NOAM COHEN on Wikinews/Wikipedia
The Latest on Virginia Tech, From Wikipedia
By NOAM COHEN
IMAGINE a newspaper with more than 2,000 writers, researchers and copy editors, yet no supervisors or managers to speak of. No deadlines; no meetings to plan coverage; no decisions handed down through a chain of command; no getting up on a desk to lead a toast after a job well done.
It doesn’t sound like any news operation that any journalist would recognize. Yet that seemingly chaotic nonstructure best describes the scene at Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, which, for a few days last week, served as an essential news source for hundreds of thousands of people on the Internet trying to understand the shootings at Virginia Tech University.
From the contributions of 2,074 editors, at last count, the site created a polished, detailed article on the massacre, with more than 140 separate footnotes, as well as sidebars that profiled the shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, and gave a timeline of the attacks.
According to the foundation that runs the various Wikipedias around the world, there were more than 750,000 visits to the main article on the shootings in its first two days, an average of four visits a second. Even The Roanoke Times, which is published near Blacksburg, Va., where the university is located, noted on Thursday that Wikipedia “has emerged as the clearinghouse for detailed information on the event.”
Recently, Wikipedia had been the object of much controversy over the reliability of the its articles, and the frequent anonymity of its contributors. But during some recent critical events, like the Virginia Tech killings, the Southeast Asian tsunami in 2004, and the London bombings in 2005, the site has been transformed from an ever-growing reference book into a ever-updating news source — albeit one with scant original reporting. (Wikipedia’s policy precludes original research.)
“Professional news is the place to get the facts on the ground — after all, that’s where Wikipedia contributors are getting their information, too,” said Michael Snow, a Wikipedia administrator. “Wikipedia distinguishes itself by the ability to bring all the facts, and useful background information, together in one place.”
In interviews, some of the most prolific contributors about the Virginia Tech shootings said they were at a loss to explain how everything manages to come out as well as it does.
Miikka Ryokas, whose user name is Kizor and in an e-mail message said that he was a 22-year-old computer science student from Turku, Finland, wrote: “As the popular joke goes, ‘The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work.’ ”
Mr. Ryokas wrote that he had spent 15 hours on the article, mostly to “tag dubious information with ‘citation needed’ or remove it entirely” and to “restore valid information that is accidentally lost.”
“I get involved when a major tragedy strikes,” he wrote. “I may not be able to help the victims, but I can, and therefore must, do a small part in helping accurate information get through to the world.”
As unfamiliar as it may seem, the contributors insist there isn’t even a shadowy figure who becomes the mastermind of the process.
“People seem to self-assign,” said Natalie Erin Martin, 23, a history major at Antioch College in Ohio, who describes herself as “an obsessive copy editor and spellchecker.”
“There is no one person at the top saying this is what you need to do,” she said. “A lot of people went, ‘Oh, my God! This happened. It’s going to be historic. I better make sure this isn’t a problem.’ It has all been out of a sense of personal responsibility.”
Dan Rosenthal, 24, a recent graduate of Florida State University who is one of 1,000 Wikipedia administrators, said in an interview that he was at Reagan National Airport in Washington when he heard the news from Virginia Tech, and immediately booted up his computer. “When I came to the page; there were so many edits, I had a hard time getting mine through,” he said.
Eventually, he created a separate section, “responses,” where he was able to add information unfettered for a little while. “Once that section grew to a certain point, I no longer had the inclination to add more,” he said. “Now I have a maintenance role.”
In that role, Mr. Rosenthal and other administrators have temporarily locked down the page so that “unregistered or newly registered users” cannot make changes. Ms. Martin, who is also an administrator, said that she had made 20 warnings to various vandals, particularly for racist language, the first step toward banning them from the site. “It has been important to me to fix that immediately,” she said.
Ms. Martin said that Wikipedia faced the same issues of tone and taste that are familiar to any newspaper.
Should the shootings be called a “massacre,” for example. She said she personally considered the term sensationalist, but was convinced that this was the term most favored by news reports, and noting Wikipedia’s policy of using “whatever the most common English name is.” Also, she says, Wikipedia has been reluctant to add articles for each victim so as to remain an encyclopedia, not a tribute page. She said all but one of the faculty members now have separate articles, but that the consensus is that the victims should be listed by name and age, without biographical vignettes, as some had proposed.
And just because the pages were completed while the events were still fresh did not mean that the contributors were unmindful of history. Ms. Martin has been reviewing the articles about previous mass shootings to see what people still would want to know about them years later.
