The art of editing Wikipedia
June 24, 2010
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In April 2010, the Sunday Times published an article which misquoted European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani, attributing him the statement that tourism is a human right. The statement was later picked up by Wikipedia and became a title of the entire chapter on his English language biography page.
According to EurActiv.com, Tajani’s team tried to correct the chapter by adding the online version of his speech, but their attempts were blocked by the page moderators in line with Wikipedia’s no original research policy which considers a newspaper article more reliable than the original source, in this case the commissioner’s speech.
Why does it matter?
Inaccurate Wikipedia content can be problematic for an organisation such as the EU since Wikipedia is one of the largest reference websites, attracting nearly 68 million visitors monthly as of January 2010. According to Alexa.com, Wikipedia.org ranks as the 7th top site on the web, preceded only by Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo!, Windows Live and Baidu.com.
According to The Measurement Standard, organisations should regularly check their Wikipedia entries for two reasons. Firstly, Wikipedia has greatly improved its editing process and, thereby, its credibility. Secondly, Wikipedia entries on organisations usually rank very high on popular search engines. For example, if you google “european union”, the first two results are its official Europa website, while the third is a Wikipedia entry. Similar results can be observed when googling “european commission” and other EU institutions.
What is the problem?
In its FAQ for organisations, Wikipedia doesn’t only strongly discourage organisations from writing articles about themselves, but also advises them to avoid editing organisation-related articles due to the conflict of interest involved. In the case of factual errors within an existing article, organisations are invited to leave a note on the article’s talk page, post a comment on the help desk or contact Wikipedia via e-mail.
Organisations still determined to edit an article are strongly encouraged to declare their interests on their user pages and on the talk page of any article they edit. They must also comply with Wikipedia’s Conflict of interest guidelines and its policies on neutral point of view and verifiability. The latter specifies that they must back their contributions by reliable sources. This usually means third-party sources, since for most content, an organisation’s website doesn’t count as a source.
Transparency, transparency, transparency
In August 2007, Virgil Griffith released WikiScanner, a website which reveals anonymous edits of Wikipedia entries by organisations by linking them back to the computers from which they emanate using computers’ unique IP addresses. Among exposed organisations were Wal-Mart, AstraZeneca, UK Labour Party, the CIA and the Vatican (Times Online).
In light of the above mentioned and similar developments there is no such thing as anonymous editing of Wikipedia. According to The Measurement Standard, organisations should therefore limit themselves to adding their point of view to the existing content, act openly and always back up their information.
In his blog post, Dave Briggs goes even further and discourages organisations from editing articles about themselves at all. Instead, he suggests alternative actions such as publishing corrections on their website or blog. Organisations still determined to get involved are advised to be as transparent about it as possible and not to edit the entry itself, but explain the inaccuracies and link to correct information in the article’s talk page.
What about the Commission?
Since Wikipedia is – no doubt - an important online reference point, it is in our interest that entries related to the EU, its institutions and policies contain accurate information. However, due to a large number of articles related to the EU in various languages, monitoring and editing of Wikipedia would be a very complex and demanding project.
Wikipedia has over 360,000 English pages with a reference to the European Union (Google advanced search). Since it is practically impossible to check all of them, we need to find a way to identify the key pages and start by focusing on those. But what criteria should we use when defining the key pages? Is it the number of views, the frequency of edits or should we prioritise pages on certain policies, issues, etc.?
Furthermore, we cannot overlook the issue of languages. Although according to Alexa.com, English language Wikipedia gets 54% of Wikipedia.org site traffic, there are many other official EU languages that shouldn’t be ignored, e.g. German (8.1%), Spanish (5.7%), French (3.5%) and Italian (2.9%). The question is whether we should focus only on a few selected languages, deal with pages in all official EU languages or even include other languages such as Japanese (10.3%), Russian (3.5%) and languages of candidate member states.
All things considered, monitoring and editing Wikipedia entries related to the EU would be risky, time-consuming and would require substantial human resources. Therefore, it is important to carefully consider all our options and their possible consequences before making the final decision.
In your opinion, should the European Commission edit EU-related Wikipedia pages? If yes, when and how should we do it? If no, what alternatives would you suggest? I am looking forward to your comments.
Alenka
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June 24th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Wikipedia is at base a crowd-sourced information repository. Its independence constitutes a large part of its value to visitors. Many people will check the Wikipedia entry for BP for an account of the Gulf oil spill in preference to the company’s own website, for example.
