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| <!-- This is an encyclopedic article about properly-published criticisms of Misplaced Pages; this page is not for personal complaints. --> | |||
| ''']''', a ] ] project written by ], has attracted criticism along with its size and popularity. Notable criticisms include that its open nature makes it unauthoritative and unreliable (see ]), that it exhibits ], and that its ] hinder its goals. Specific criticisms include the encyclopedia's exposure to obvious or subtle ], attempts by strongly opinionated editors to dominate articles, inaccurate or sometimes non-existent sourcing for controversial assertions in articles, and edit wars and other types of nonconstructive conflict among editors. | |||
| Particularly noteworthy controversies about Misplaced Pages's content and editors have attracted wide and unfavorable media attention. Critics used the ] and ] incidents to call Misplaced Pages's reliability and usefulness as a reference into question. Misplaced Pages has also been the subject of ] and other humorous criticism. | |||
| == Criticism of the concept == | |||
| === The Wiki model === | |||
| Misplaced Pages has been both praised and criticized for being ]. ], who played a ] in the founding of Misplaced Pages<ref name="Larry_Sanger_Springs_Citizendium">{{cite news | |||
| |first=Brian | |||
| |last=Bergstein | |||
| |title=Sanger says he co-started Misplaced Pages | |||
| |url=http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=2980046 | |||
| |work=] | |||
| |publisher=] | |||
| |date=], ] | |||
| |accessdate=2007-03-26 | |||
| |quote =<small>The nascent Web encyclopedia Citizendium springs from Larry Sanger, a philosophy Ph.D. who counts himself as a co-founder of Misplaced Pages, the site he now hopes to usurp. The claim doesn't seem particularly controversial—Sanger has long been cited as a co-founder. Yet the other founder, Jimmy Wales, isn't happy about it.</small>}}</ref> but left the project in 2002,<ref name="LarrySanger2002">{{cite news | |||
| |first = | |||
| |last = | |||
| |authorlink = | |||
| |title = More than just a war of words | |||
| |url = http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/not-just-a-war-of-words/2007/04/21/1176697134712.html | |||
| |work = | |||
| |publisher = ] | |||
| |pages = | |||
| |date = ], ] | |||
| |accessdate = 2007-04-23 | |||
| |quote = <small>Misplaced Pages is suffering from a credibility crisis. Some—such as the Misplaced Pages co-founder Larry Sanger, who left the organization in 2002—say the malaise goes even deeper. He describes the organization as "completely dysfunctional" and is heading for a reckoning.</small>}}</ref> criticized Misplaced Pages in late 2004 for having an "anti-elitist" philosophy of active contempt for ]ise.<ref name="SangerElitism">], "", ], ], ].</ref> Some ]s, ]s, and editors of other encyclopedias consider it to have little utility as a ].<ref name=Duke /><ref name=McHenry /> Most university ] discourage students from citing any encyclopedia in academic work, preferring ]s.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/02/27/2003350261|title=Misplaced Pages on an academic hit list|author=Noam Cohen|publisher=NY Times News Service|date=2007-02-27|accessdate=2007-04-16|quote=<small>Middlebury professor Thomas Beyer, of the Russian department, said: 'I guess I am not terribly impressed by anyone citing an encyclopedia as a reference point, but I am not against using it as a starting point.'</small>}}</ref> One university program and several schools have even banned Misplaced Pages citations specifically.<ref>"", ''Inside Higher Ed'' (], ]). Retrieved on ] ].</ref> | |||
| Misplaced Pages's policies state that assertions should be supported by reliable, published ]—ideally, by ]ed publications.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Verifiability|title=Misplaced Pages: Verifiability}}</ref> ], the '']'' leader of Misplaced Pages,<ref name=defacto>{{cite news|url=http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07092/772696-96.stm|title=Misplaced Pages co-founder seeks to start all over again—this time with contributors' real names|author=Brian Bergstein|date=2007-04-02|accessdate=2007-04-21|publisher=]|quote=<small>Misplaced Pages's de-facto leader, Jimmy Wales, counters that real names are overrated.</small>}} {{cite web|url=http://www.matei.org/ithink/papers/ambiguity-conflict-wikipedia/|title=Ambiguity and conflict in the Wikipedian knowledge production system|author=Sorin Adam Matei and Caius Dobrescu|publisher=2006 International Communication Association Annual Meeting, Dresden, Germany|accessdate=2007-04-26|quote=<small>The participants included several notable contributors, such as James Wales, Misplaced Pages’s founder and de facto arbiter and leader of the project.</small>}} {{cite web|author=Holden Frith|title=Misplaced Pages founder launches rival online encyclopaedia|url=http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article1571519.ece|publisher='']''|date=2007-03-26|accessdate=2007-04-26|quote=<small>Misplaced Pages’s de facto leader, Jimmy Wales, stood by the site's format.</small>}}</ref> stresses that encyclopedias of any type are not usually appropriate as primary sources, and should not be relied upon as authoritative.<ref name="AWorkInProgress">, ] (], ]). Retrieved on ].</ref> In a 2005 study, Emigh and Herring note that there are not yet many formal studies of Misplaced Pages or its model, and suggest that Misplaced Pages achieves its results by social means—], a core of active users watching for problems, and expectations of encyclopedic text drawn from the wider culture.<ref name="emigh">Emigh & Herring (2005) "Collaborative Authoring on the Web: | |||
| A Genre Analysis of Online Encyclopedias", Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences. ()</ref> Oliver Kamm expressed skepticism toward Misplaced Pages's reliance on ] in forming its content: "Misplaced Pages seeks not truth but consensus, and like an interminable political meeting the end result will be dominated by the loudest and most persistent voices."<ref></ref> | |||
| === Usefulness as a reference === | |||
| Misplaced Pages acknowledges that it should not be used as a primary source for serious research.<ref name=wpresearch>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Researching_with_Wikipedia|title=Misplaced Pages:Researching with Misplaced Pages|work=]|accessdate=2005-12-14}}</ref> Librarian Philip Bradley stated in an October 2004 interview with '']'' that the concept behind the site was a "lovely idea," and he would use it in practice, and that he is "not aware of a single librarian who wouldn't. The main problem is the lack of authority. With printed publications, the publishers have to ensure that their data is reliable, as their livelihood depends on it. But with something like this, all that goes out the window."<ref name = "Whoknows?"> {{cite news | |||
| | last = Waldman | first = Simon | date = ] | title = Who knows? | |||
| | url = http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1335892,00.html | |||
| | publisher = ] | accessdate = 2005-12-30}}</ref> | |||
| ], former editor-in-chief of '']'' said in November 2004: | |||
| {{quotation|"The user who visits Misplaced Pages to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him."<ref name=McHenry> | |||
| {{cite news | author=] | date =] | |||
| | url = http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html | title = The Faith-Based Encyclopedia | |||
| | publisher = Tech Central Station | accessdate = 2005-12-30 }}</ref>}} | |||
| ] noted in a December 15, 2005 story: "Misplaced Pages is about as good a source of accurate information as Britannica, the venerable standard-bearer of facts about the world around us, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.news.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html|title=Study: Misplaced Pages as accurate as Britannica|author=Daniel Terdiman|publisher=CNET|date=2005-12-15|accessdate=2007-11-24}}</ref> The investigation, which was conducted and published (Dec. 2005) by '']'' was criticized by ] in an editorial for '']'' which claimed, | |||
