ec) True ☆ Bri (talk) 00:13, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing about that story really bothers me - and since this newspaper is supposed to be a snapshot in tine, I don't see any need to update it.

I see 3 things that this column should do to inform our readers about what is appearing in the media about Wikipedia.

  • find an article in a good source that says something of interest or different about WP. its not always easy to figure out what a good source is - especially in Japan or in non-English media.
  • tell the truth about what the story says and try to evaluate it in some way.
  • figure out if it is relevant to our readers. If not remove it

Each one of these has its risks, so we can fail. We took a good shot at each of the 3 points. But if we don't take risks, the column will be pretty boring. We also learn a lot from the comments! Thanks. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:52, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it's probably better off left alone at this point. The story itself is interesting indeed. Nardog (talk) 01:41, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nice collection of links. Thank you. Carrite (talk) 17:26, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, if someone is interested in a collection of selected Russian links about 20-years of Wikipedia, here are link 1 and link 2 (in Russian). There was a lot of stuff. --ssr (talk) 06:38, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Ssr: I was really surprised at this. At first I though you were plagiarizing this column, but then I checked the dates and discovered that I must be plagiarizing you! Well actually most were different publications with similar headlines, either translations I guess, or "as inspired by". Great minds think alike! Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:57, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Obligatory: In Soviet Russia, Wikipedia edits YOU! davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:54, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In Russia the government watches you edit Wikipedia.
In the US you watch the Russian government edit Wikipedia.
Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:57, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In Soviet Russia, Kremlin reads what you write on Wikipedia. In America, Kremlin writes what you read on Wikipedia. Levivich harass/hound 02:00, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Let's be good Wikipedians and wikipedize: "In Soviet Russia..." =))) --ssr (talk) 06:35, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]


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