Like any public body or person, EU institutions should closely monitor the way they are presented in Wikipedia, since this now forms a critical component of their online presence.
In my view, the Commission should not attempt to control EU-related Wikipedia entries. Treating the social web as an extension of your own website, over which you can maintain absolute control, is a fundamental error and risks ridicule as well as cost.
A social media approach will be more effective. Inform the crowd by engaging openly with citizens who care. Point out and correct genuine errors and omissions by referring back to sources on Europa, but do not obsessively assert the ‘line to take’. A simple blog could become a valued fact-check source for Wikipedia editors and other journalists and citizen-journalists.
June 24th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
@Simon, as the original post points out, “an organisation’s website doesn’t count as a source”, so referring to EUROPA won’t help much (even when it is up to date and understandable), and even in the discussion pages.
@Alenka, Yet I do think the Commission should do something about errors on wikipedia. Whatever it does, I can’t emphasise the need for transparency, mentioned above. Some Commission staff clearly didn’t a year or 3 back, which is why the Commission’s IP address is considered by Wikipedia as a source of problematic content. In fact, I believe that the EC is – or at least was – blocked by wikipedia for dodgy practices.
The temptation would be to solve two problems – blocked IP address and insufficient resources – by asking a contractor to do it. This would be a huge mistake, as it would inevitably be traced back, damaging credibility further.
Creating an external ‘wiki-watch’ style blog, as Simon seems to suggest, might work, but it would be a huge undertaking: it would start with a Pagerank of 0 and so never be seen by the audience alongside wikipedia in the search results. Unless one could link from the wikipedia page to that, I suppose … until, of course, wikipedia wised up to it! ;-(
Getting ‘the crowd’ to do it via such an external site would work, but I suspect it would take as much effort as all other solutions, as you’d need to set up a community without providing much in the way of rewards, to avoid it looking like a Commission proxy.
There is a volunteer force, however – think of all the European Movement-style organisations, euroblogger networks and so on.
But even then, a tough question! Looking forward to what other people think, as this is the sort of challenge that this blog should be able to help solve.
June 25th, 2010 at 10:02 am
Nice article Alenka.
I would have two things to add.
1. First, it is possible to have detailed statistics about WikiPedia.org articles and such define somehow on which ones we should preferably react (http://stats.grok.se/).
2. Then, as an organization, the European Commission has already been flaged by WikiPedia.org. Indeed, the European Commission uses a proxy to connect to the Internet meaning that any official within the European Commission trying to edit the encyclopedia is identified with the same IP. It creates surprising situations: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion_utilisateur:158.169.9.14
June 26th, 2010 at 9:50 am
There are three more answers on my blog.
June 28th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
Great subject !
a) when you say :…monitoring and editing of Wikipedia would be a very complex and demanding project…” and considering how most moderators of Wikipedia in the USA are volunteers , why can’t we have some like that in the EU ?
why not some organization and financial help from the EU Parliament ?
b) and that’s brings up another key issue : if any one of you reads and watches the usual USA-EU financial media (FT,WSJ,WP,NYT,CNN,FoxTV,CNBC,SkyTV, etc.) you see the same group of very organized neocon writers attacking the EU and the Euro every day ! they work from Press, TV, blogs and radio WITH THE SAME INTENT : WRECK THE EU SO THAT THEY CAN BRING BACK THE FIGHTS AND WARS BETWEEN EU COUNTRIES and the speculation between currencies, because as long as there is the Euro they can’t speculate on currencies and countries, they make money in the insecurity, instability and conflicts between currencies, so they hate the Euro every day , and why these neocons are so organized while the EU kids are totally disconnected ?
why they can’t even talk about this in the EU without being called anti-this and anti-that ? why the Speech Control ? the repression ? the censorship ? even after they have tried for the last 8 months to wreck the EU and the Euro how can our own leaders say that we cannot talk about this organized group of financial gangsters that are trying to ruin the EU and the Euro ?
c) we need leaders that will help us keep track of Wikipedia, that will establish a “call-in” European-wide radio program ( with instant translation to 5 main languages) where every one can ” call-in” and ask and say anything .
we need more tools to link the EU every day in every way or the neocons will succeed and they will break up the EU, and we need strong leaders that will send a message to these gangsters that enough is enough, no more speculation to try to wreck the EU or they will find their drinking water turn into rotten vinegar.
Is good that you ask these questions about Wikipedia facts, at the core of the problem is the need for strong leaders, and so far, they seem to be under their beds crying, unwilling to stand up to the organized attack that the EU and the Euro are facing from these neocons , and who will post the true facts on Wikipedia about this ?