| {{quotation|"…''Nature'' sent only misleading fragments of some Britannica articles to the reviewers, sent extracts of the children's version and Britannica's 'book of the year' to others, and in one case, simply stitched together bits from different articles and inserted its own material, passing it off as a single Britannica entry."<ref> {{cite news | url = http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/britannica_wikipedia_nature_study/ | |||
| | last = Orlowski | first = Andrew | date = ] | publisher = The Guardian | |||
| | title = Nature mag cooked Misplaced Pages study | accessdate = 2006-07-14}}</ref>}} | |||
| Encyclopædia Britannica also denied the validity of the ''Nature'' study, claiming that it was "fatally flawed" as the ''Britannica'' extracts were compilations that sometimes included articles written for the youth version.<ref name=FF>{{cite web |url=http://corporate.britannica.com/britannica_nature_response.pdf |title=Fatally Flawed |publisher=] |date=March 2006 |accessdaymonth=14 July |accessyear=2007 |format=PDF}}</ref> ''Nature'' acknowledged the compiled nature of some of the ''Britannica'' extracts, but disputed the claim that this invalidated the conclusions of the study.<ref>{{cite journal | title = Britannica attacks | journal = ]| volume = 440 | pages = 582 | doi = 10.1038/440582b | date = ] | |||
| | url = http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7084/full/440582b.html | |||
| | accessdate = 2006-07-14 }}</ref> Encyclopædia Britannica also argued that the ''Nature'' study showed that while the error rate between the two encyclopedias was similar, a breakdown of the errors indicated that the mistakes in Misplaced Pages were more often the inclusion of incorrect facts, while the mistakes in ''Britannica'' were "errors of omission". | |||
| In 2008 the ] blamed Misplaced Pages for Scotland's falling exam pass rates. <ref>http://news.scotsman.com/education/Falling-exam--passes-blamed.4209408.jp</ref> | |||
| === ''Wall Street Journal'' debate === | |||
| In the ] edition of the '']'', ] debated with ], editor-in-chief of <CITE>'']''</CITE>.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115756239753455284-A4hdSU1xZOC9Y9PFhJZV16jFlLM_20070911.html|title=The Wall Street Journal Online|accessdate=2006-09-13}}</ref> Hoiberg focused on a need for expertise and control in an encyclopedia and cited ] that overwhelming information could “bring about a state of intellectual enervation and depletion hardly to be distinguished from massive ignorance.” | |||
| Wales emphasized Misplaced Pages's differences, and asserted that openness and transparency lead to quality. Hoiberg claimed that he “had neither the time nor space to respond to ” and “could corral any number of links to articles alleging errors in Misplaced Pages,” to which Wales responded: “No problem! Misplaced Pages to the rescue with a fine article,” and included a link to the Misplaced Pages article ''Criticism of Misplaced Pages''. | |||
| === Suitability as an encyclopedia === | |||
| Robert McHenry said that Misplaced Pages errs in billing itself as an encyclopedia, because that word implies a level of authority and accountability that they believe cannot be possessed by an openly editable reference. McHenry argues that | |||
| {{quotation|"to the ordinary user, the turmoil and uncertainty that may lurk beneath the surface of a Misplaced Pages article are invisible. He or she arrives at a Misplaced Pages article via Google, perhaps, and sees that it is part of what claims to be an "encyclopedia". This is a word that carries a powerful connotation of reliability. The typical user doesn't know how conventional encyclopedias achieve reliability, only that they do."<ref> | |||
| {{cite news | author=] | date = ] | |||
| | url = http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=121305E | title = The Faith-Based Encyclopedia Blinks | publisher = TCS Daily | accessdate = 2005-12-30}}</ref>}} | |||
| Frequent Misplaced Pages critic Orlowski wrote on a December 2005 ] at ]: | |||
| {{quotation|"If what we today know as 'Misplaced Pages' had started life as something called, let's say —'Jimbo's Big Bag O'Trivia'— we doubt if it would be the problem it has become. Misplaced Pages is indeed, as its supporters claim, a phenomenal source of pop culture trivia. Maybe a 'Big Bag O'Trivia' is all Jimbo ever wanted. Maybe not. | |||
| "For sure a libel is a libel, but the outrage would have been far more muted if the Misplaced Pages project didn't make such grand claims for itself. The problem with this vanity exercise is one that it's largely created for itself. The public has a firm idea of what an 'encyclopedia' is, and it's a place where information can generally be trusted, or at least slightly more trusted than what a labyrinthine, mysterious bureaucracy can agree upon, and surely more trustworthy than a piece of spontaneous graffiti—and Misplaced Pages is a king-sized cocktail of the two."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/12/wikipedia_no_responsibility/page2.html|title=Who's responsible for Misplaced Pages?|author=Andrew Orlowski|date=2005-12-12|publisher=''The Register''|accessdate=2007-10-27}}</ref>}} | |||
| A number of academics – such as ], dean of social sciences and professor of history at ], and ], professor of history and associate clinical professor of medicine at Duke – have criticized Misplaced Pages for its perceived failure as a reliable source.<ref name = Duke /> Many Misplaced Pages editors do not have degrees or other credentials generally recognized in academia.<ref name="Susan_Youngwood">{{cite news | |||
| | first = Susan | |||
| | last = Youngwood | |||
| | title = Misplaced Pages: What do they know; when do they know it, and when can we trust it? | |||
| | url = http://vermonttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070401/FEATURES/70330002 | |||
| | work = Vermont Sunday Magazine | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | date = ], ] | |||
| | accessdate = 2007-04-05 | |||
| | quote =<small>Perhaps the most important thing to understand about Misplaced Pages - both its genius and its Achilles heel - is that anyone can create or modify an entry. Anyone means your 10-year-old neighbor or a Nobel Prize winner - or an editor like me, who is itching to correct a grammar error in that Misplaced Pages entry that I just quoted. Entries can be edited by numerous people and be in constant flux. What you read now might change in five minutes. Five seconds, even.<small/>}}<small> — Susan Youngwood.</small></ref> The use of Misplaced Pages is not accepted in many schools and universities in writing a formal paper. Several educational institutions have blocked Misplaced Pages in the past while others have limited its use to only a pointer to external sources.<ref name=Duke>{{cite web| url=http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2007/03/28/News/Several.Colleges.Push.To.Ban.Misplaced Pages.As.Resource-2809247.shtml|title=Several colleges push to ban Misplaced Pages as resource|publisher=Duke Chronicle|date=2007-03-28|author=Lysa Chen|accessdate=2007-04-02}}</ref> ] professor of physics ] has characterized Misplaced Pages as a target for "purveyors of ]."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN07/wn032307.html|title=Misplaced Pages: Has a beautiful idea fallen victim to human nature?|publisher=What's New By Bob Park|author=Bob Park|date=2007-03-23|accessdate=2007-04-02}}</ref> | |||
| Misplaced Pages articles have been referenced in "enhanced perspectives" provided on-line in the journal '']''. The first of these perspectives to provide a hyperlink to Misplaced Pages was "A White Collar Protein Senses Blue Light,"<ref>{{cite web|author=Linden, Hartmut|year=]| url=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/297/5582/777|title=A White Collar Protein Senses Blue Light|work=]|accessdate=2005}} (subscription access only)</ref> and dozens of enhanced perspectives have provided such links since then. The publisher of ''Science'' states that these enhanced perspectives "include hypernotes - which link directly to websites of other relevant information available online - beyond the standard bibliographic references."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.aaas.org/publications/books_reports/CCLI/PDFs/01_D_Perspectives.pdf|title=Perspectives from AAAS|publisher=American Association for the Advancement of Science|author=Yolanda S. George and Shirley S. Malcolm|accessdate=2007-10-27|format=PDF}}</ref> | |||
| === Anti-elitism as a weakness === | |||
