More Wikiality

An interesting note on Wikipedia found via Daring Fireball about its particular angle on knowledge. Wikipedia is more interested in verifiability than truth — a point shown when a lead developer of Mac OS 9 tried to remove an false claim about the original plans of the operating system. His correction was redacted because the incorrect info had a source, whereas he did not — only first-hand experience.

Is this a bad thing? Well, not really. This is meant to keep any Joe from throwing up an opinion as fact, as the additions must be based in something published. Even a lead of a project might tinker with an entry in an opportunistic way. Adam Curry and Podcasting kerfuffle, anyone? No, the scary thing in all of this was that the published source of the Mac OS 9 info was AppleInsider — a self-declared rumor site.

To Wikipedia’s own rules, when faced with a published fact from a rumor site and an unverifiable fact from an first-hand participant that contradicts the other, the smart thing to do would be to omit both. That didn’t happen, and that’s the problem with Wikipedia. As long as users ignore or confuse the rule that sites must be reliable to be cited, Wikipedia will continue to simply persist inaccuracies rather that capture fact.

And as we pointed out at the beginning, fact-checking isn’t what Wikipedia is about.

[Edited 2006-09-01] However, Jimmy Wales’ speech at TED 2006 is essential to understanding what Wikipedia is about.