July 7th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Hey,
thanks a lot for all your comments. Indeed, it is a complicated issue, so your opinions and suggestions are very much appreciated.
@mathew and @Pierre-Antoine Thank you for pointing out the problem with the Commission IP address. We weren’t sure what the story was, but this would definitely make editing Wikipedia even more difficult if not impossible.
Taking into account the sensitivity of editing Wikipedia by organisations and vast human resources required for such a project, we are starting to think that maybe the Commission should instead focus its efforts on improving the Europa website and not edit but only point out inaccuracies on sites like Wikipedia.
What do you think about this?
Alenka
July 7th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
No question, make sure EUROPA has the facts straight – it’s the one place online you have some semblance of control over (remind me to scan europa for google sidewiki entries …).
Moreover, making europa comprehensible, comprehensive and up to date allows other people to point out errors in wikipedia.
But given the traffic to wikipedia, and the fact that most people see it as more balanced than corporate sites like europa, you can’t really ignore it. Pointing out inaccuracies on wikipedia by pointing to facts on europa, and asking others to make the edits, would make sense.
July 27th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
The moderators for Wikipedia worldwide, not just in the U.S., are volunteers (like myself). In the English language Wikipedia, we are called “admins”; the emblem of our high office is a mop and bucket, since ours is primarily a janitorial function.
I wish to emphasize again, for those inclined to ignore your advice, that we VERY STRONGLY DISCOURAGE any kind of editing by entity employees that might hint in any way at improving agency image, de-emphasizing criticisms, and the like. Such edits are considered ethically almost equivalent to the most shameless “BUY OUR DISCOUNTED DRUGS AND PENIS ENLARGEMENT DEVICES” spam, since Wikipedia is intended to be a neutral collection of information from reliable, impartial sources, not a venue for public relations (however well intended). A persistent effort to “manage” your image may instead damage it, and can lead to extremely embarassing coverage in the international press.
June 30th, 2011 at 11:09 am
Wikipedia’s response when you try to create an account:
Account creation from this IP address (158.169.131.14) has been temporarily restricted. This is probably due to persistent vandalism from the IP address you are editing from, which may be shared by many people if you are connected to the Internet via a proxy server (used by most schools and corporations and some Internet service providers) or dial-up access.
To enquire about the block or request that an account be created for you, please send an e-mail to unblock-en-llists.wikimedia.org with details of your IP address, the administrator who blocked you and the reason they gave (this information is available below). If you are requesting an account, please include in your e-mail the account name you wish. We apologise for any inconvenience caused to any innocent users.
Information about the block: account creation from this IP address (158.169.131.14) was blocked by Tnxman307, who gave the reason {{blocked proxy}}.
August 25th, 2011 at 8:48 am
As I thought, someone in the Commission been poisoning-the-well-for-eu-social-media. As I said in comments and elsewhere, the best strategy is to get EUROPA right and try and use that as a basis for rebutting falsehoods, on wikipedia and everywhere else in social media.
Rebutting falsehoods is NOT the same as “improving agency image, de-emphasizing criticisms, and the like”, which is exactly what I was warning against in a couple of posts in 2009. It’s probably what the ‘persistent vandalism’ offence refers to.
Being blocked, you’ll need the volunteer approach mentioned in an earlier comment. And as wikipedia won’t accept an organisation’s site as a source, perhaps you should consider that EUROPA itself should curate independent external sources as part of its editorial policy? This would both make EUROPA more credible, and support any volunteers rebutting the eurocrap that swirls through social networks.
But all this is one hell of a challenges. Shame your colleagues didn’t check the rules before charging in.
October 27th, 2011 at 3:32 am
There is no such thing as a moderator, but you might become an administrator. A Wikipedia administrator, and other senior volunteers drawn from the ranks of administrators, have special tools such as being able to delete pages or block users which can be used to carry out administrative decisions, see Wikipedia:Administrators Usually, these tools can only be used for non-controversial actions or after reaching consensus with other administrators after discussion on one of the administrative noticeboards, such as Wikipedia:Administrators’ noticeboard/Incidents
December 20th, 2011 at 8:00 pm
Good article! Personally, I rely on Google to get me the information I need. And almost all of the time, Wikipedia entries would be on top of the list they supply. So, for an ordinary person, I think things in Wikipedia is reliable. This is an eye-opener. Thanks.