| Co-founder of Misplaced Pages, and former editor-in-chief of ], ],<ref name="GlynMoody">{{cite web|url=http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1818630,00.html|title=This time, it'll be a Misplaced Pages written by experts|author=Glyn Moody|publisher=]|date=2006-07-13|accessdate=2007-04-28|quote=<small>Larry Sanger seems to have a thing about free online encyclopedias. Although his main claim to fame is as the co-founder, along with Jimmy Wales, of Misplaced Pages, that is just one of several projects to produce large-scale, systematic stores of human knowledge he has been involved in..." saw that I was essentially looking for employment online and he was looking for someone to lead Nupedia"...Career: 1992-1996, 1997-1998 Graduate teaching associate, OSU; 2000-2002 Editor-in-chief, Nupedia.</small>}}</ref> stated in an opinion piece in ] that "anti-elitism"—active contempt for expertise—was rampant among Misplaced Pages editors and supporters. He further stated that "far too much credence and respect accorded to people who in other Internet contexts would be labelled ']'."<ref>{{cite web | date = ] | |||
| | url = http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25 | author = ] | |||
| | title = Why Misplaced Pages Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism | publisher = ] | |||
| | accessdate = 2006-07-14 }}</ref> The sort of sentiment Sanger describes is more commonly known as ]. | |||
| Jimmy Wales admits that wide variations in quality between different articles and topics is significant, but that he considers the average quality to be "pretty good" and getting better by the day. | |||
| In 2005, staff at the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' said it did not feel threatened by Misplaced Pages. "The premise of Misplaced Pages is that continuous improvement will lead to perfection; that premise is completely unproven," the reference work's executive editor, Ted Pappas, told '']''.<ref>{{cite news | |||
| | url = http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1386027,00.html | publisher = ] | |||
| | title = Why encyclopaedic row speaks volumes about the old guard | last = Naughton | first = John | |||
| | date = ] | accessdate = 2006-07-15 }}</ref> | |||
| === Systemic bias in coverage === | |||
| Misplaced Pages has been accused of ], a tendency to cover topics in a detail disproportionate to their importance. As an example, ] once mock-praised Misplaced Pages for having a "longer entry on ']s' than it does on the '].'" In an interview with ''The Guardian'', Dale Hoiberg, the editor-in-chief of '']'', noted:<ref name = "Whoknows?" /> | |||
| {{quotation|people write of things they're interested in, and so many subjects don't get covered; and news events get covered in great detail. In the past, the entry on ] was more than five times the length of that on ], and the entry on '']'' was twice as long as the article on ].}} | |||
| This flaw has been the subject of a game known as "Wikigroaning", a term coined by Jon "DocEvil" Hendren<ref name="wsj">{{cite journal |title=Oh, that John Locke |first=Jamin |last=Brophy-Warren |journal=Wall Street Journal |issue=June 16, 2007 |pages=P3 |url=http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB118194482542637175-lMyQjAxMDE3ODExNzkxNDc0Wj.html}}</ref> of the website ].<ref>{{cite web |title=The Art of Wikigroaning |date=2007-06-05 |first=Johnny "DocEvil" |last=Hendren |accessdate=2007-06-17 |work=Something Awful |url=http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/wikigroaning.php}}</ref> In the game, two articles (preferably with similar names) are compared: one about a serious subject and the other about a topic important only to a select group of fans.<ref name="Abrown">{{cite journal| first=Andrew |last=Brown| issue=June 14, 2007 |title=No amount of collaboration will make the sun orbit the Earth |journal=The Guardian |url=http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,2101810,00.html}}</ref> Critics of Misplaced Pages concede that the encyclopedia's coverage of pop culture does not impose space constraints on the coverage of more "serious" subjects, as spelled out in the "]" article. As Ivor Tossell noted: | |||
| {{quotation|That Misplaced Pages is chock full of useless arcana (and did you know, by the way, that the article on "Debate" is shorter than the piece that weighs the relative merits of the 1978 and 2003 versions of Battlestar Galactica?) isn't a knock against it: Since it can grow infinitely, the silly articles aren't depriving the serious ones of space.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070615.wweb15/BNStory/Technology/home|title=Duality of Misplaced Pages|author=Ivor Tossell|publisher='']''|date=2007-06-15|accessdate=2007-06-20}}</ref>}} | |||
| However, Misplaced Pages's own policies make the veracity of this claim dubious as even popular articles are often deleted on "]" grounds.<ref></ref> ] are particularly susceptible to these deletions, and the authors of these articles have had difficulty obtaining clear guidelines on the notability policy.<ref></ref> Articles on so-called ] or "Web culture" are also vulnerable.<ref></ref> Various theories have been proposed to explain this apparent contradiction with the lack of space constraints referenced above, including censorship to make the encyclopedia appear more "respectable" to media sources; or favoritism for particular comics, memes, et cetera and against others on the part of editors. | |||
| ] writes: | |||
| {{quotation|Still, a lot of good work—verifiable, informative, brain-leapingly strange—is being cast out of this paperless, infinitely expandable accordion folder by people who have a narrow, almost grade-schoolish notion of what sort of curiosity an on-line encyclopedia will be able to satisfy in the years to come. | |||
| Anybody can "pull the trigger" on an article (as Broughton phrases it)—you just insert a double-bracketed software template. It's harder to improve something that's already written, or to write something altogether new, especially now that so many of the World Book–sanctioned encyclopedic fruits are long plucked. There are some people on Misplaced Pages now who are just bullies, who take pleasure in wrecking and mocking peoples' work—even to the point of laughing at nonstandard "Engrish." They poke articles full of warnings and citation-needed notes and deletion prods till the topics go away.<ref></ref>}} | |||
| === Neutral point of view === | |||
| The concept of a neutral point of view (NPOV), which is regarded as a non-negotiable principle of Misplaced Pages,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/WP:NPOV|title=Misplaced Pages: Neutral point of view}}</ref> has itself been criticized as an impossible ideal due to the inevitable biases of editors. In an interview with Jimmy Wales and Misplaced Pages critic ], NPR commentator ] stated: | |||
| {{quotation|"I keep hearing from my readers (many of whom I’m guessing are Wikipedians or ex-Wikipedians) that attaining NPOV is impossible, that everyone has bias and introduces it in some way...Can anyone write from an NPOV? Doesn’t everyone have inherent biases?"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/04/email_debatewales_discusses_po.html|title=Wales Discusses Political Bias on Misplaced Pages|date=2006-04-21|author=Mark Glaser|publisher=NPR|accessdate=2007-10-27}}</ref>}} Other critics allege that NPOV is arguably in practice "mainstream point of view," with the effect that mainstream points of view are privileged and radical points of view disadvantaged.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ|title=Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view/FAQ|work=Misplaced Pages|accessdate=2006-09-13}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/04/wikipedia_biasis_there_a_neutr.html|title=Is There a Neutral View on George W. Bush?|author=Mark Glaser|publisher=PBS|date=2006-04-17|accessdate=2007-10-27|quote=<small>The search for a “neutral point of view” mirrors the efforts of journalists to be objective, to show both sides without taking sides and remaining unbiased. But maybe this is impossible and unattainable, and perhaps misguided. Because if you open it up for anyone to edit, you’re asking for anything but neutrality.</small>}}</ref> | |||
| === Difficulty of fact-checking === | |||
