[open-science] [okfn-discuss] effort to improve "open science" article on Wikipedia... also see citizendium

Sat Sep 14 14:48:27 UTC 2013

I intend to help contribute to the(se) Wikipedia pages. I stated 4 years
ago that "the bit of Wikipedia that I wrote is correct" (
http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2009/04/06/wikipedia-has-won-how-can-we-convince-you/)
and I stand by that.

There isn't a real problem here. Every contribution that is made is
recorded to we can see what anyone wrote. If they use pseudonyms we make
our own judgments. If the sources are/not cited we make our own judgments.

The primary problem arises when there is an edit war. I think there may be
slight edit wars in "Open Access". As far as I can see WP has a reasonable
approach to edit wars - it identifies the problem. If the warring parties
are large and determined then there are few processes that can mend this -
but we go back to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3F .  We either
appoint an arbitrary custodian group or we let the dispute continue. I
prefer the latter.

In fact I don't think there is a current problem. I started the WP page on
"Open Data" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_data  because even the phrase
"open data" was virtually unknown then (check the rev history!). It's not
"my" page but most of the words are still mine - there has been very little
major editing.

I believe what this shows is that our challenge will be to (communally)
write something good and find enough varied sources. I very doubt if we
shall have major differences of opinion at the start.

And if it's any good it will be preserved and can be reused elsewhere.

P.

On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 8:13 AM, Tony Bowden <tony.bowden at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 14 September 2013 05:33, Gene Shackman <eval_gene at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Also, the assertion that wikipedia is high quality is often based on a
> 2005
> > study saying it was just as accurate (or just as inaccurate) as encyc
> brit.
> > But that study may have been fatally flawed, says bbc
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4840340.stm
>
> The BBC here are not saying that they believed it was flawed. They are
> simply reporting that *Encyclopaedia Britannica* — who of course had a
> significant stake in the question, this being a few years before they
> were forced to cease publishing their print edition — claimed that it
> was flawed, and that Nature (who published the story), in turn
> strongly rebutted the claim.
>
> Tony
>
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-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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