A Real Expert Tangles with Wikipedia

Climate change is a "hot" issue right now (please pardon the pun), and as a result, the Internet world is abuzz with comments and commentary that covers all aspects of the issue. It is, in short, a controversial subject.

There is, of course, a lot of science surrounding climatology and the "greenhouse" effect that makes this planet a haven for life. There is also a lot of opinions about what the science is showing us. And, as Mark Twain said, "it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races."

As I noted in an earlier entry, if you want to know the controversy surrounding an issue, check out its entry (or entries) in Wikipedia. So it is with Climate Change.

Recently, a National Post writer named Lawrence Solomon wrote two articles about his experiences working in the world of Wikipedia, and how he ran into significant bias in the area of Climate Change. It is enlightened reading.

iTunes U

Here is a "Short and Sweet" version of the post that almost happened in October. There are a lot of ramifications to having full-blown top-notch university courses available at any time and for free on the internet. This is profound. I'll leave it at that for now!

iTunes has a new feature called iTunes U. MIT is there with its open courseware, Stanford, Yale, Duke, University of Pennsylvania (check out their 60 second lecture series!) It is all free. It is unbelievable.

Wikipedia -- Exposed

I have noted before here that I am no fan of Wikipedia. It can be and has been used as a voice of propaganda, misinformation, and controversy. Why? Because it is completely anonymous, which means that posters have no real responsibility for what they write. People can lie, and often do. One of the more egregious examples was last spring, when one of the more respected "editors" of Wikipedia turned out to be a fraud -- faking his credentials.

I personally don't think it should be shut down -- more power to it -- but I do not trust it, and do not expect any entry in it to be correct. If I want to do a quick lookup of something and I only need about 50-80% accuracy, I will sometimes use it for that.

I will admit that there is one area in which Wikipedia excels: if you want to know if something is or is not controversial in the web world, Wikipedia is truly excellent at that. For example, the entry on "Gun" has had eight edits today (August 21, 2007). One edit replaced a whole section with "HA HA", another added a paragraph on an English usage. So, here is a subject that changes almost hourly as people with competing agendas fight over the entry.

Another example: an edit for Elvis Presley from, again, today has someone asserting that he is still alive.

I say that Wikipedia allows anonymous posts, and that is correct -- except that each entry has as part of its entry the internet address from which the entry was posted. In other words, Wikipedia tracks the IP address of each posting.

IP addresses for most home users are assigned to them by their internet service provider (ISP) on an as-needed basis, when they log in. The IP address is "owned" by the ISP.

However, most institutions have permanent IP addresses which are assigned to them. Anyone in their offices using the web will be using an address from their range. You can find out what institution an IP address is assigned to using ARIN (the American Registry for Internet Numbers) Whois. Type the address there, and you will see to whom it is assigned.

This kid from Cal Tech (where else?), Virgil Griffith, created a tool to scan Wikipedia and show the edits made by IP addresses. This has created quite a storm! All of a sudden, we can easily see what edits were made from people at the ACLU, Apple Computer, Microsoft, the NRA, Fox News... All sorts of places. It is enlightening, and really, confirms my criticisms of Wikipedia.

We have entries by an ACLU address user making derogotory comments on the Pope. We have another entry in which the some using an NEA address deletes criticism about the NEA.

What astounds me is that articles on this are either missing the point by pointing out self-editing by companies such as Apple, Microsoft, or others, or are amazed that "anonymous" is not really anonymous.

But, really, what else can we expect from Wikipedia? That's the point.