| Misplaced Pages contains no formal ] process for fact-checking, and due to the lack of requiring qualifications to edit any article, the contributors themselves may not be well-versed in the topics they write about. As the cultural commentator ] put it, writing in '']'' on the subject of Misplaced Pages: | |||
| {{quotation|"Using it is like asking questions of a bloke you met in the pub. He might be a nuclear physicist. Or he might be a fruitcake."<ref>{{cite news | |||
| | url = http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article1886601.ece | publisher = ] | |||
| | title = The Big Question: Do we need a more reliable online encyclopedia than Misplaced Pages? | last = Vallely | first = Paul | |||
| | date = ] | accessdate = 2006-10-18 }}</ref>}} | |||
| This is one of Misplaced Pages's most frequently encountered criticisms. Sometimes, the subject of a biographical article must fix blatant lies about his own life.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm|work=USA Today|date=2005-11-29|title=A false Misplaced Pages "biography"|author=John Siegenthaler}}</ref> Television personality ] lampooned this drawback of Misplaced Pages, calling it ]. In a typical experiment, an editor inserted mistakes into five Misplaced Pages articles; they remained unnoticed for up to five days by which time the editor reverted the edits himself.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.frozennorth.org/C2011481421/E652809545/index.html|title=Dispatches from the Frozen North|author=Peter Leppik|date=2004-09-04}}</ref> In another example, on ], ], MSNBC.com reported that ] had been incorrectly listed for 20 months in her Misplaced Pages biography as ] of her class of 1969 at ]. (Hillary Rodham was not the valedictorian, though she did speak at ].)<ref>{{cite news|first=Bill|last=Dedman|url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17388372/page/3/|title=Reading Hillary Clinton's hidden thesis|publisher=MSNBC.com|date=2007-03-03|accessdate=2007-03-17}}</ref> The article included a link to the Misplaced Pages edit,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Hillary_Rodham_Clinton&diff=18494301&oldid=18493966|title=Hillary Rodham Clinton|publisher=Misplaced Pages|date=2005-07-09|accessdate=2007-03-17}}</ref> where the incorrect information was added on July 9, 2005. After the MSNBC report, the inaccurate information was removed the same day.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Hillary_Rodham_Clinton&diff=112070224&oldid=111773323|title=Hillary Rodham Clinton|publisher=Misplaced Pages|date=2007-03-02|accessdate=2007-03-17}}</ref> Between the two edits, the wrong information had stayed in the Clinton article while it was edited more than 4,800 times over 20 months. | |||
| In a sample of Misplaced Pages articles, John Willinsky reported a preference for online sources over print sources: | |||
| {{quotation|"Only four out of the 100 entries relied exclusively on print sources (and they were single–source entries), while print sources turned up in a dozen entries in total...Online sources were clearly favored among contributors, as the greater interconnectivity which the Internet represents, compared to print culture, also forms part of ''Misplaced Pages's'' quality as an instrument of knowledge and learning."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_3/willinsky/index.html|title=What open access research can do for ''Misplaced Pages''|author=John Willinsky|publisher='']''|date=2007-01-23|accessdate=2007-10-03}}</ref>}} | |||
| === Use of dubious sources === | |||
| Misplaced Pages requests that contributors verify the accuracy of information by checking the references cited, which generally come from external sources. Despite guidelines deprecating the use of personal blogs and dubious sources,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Questionable_sources|title=Misplaced Pages: Verifiability: Questionable sources}}</ref> Hiawatha Bray of the '']'' contends that some references used in Misplaced Pages articles have come from dubious sources, such as ] entries. Bray wrote in 2004: | |||
| {{quotation|"So of course Misplaced Pages is popular. Maybe too popular. For it lacks one vital feature of the traditional encyclopedia: ]. Old-school reference books hire expert scholars to write their articles, and employ skilled editors to check and double-check their work. Misplaced Pages's articles are written by anyone who fancies himself an expert."<ref>{{cite web|author=Bray, Hiawatha |date=]|url=http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/07/12/one_great_source____if_you_can_trust_it/| | |||
| |title=One great source -- if you can trust it|publisher=]|accessdate=2007-10-27}}</ref>}} | |||
| Misplaced Pages content is often mirrored at sites such as ], which means that incorrect information can be replicated alongside correct information through a number of web sources. Such information can develop a misleading air of authority because of its presence at such sites.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s1613571.htm|title=Mistakes and hoaxes on-line|publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation|date=2006-04-15|accessdate=2007-04-28|quote=<small>Then son discovered that his father's hoax biography also appeared on two other sites, Reference.com and Answers.com, which took direct feeds from Misplaced Pages. It was out there for four months before Seigenthaler realised and got the Misplaced Pages entry replaced with a more reliable account. The lies remained for another three weeks on the mirror sites downstream. I can relate to this, because libraries are now moving to a system where one person, somewhere, catalogues a book, and the entry is then passed on. That's all very well when the single cataloguer gets it right, but what happens when this person nods?</small>}}</ref> A converse criticism of Misplaced Pages is that contributors sometimes rely too much on citing sources, particularly in disputed articles.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/21/we-arent-wikipedia/|title=We aren’t Misplaced Pages|author=Larry Sanger|publisher=Citizendium Blog|date=2007-03-21|accessdate=2007-04-29|quote=<small>Since we’ve got expert editors on board, we can take a more sensible approach to citing sources. The editors we have on board create the sort of sources that Misplaced Pages cites. We do cite sources, of course, but we have a sensible approach to doing so. We cite sources because doing so helps the reader. We do not cite sources in order to settle internal disputes, or to “prove” a point to contributors; as seasoned researchers, we know that you can find sources for all sorts of ridiculous claims.</small>}}</ref> | |||
| === Exposure to vandals === | |||
| In November 2005, Misplaced Pages received a great deal of bad publicity as a result of the ], in which a user edited a ] article on ] so that it contained several false and ] statements. The inaccurate claims went unnoticed between May and September 2005 when they were discovered by ], a friend of Seigenthaler. ] is recognized by Misplaced Pages as an ongoing problem facing its articles. Some users may have axes to grind on a particular subject, or may simply enjoy disrupting Misplaced Pages. There have also been instances of users deliberately inserting false information into Misplaced Pages in order to test the system and demonstrate its alleged unreliability.<ref>{{cite news|author=Gene Weingarten|date=2007-03-16|url=http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/553968.html|title=A wickedly fun test of Misplaced Pages|publisher=]|accessdate=2006-04-08}}</ref> | |||
| Misplaced Pages acknowledges these issues, and the Misplaced Pages page "Researching with Misplaced Pages" states: | |||
| {{quotation|Misplaced Pages's radical openness means that any given article may be, at any given moment, in a bad state: for example, it could be in the middle of a large edit or it could have been recently vandalized. While blatant vandalism is usually easily spotted and rapidly corrected, Misplaced Pages is certainly more subject to subtle vandalism than a typical reference work.<ref name=wpresearch />}} | |||
| *One more subtle form of vandalism that has occurred on Misplaced Pages is the removal of content through false claims of copyright violation. Contributors may post similar information on web forums or blogs, and then claim there has been a violation. This has been used in order to force a point of view by removing selected portions of an article through copyright violation claims. | |||