“It is hard to remember that it was just days ago,” she said.
By NOAM COHEN
IMAGINE a newspaper with more than 2,000 writers, researchers and copy editors, yet no supervisors or managers to speak of. No deadlines; no meetings to plan coverage; no decisions handed down through a chain of command; no getting up on a desk to lead a toast after a job well done.
It doesn’t sound like any news operation that any journalist would recognize. Yet that seemingly chaotic nonstructure best describes the scene at Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, which, for a few days last week, served as an essential news source for hundreds of thousands of people on the Internet trying to understand the shootings at Virginia Tech University.
From the contributions of 2,074 editors, at last count, the site created a polished, detailed article on the massacre, with more than 140 separate footnotes, as well as sidebars that profiled the shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, and gave a timeline of the attacks.
According to the foundation that runs the various Wikipedias around the world, there were more than 750,000 visits to the main article on the shootings in its first two days, an average of four visits a second. Even The Roanoke Times, which is published near Blacksburg, Va., where the university is located, noted on Thursday that Wikipedia “has emerged as the clearinghouse for detailed information on the event.”
Recently, Wikipedia had been the object of much controversy over the reliability of the its articles, and the frequent anonymity of its contributors. But during some recent critical events, like the Virginia Tech killings, the Southeast Asian tsunami in 2004, and the London bombings in 2005, the site has been transformed from an ever-growing reference book into a ever-updating news source — albeit one with scant original reporting. (Wikipedia’s policy precludes original research.)
“Professional news is the place to get the facts on the ground — after all, that’s where Wikipedia contributors are getting their information, too,” said Michael Snow, a Wikipedia administrator. “Wikipedia distinguishes itself by the ability to bring all the facts, and useful background information, together in one place.”
In interviews, some of the most prolific contributors about the Virginia Tech shootings said they were at a loss to explain how everything manages to come out as well as it does.
Miikka Ryokas, whose user name is Kizor and in an e-mail message said that he was a 22-year-old computer science student from Turku, Finland, wrote: “As the popular joke goes, ‘The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work.’ ”
Mr. Ryokas wrote that he had spent 15 hours on the article, mostly to “tag dubious information with ‘citation needed’ or remove it entirely” and to “restore valid information that is accidentally lost.”
“I get involved when a major tragedy strikes,” he wrote. “I may not be able to help the victims, but I can, and therefore must, do a small part in helping accurate information get through to the world.”
As unfamiliar as it may seem, the contributors insist there isn’t even a shadowy figure who becomes the mastermind of the process.
“People seem to self-assign,” said Natalie Erin Martin, 23, a history major at Antioch College in Ohio, who describes herself as “an obsessive copy editor and spellchecker.”
“There is no one person at the top saying this is what you need to do,” she said. “A lot of people went, ‘Oh, my God! This happened. It’s going to be historic. I better make sure this isn’t a problem.’ It has all been out of a sense of personal responsibility.”
Dan Rosenthal, 24, a recent graduate of Florida State University who is one of 1,000 Wikipedia administrators, said in an interview that he was at Reagan National Airport in Washington when he heard the news from Virginia Tech, and immediately booted up his computer. “When I came to the page; there were so many edits, I had a hard time getting mine through,” he said.
Eventually, he created a separate section, “responses,” where he was able to add information unfettered for a little while. “Once that section grew to a certain point, I no longer had the inclination to add more,” he said. “Now I have a maintenance role.”
In that role, Mr. Rosenthal and other administrators have temporarily locked down the page so that “unregistered or newly registered users” cannot make changes. Ms. Martin, who is also an administrator, said that she had made 20 warnings to various vandals, particularly for racist language, the first step toward banning them from the site. “It has been important to me to fix that immediately,” she said.
Ms. Martin said that Wikipedia faced the same issues of tone and taste that are familiar to any newspaper.
Should the shootings be called a “massacre,” for example. She said she personally considered the term sensationalist, but was convinced that this was the term most favored by news reports, and noting Wikipedia’s policy of using “whatever the most common English name is.” Also, she says, Wikipedia has been reluctant to add articles for each victim so as to remain an encyclopedia, not a tribute page. She said all but one of the faculty members now have separate articles, but that the consensus is that the victims should be listed by name and age, without biographical vignettes, as some had proposed.
And just because the pages were completed while the events were still fresh did not mean that the contributors were unmindful of history. Ms. Martin has been reviewing the articles about previous mass shootings to see what people still would want to know about them years later.
“It is hard to remember that it was just days ago,” she said.
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