| Misplaced Pages has a range of tools available to users and ] in order to combat vandalism. Supporters of the project argue that the vast majority of vandalism on Misplaced Pages is reverted within a short time, and a study by Fernanda Viégas of the MIT Media Lab and Martin Wattenberg and Kushal Dave of IBM Research found that most vandal edits were reverted within around five minutes.<ref>{{cite paper|url=http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/papers/history_flow.pdf|publisher=MIT|format=PDF|title=Studying Cooperation and Conflict between Authors with history flow Visualizations|author=Fernanda Viégas, Martin Wattenberg, Kushal Dave}}</ref> While most instances of page blanking or the addition of offensive material are soon reverted, less obvious vandalism has remained for longer periods. For example, a user made several ] edits to ] that were not reverted for nearly four hours.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Martin_Luther_King_Day&oldid=54585762|title=Martin Luther King Day|work=Misplaced Pages|date=2006-05-22}}</ref> Columnist Sujay Kumar commented: "While Misplaced Pages says that most vandal edits are removed within five minutes, some falsities have managed to go unnoticed. An outlandishly fake entry about ]'s uncontrollable flatulence was posted for a month."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://media.www.dailyillini.com/media/storage/paper736/news/2007/04/13/OpinionColumns/Oh.The.Wonderful.World.Of.Misplaced Pages-2839245.shtml|title=Oh, the wonderful world of Misplaced Pages|author=Sujay Kumar|date=2007-04-13|accessdate=2007-10-04|publisher=''The Daily Illini''}}</ref> | |||
| Attempts to perpetrate ]es may not be confined to editing Misplaced Pages articles. In October 2005 ], a former ] worker from ] created a Misplaced Pages article in which he claimed to be a highly decorated war hero. The article was quickly identified by other users as unreliable (see ]). However, Mcilwraith had also succeeded in convincing a number of charities and media organizations that he was who he claimed to be.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16929538&method=full&siteid=66633&headline=meet-sir-walter-mitty--name_page.html|title=Exclusive: Meet the Real Sir Walter Mitty|author=Cara Paige|publisher=Daily Record|date=2006-04-11|accessdate=2007-11-24}}</ref> | |||
| While malicious edits to the text of the articles are relatively easy to revert, numbers and statistics edits are much more difficult to spot, and can go unnoticed for extended periods of time. | |||
| === Exposure to political operatives and advocates === | |||
| While Misplaced Pages policy requires articles to have a neutral point of view, it is not immune from attempts by outsiders (or insiders) with an agenda to place a ] on articles. In January 2006 it was revealed that several staffers of members of the ] had embarked on a campaign to cleanse their respective bosses' biographies on Misplaced Pages, as well as inserting negative remarks on political opponents. References to a campaign promise by ] to surrender his seat in 2000 were deleted, and negative comments were inserted into the articles on U.S. Senator ] and ], a congressman from ]. Numerous other changes were made from an ] which is assigned to the House of Representatives.<ref>{{cite web|author=Margaret Kane|date=2006-01-30|url=http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-6032713.html|title=Politicians notice Misplaced Pages|publisher=]|accessdate=2007-01-28}}</ref> In an interview, Misplaced Pages ''de facto'' leader ]<ref name=defacto /> remarked that the changes were "not cool."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lawnorder.blogspot.com/2006/01/senator-staffers-spam-wikipedia.html|title=Senator staffers spam Misplaced Pages|accessdate=2006-09-13}}</ref> Some organizations are making efforts to correct inaccuracies. For example, the Telegraph reported that a Boston-based media watchdog asked supporters to help edit clearly anti-Israeli biases in Misplaced Pages articles.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1934857/Israeli-battles-rage-on-Misplaced Pages.html|title=Israeli battles rage on Misplaced Pages|accessdate=2008-05-08}}</ref> | |||
| Articles dealing with Latin American history and groups (such as the ] and ]) are often written from a quasi-Marxist perspective which treats socialist dictatorships favorably.<ref>{{cite web|auther=Pablo Bachelet|url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=MH&p_theme=mh&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=cuba%20wikipedia%20AND%20date(all)&p_field_advanced-0=&p_text_advanced-0=(cuba%20wikipedia)&p_sort=_rank_:D&xcal_ranksort=4&xcal_useweights=yes|title=War of Words: Website Can't Define Cuba|date=2006-05-03|Publisher=]|accessdate=2008-07-08}}</ref> <ref>{{cite web|author=Matt Sanchez|url=http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/wiki-whacked-by-political-bias/|title=Wiki-Whacked by Political Bias|date=2008-05-14|Publisher=]|accessdate=2008-07-08}}</ref> <sup>(</sup><ref>{{cite web|auther=Larry Delay|url=http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/asce/pdfs/volume16/pdfs/program.pdf|title=A Pernicious Model for Control of the World Wide Web: The Cuba Case|date=2006-08-03|Publisher=Association for Study of the Cuban Economy(ASCE)|accessdate=2008-07-08}}</ref><sup>+</sup><ref>{{cite web|auther=Larry Delay|url=http://draftarticlesldaley.blogspot.com/2006/07/pernicious-model-for-control-of-world.html|title=A Pernicious Model for Control of the World Wide Web: The Cuba Case|date=2006-07-27|Publisher=Larry Daley (complete text of ASCE presentation on author's blog)|accessdate=2008-07-08}}</ref><sup>)</sup> | |||
| Various individuals and groups that hold different political opinions may also start "edit wars" aimed at spinning the content of an article. For instance, soon after disgraced former ] CEO ] died due to a ], several editors to the encyclopedia added content to Lay's Misplaced Pages biography surmising that the death was in fact a ], well in advance of any official determination of cause of death. Such edits were reverted and re-inserted several times; eventually the article reported the cause of death as a heart attack. As of July 2007, there is no evidence to suggest that Lay's death was by other than natural causes. The edit history of the article was investigated by the press, and the '']'' published a column on the subject.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/08/AR2006070800135_pf.html/|title=Death by Misplaced Pages: The Kenneth Lay Chronicles|date=2006-07-09|author=Frank Ahrens}}</ref> | |||
| In August 2007, a tool called ] developed by ], a visiting researcher from the ] in New Mexico, was released to match anonymous IP edits in the encyclopedia with an extensive database of addresses. Griffith said he developed WikiScanner "to create minor public-relations disasters for companies and organizations I dislike (and) to see what 'interesting organizations' are up to." News stories appeared about IP addresses from various organizations such as the ], the ], ] and the ] being used to make edits to Misplaced Pages articles, sometimes of an opinionated or questionable nature. The ] quoted a Misplaced Pages spokesperson as praising the tool: "We really value transparency and the scanner really takes this to another level. Misplaced Pages Scanner may prevent an organisation or individuals from editing articles that they're really not supposed to."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6947532.stm|title=Misplaced Pages 'shows CIA page edits'|date=2007-08-15|accessdate=2007-08-15|publisher=BBC|author=Jonathan Fildes}}</ref> Another story stated that an IP address from the BBC itself had been used to vandalize the article on ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article2264150.ece?token=null&offset=12|title=Exposed: guess who has been polishing their Misplaced Pages entries?|date=2007-08-15|accessdate=2007-08-15|author=Rhys Blakely|publisher=Times Online}}</ref> Jimmy Wales, who played a central role in the founding of Misplaced Pages, spoke enthusiastically about Misplaced Pages Scanner: "It's awesome -- I love it...It brings an additional level of transparency to what's going on at Misplaced Pages...Misplaced Pages Scanner uses information we've been making publicly available forever, hoping someone would do something like this."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.technewsworld.com/story/58856.html|title=New Tool Outs Would-Be Misplaced Pages Tricksters|date=2007-08-15|accessdate=2007-08-16|publisher=TechNewsWorld|author=Katherine Noyes}}</ref> | |||
| In February 2008, British technology news and opinion website '']'' published an article called "Misplaced Pages ruled by 'Lord of the Universe'", in which it was pointed out that despite the fact that a prominent administrator of Misplaced Pages, Jossi Fresco, declared a conflict of interest related to ], the article alleged that not only did Fresco edit the article of Prem Rawat to keep criticism to bare minimum, he altered the Misplaced Pages policies over personal biography and policies regarding "conflict of interest", to favour his alleged "biased" editing. The article pointed out that Fresco was also involved in Misplaced Pages's "Conflict of Interest Noticeboard", the situation which the Register article described as "a conflict of conflict of interest". The article stated that Fresco bore "the most extreme conflict of interest in the history of Misplaced Pages - and he edits the policy that governs conflict of interest."<ref name="Metz Cade">Metz, Cade, , ], ], ].</ref> | |||
| In April 2008, the Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (]) organized a campaign to correct Israel-related biases and inconsistencies in Misplaced Pages. <ref>Metz, Cade, ", ], ], ].</ref> | |||
| === Prediction of failure === | |||
| Eric Goldman, assistant ] professor at ] in ], has ]ged about his bet with attorney ] that Misplaced Pages will have failed by ], ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2005/12/wikipedia_will.htm|author=Eric Goldman|title=Misplaced Pages Will Fail Within 5 Years|publisher=EricGoldman.org|date=]|accessdate=2006-12-06}}</ref> | |||
| His argument is that "eventually, marketers will build scripts to edit Misplaced Pages pages to insert links and conduct automated attacks on Misplaced Pages", thus putting the encyclopedia beyond the ability of its editors to provide ]s against the attackers,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.informationweek.com/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196601766|author=Thomas Claburn|title= Law Professor Predicts Misplaced Pages's Demise|publisher=]|date=]|accessdate=2006-12-16}}</ref> particularly because of a ] where the strain of responding to these attacks drives core contributors away, increasing the strain on those who remain. In a followup post on ], ], Goldman stood by his prediction that Misplaced Pages would fail by 2010.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2006/12/wikipedia_will_1.htm|author=Eric Goldman|title=Misplaced Pages Will Fail in Four Years|date=]|publisher=EricGoldman.org|accessdate=2007-07-31}}</ref> | |||
| <!--Jimmy Wales commented that technical questions about Misplaced Pages's backup practices should be directed to ] developer ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-09-10/Jimbo_interview|title=''Signpost'' interview: Jimmy Wales|date=2007-09-10|publisher=''Misplaced Pages Signpost''|accessdate=2007-09-16}}</ref> Periodic database dumps of Misplaced Pages content are publicly available.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://download.wikimedia.org/|title=Wikimedia Downloads|publisher=Wikimedia Foundation|accessdate=2007-09-16}}</ref>--> | |||
| === Privacy concerns === | |||
| Most ] concerns refer to cases of government or employer data gathering; or to computer or electronic monitoring; or to trading data between organizations.<ref>See by Thamer E. "Chip" Temple III for further discussion</ref>. "The Internet has created conflicts between personal privacy, commercial interests and the interests of society at large" warn James Donnelly and Jenifer Haeckl.<ref name=DH>{{cite web|url=http://www.modl.com/images/library/114.html|title=Privacy and Security on the Internet: What Rights, What Remedies?|date=2001-04-12|author=James Donnelly and Jenifer Haeckl|publisher=MCLE}}</ref> Balancing the rights of all concerned as technology alters the social landscape will not be easy. It "is not yet possible to anticipate the path of the common law or governmental regulation" regarding this problem.<ref name=DH /> | |||
| The concern in the case of Misplaced Pages is the right of a private citizen to remain private; to remain a "private citizen" rather than a "]" in the eyes of the law.<ref>See by David McHam for the legal distinction</ref> It is somewhat of a battle between the right to be anonymous in ] and the right to be anonymous in ] ("]"). ] argues that "Misplaced Pages is a potential menace to anyone who values privacy" and that "a greater degree of accountability in the Misplaced Pages structure" would be "the very first step toward resolving the privacy problem."<ref></ref> | |||
| A particular problem occurs in the case of an individual who is relatively unimportant and for whom there exists a Misplaced Pages page against their wishes. | |||
| In January 2006, a ] court ordered the ] shut down within Germany due to it stating the full name of ], aka "Tron", a deceased hacker who was formerly with the ]. More specifically, the court ordered that the URL within the German <tt>.de</tt> domain (<tt>http://www.wikipedia.de/</tt>) may no longer redirect to the encyclopedia's servers in Florida at <tt>http://de.wikipedia.org/</tt>, though since German readers were still able to use the US-based URL directly, there was not really any loss of access on their part. The court order arose out of a lawsuit filed by Floricic's parents, demanding that their son's surname be removed from Misplaced Pages.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-01-16/Tron_dispute|date=]|work=Misplaced Pages Signpost|publisher=Misplaced Pages|title=Tron dispute}}</ref> On ], ], the injunction against Wikimedia Deutschland was overturned, with the court rejecting the notion that Tron's right to privacy or that of his parents were being violated.<ref>, by Torsten Kleinz, 9 February 2006.</ref> The plaintiffs appealed to the Berlin state court, but were refused relief in May 2006. | |||
| === Quality concerns === | |||
| A study by ] researchers found that the quality of Misplaced Pages articles varies widely. Some articles are excellent by any reasonable measure—authored and edited by persons knowledgeable in the field, containing numerous useful and relevant references, and written in a proper encyclopedic style. However, there are many articles on Misplaced Pages that are amateurish, unauthoritative, and even incorrect, making it difficult for a reader unfamiliar with a given subject matter to know which information to rely upon. In addition, Misplaced Pages contains many ''stubs''—very short articles that provide a brief mention of a subject, and little else. The Dartmouth study was criticized by John Timmer of the ] website for an inexact measure of quality of Misplaced Pages articles.<ref name=Dartmouth>{{cite web|url=http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071018-anonymous-good-samaritans-may-produce-wikipedias-best-content.html|title=Anonymous "good samaritans" produce Misplaced Pages's best content, says study|author=John Timmer|publisher=Ars Technica|date=2007-10-18|accessdate=2007-10-27|quote=<small>Good samaritans with less than 100 edits made higher-quality contributions than those with registered accounts and equal amounts of content. In fact, anonymous contributors with a single edit had the highest quality of any group. But quality steadily declined, and more-frequent anonymous contributors were anything but samaritans; their contributions generally didn't survive editing...The authors also recognize that contributions in the form of stubs on obscure topics might survive unaltered indefinitely, inflating the importance of single contributions...Objective ratings of quality are difficult, and it's hard to fault the authors for attempting to find an easily-measured proxy for it. In the absence of independent correlation, however, it's not clear that the measurement used actually works as a proxy.</small>}}</ref> | |||
| Others have noted that in some areas, such as ], Misplaced Pages's quality is often excellent. A report by the science journal '']'' claimed that "] comes close to ] in terms of the accuracy of its ] entries."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html|work=Nature|title=Internet encyclopedias go head to head|author=Jim Giles|date=2005-12-14}}</ref> The article detailed a study wherein 42 articles in both encyclopedias were reviewed by experts on the subject matter. Based on the review, the average Misplaced Pages article contained 4 errors or omissions; the average Britannica article, 3. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'''s initial concerns led to Nature releasing further documentation of its survey method.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/exref/supplementary_information.doc|work=Nature|title=Supplementary information to accompany Nature news article "Internet encyclopedias go head to head"|date=2005-12-22}}</ref> ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', in its formal corporate response "Fatally Flawed",<ref name=FF /> responded: | |||
| {{quotation|"hat conclusion was false, however, because Nature's research was invalid. As we demonstrate below, almost everything about the journal’s investigation, from the criteria for identifying inaccuracies to the discrepancy between the article text and its headline, was wrong and misleading."}} | |||
| ''Nature'' has since rejected the ''Britannica'' response<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4840340.stm|title=Misplaced Pages study 'fatally flawed'|date=2006-03-24|publisher=BBC News}}</ref> and published a point-by-point response to ''Britannica'''s specific objections about alleged errors.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.nature.com/nature/britannica/eb_advert_response_final.pdf|publisher=Nature|work=Press release|title=Encyclopædia Britannica and Nature: a response|date=2006-03-23|format=PDF}}</ref> | |||
| === Threat to traditional publishers === | |||
| Some observers claim that Misplaced Pages is undesirable, because it is an economic threat to publishers of traditional encyclopedias, many of whom may be unable to compete with a product which is essentially free. ] writes in the essay "The amorality of Web 2.0," speaking of the so-called ] as a whole: "Implicit in the ecstatic visions of Web 2.0 is the hegemony of the amateur. I for one can't imagine anything more frightening."<ref>{{cite web | title = The amorality of Web 2.0 | |||
| | url = http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2005/10/the_amorality_o.php | date = ] | |||
| | work = Rough Type | accessdate = 2006-07-15 }}</ref> Others dispute the notion that Misplaced Pages, or similar efforts, will entirely displace traditional publications. For instance, ], the editor-in-chief of '']'', wrote in '']'' that the "]" approach of Misplaced Pages will not displace top ]s with their rigorous ] process.<ref>{{cite web | title = Technical solutions: Wisdom of the crowds | url = http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature04992.html | | |||
| | work = Nature | accessdate = 2006-10-10 }}</ref> In fact, according to Misplaced Pages editing guidelines regarding the requirement of references to external primary sources, Misplaced Pages's existence is essentially dependent on these professional publications. | |||
| ==="Waffling" prose, "antiquarianism" and quality of writing=== | |||
| Roy Rosenzweig, in a June 2006 essay that combined both praise and criticism of Misplaced Pages, had several criticisms of its prose and its failure to distinguish the genuinely important from the merely sensational. While acknowledging that Misplaced Pages is "surprisingly accurate in reporting names, dates, and events in U.S. history" (Rosenzweig's own field of study) and that most of the few factual errors that he found "were small and inconsequential" and that "some errors simply repeat widely held but inaccurate beliefs," many of which are also reflected in ''Encarta'' and the ''Britannica''; nonetheless | |||
| {{quotation|"Good historical writing requires not just factual accuracy but also a command of the scholarly literature, persuasive analysis and interpretations, and clear and engaging prose. By those measures, ''American National Biography Online'' easily outdistances Misplaced Pages."<ref name=Rosenzweig>{{cite journal|author=Roy Rosenzweig|title=Can History be Open Source? Misplaced Pages and the Future of the Past|journal=The Journal of American History|volume=93|issue=1|date=June 2006|pages=117–146|url=http://chnm.gmu.edu/resources/essays/d/42|accessdate=2006-08-11}} (Center for History and New Media)</ref>}} | |||
| Contrasting Misplaced Pages's treatment of ] to that of ] historian ] in ''American National Biography Online'', he acknowledges that both are essentially accurate and cover the major episodes in Lincoln's life, but praises "McPherson’s richer contextualization… his artful use of quotations to capture Lincoln’s voice … and … his ability to convey a profound message in a handful of words." By contrast, he cites an example of Misplaced Pages's prose that he finds "both verbose and dull." Further, he contrasts "the skill and confident judgment of a seasoned historian" displayed by McPherson and others to the "]" of Misplaced Pages (which he compares in this respect to '']'' magazine), and states that while Misplaced Pages often provides extensive references, they are not the best ones. Still, he acknowledges that "not all historians write as well as McPherson and Brinkley, and some of the better-written Misplaced Pages entries provide more engaging portraits than some sterile and routine entries in ''American National Biography Online''.<ref name=Rosenzweig/> | |||
| Rosenzweig also criticizes the "waffling—encouraged by the npov policy— means that it is hard to discern any overall interpretive stance in Misplaced Pages history." He cites as an example of this the conclusion of Misplaced Pages's article on ]. While generally praising the article, he nonetheless points to its "waffling" conclusion: "Some historians…remember him as an opportunistic, bloodthirsty outlaw, while others continue to view him as a daring soldier and local folk hero."<ref name=Rosenzweig/> | |||
| Other critics have made similar charges that, even if Misplaced Pages articles are factually accurate, they are often written in a poor, almost unreadable style. Frequent Misplaced Pages critic Andrew Orlowski commented: "Even when a Misplaced Pages entry is 100 per cent factually correct, and those facts have been carefully chosen, it all too often reads as if it has been translated from one language to another then into to a third, passing an illiterate translator at each stage."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/18/wikipedia_quality_problem/page2.html|title=Misplaced Pages founder admits to serious quality problems|author=Andrew Orlowski|date=2005-10-18|publisher=''The Register''|accessdate=2007-09-30}}</ref> | |||
| === Anonymous editing === | |||
| Misplaced Pages has been criticized by many for allowing users to edit anonymously, with only their ] to identify them. This is said to allow the vandals anonymity and makes it difficult to track them, due to the long and hard-to-remember nature of IP addresses. For instance, Misplaced Pages co-founder<ref name="GlynMoody"/> ] wrote:<ref>{{cite web |title = Toward a New Compendium of Knowledge (longer version) |url = http://www.citizendium.org/essay.html | work = Citizendium.org | accessdate = 2006-10-10 }}</ref> | |||
| {{quotation|Widespread anonymity leads to a distinguishable problem, namely, the attractiveness of the project to people who merely want to cause trouble, or who want to undermine the project, or who want to change it into something that it is avowedly not – in other words, the troll problem.}} | |||
| However, anonymous editors reveal their IP addresses, which can be used by admins to register complaints with Internet service providers or to put "range blocks" in place. Admins may also choose not to block because they might exclude regular contributors who share the same IP. Knowledgeable computer users and ], though, are easily capable of finding ways around IP blocking. Many have suggested requiring users to register before editing articles, and on ], ] non-registered editors were prohibited from creating new articles.<ref>{{cite web|author=]|year=]|url=http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-December/033880.html|title=WikiEN-l Experiment on new pages|accessdate=2005-12-30}}</ref> | |||
| But more importantly, allowing anonymous editing generally induces a | |||
| lack of authority, accountability, and healthy (or at least civil) | |||
| interaction:<ref> | |||
| B. Bergstein, | |||
| , USA Today, Posted 3/25/2007 3:00 PM. | |||
| </ref> | |||
| {{quotation|... Misplaced Pages's anonymity reduces the accountability that stimulates healthy exchanges. ... "When you put everybody in a system that is flat, where everybody can say yes or no, without any sense of authority, what you get is tribalism," ... "What has gone into the article creation is very often the result of this dysfunctional system. It presents itself with this aura of authority, whereas what goes on behind the scenes is anything but."}} | |||
| On many occasions<ref name="New Yorker"/> | |||
| {{quotation|Pettiness, idiocy, and vulgarity are regular features of the site. Nothing about high-minded collaboration guarantees accuracy, and open editing invites abuse.}} | |||
| === Copyright issues === | |||
| {{Expand-section|date=May 2008}} | |||
| A significant number of people, including ], the ''de facto'' leader of the project,<ref name= defacto /> have commented that many images, and some articles, are ] violations.<ref>{{cite web|title=Guidance on publicity photos called dangerous|publisher=Misplaced Pages Signpost|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-08-07/Publicity_photos|date=2006-08-07}}</ref> Often images are uploaded and incorrectly tagged as ], which is discouraged but not disallowed on the English-language Misplaced Pages (other language projects each have their own image copyright policy); however, unless an image provides a reasonable justification for fair use, it will usually be deleted within a few weeks. There is also a copyright violations page where violations can be listed, and Misplaced Pages has their own designated agent<ref>. As of 28 August, 2006, that agent is Jimmy Wales.</ref> who can take down content upon request, as required by current United States law (see ]). | |||
| ===The "hive mind"=== | |||
| {{seealso|Conformity (psychology)|Groupthink}} | |||
| In his article, ''Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism'' (first published online by ''Edge: The Third Culture,'' ] ]), computer scientist and digital theorist ] describes Misplaced Pages as a "hive mind" that is "for the most part stupid and boring," and asks, rhetorically, "why pay attention to it?" His thesis follows: | |||
| {{quotation| | |||
| The problem is in the way the Misplaced Pages has come to be regarded and used; how it's been elevated to such importance so quickly. And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it's now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn't make it any less dangerous.<ref name="JaronLanier">{{cite news | |||
| |first=Jaron | |||
| |last=Lanier | |||
| |title=DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism | |||
| |url=http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html | |||
| |publisher=] | |||
| |date=], ] | |||
| |accessdate=2007-04-30}}</ref> | |||
| }} | |||
| Lanier goes on to point out the economic trend to reward entities that aggregate information, rather than those that actually generate content. In the absence of "new business models," the popular demand for ] will be sated by mediocrity, thus reducing or even eliminating any monetary incentives for the production of ''new'' knowledge.<ref name="JaronLanier"/> | |||
| Lanier's opinions produced some strong disagreement. Internet consultant ] noted that Misplaced Pages has many internal controls in place and is not a mere mass of unintelligent collective effort: | |||
| {{quotation|Neither proponents nor detractors of hive mind rhetoric have much interesting to say about Misplaced Pages itself, because both groups ignore the details... Misplaced Pages is best viewed as an engaged community that uses a large and growing number of regulatory mechanisms to manage a huge set of proposed edits... To take the specific case of Misplaced Pages, the Seigenthaler/Kennedy debacle catalyzed both soul-searching and new controls to address the problems exposed, and the controls included, inter alia, a greater focus on individual responsibility, the very factor “Digital Maoism” denies is at work.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://many.corante.com/archives/2006/06/07/reactions_to_digital_maoism.php|title=Reactions to Digital Maoism|publisher=Many2Many|author=Clay Shirky|date=2006-06-07|accessdate=2007-05-01}}</ref>}} | |||
| However critics charge that unless one is both familiar with Misplaced Pages and willing to spend a certain amount of time on Misplaced Pages these safeguards can and do fail.{{Fact|date=July 2008}} | |||
| ==Criticism of the implementation== | |||
| ===Notability=== | |||
| Misplaced Pages's notability policy, and the application thereof, is the subject of much criticism. One argument given for maintaining notability standards is that non-notable subjects are difficult to verify.<ref>http://meta.wikimedia.org/Deletionism#Rationale_for_deletionism</ref> Timothy Noah argues that the verifiability policy covers that issue sufficiently.<ref></ref> Many writers believe that notability decisions are inevitably arbitrary. Nicholson Baker writes, "There are quires, reams, bales of controversy over what constitutes notability in Misplaced Pages: nobody will ever sort it out."<ref></ref> David Gerard notes that "inside the wiki people argue endlessly, and outside the wiki it becomes a source of horrible public relations because it’s so obviously subjective and applied subjectively. And it trashes our usefulness for the ], thus damaging our breadth, one of our greatest strengths."<ref></ref> | |||
| == Criticism of the contributors == | |||
| === Flame wars and harassment=== | |||
| A common complaint about Misplaced Pages concerns so-called "]", or deliberate insults made by users to create a hostile environment. This concern has been acknowledged by Misplaced Pages; civility<ref>{{cite web | url=http://en.wikipedia.org/WP:CIVIL |title= Misplaced Pages: Civility}}</ref> and "no personal attacks"<ref>{{cite web | url=http://en.wikipedia.org/WP:NPA |title= Misplaced Pages: No personal attacks}}</ref> are official policies of the project, and the concept of "wikiquette" has been adopted by some users in response.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.springerlink.com/content/h074pg176l3k3120/fulltext.pdf|title=''Wiki: Web Collaboration'', Chapter One: "The Wiki Concept", p. 28-29|author=Anja Ebersbach, Markus Glaser and Richard Heigl|publisher=Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2006 ISBN 978-3-540-25995-4|accessdate=2007-01-28|format=PDF}}</ref> | |||
| In an article in '']'', former Misplaced Pages contributor David Shankbone contended that he had been harassed and stalked because of his work on Misplaced Pages, had received no support from the authorities or the ], and only mixed support from the Misplaced Pages community. Shankbone wrote that "If you become a target on Misplaced Pages, do not expect a supportive community."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/06/express/nobodys-safe-in-cyber-space|title=Nobody's safe in cyberspace|last=Shankbone|first=David|date=June 2008|work=]|accessdate=2008-07-10}}</ref> | |||
| === Strongly biased editing === | |||
| Another complaint about Misplaced Pages focuses on the efforts of contributors with idiosyncratic beliefs, who push their point of view in an effort to dominate articles, especially controversial ones.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=55&objectid=10368068|title=Misplaced Pages - separating fact from fiction|publisher='']''|date=2006-02-13|accessdate=2007-04-17|author=Martin Hickman and Genevieve Roberts|quote=<small>Such checking leads to a daily battle of wits with the cyber-wreckers who insert erroneous, ludicrous and offensive material into entries. How frequently entries get messed about with depends on the controversy of their subjects. This week the entry ] is being attacked dozens of times a day following the row about cartoons of ] with angry denunciations of suicide bombing and claims of hypocrisy. Prime Minister ]'s entry is a favourite for distortion with new statements casting aspersions on his integrity.</small>}}</ref><ref name="Torsten_Kleinz">{{cite news | |||
| |first=Torsten | |||
| |last=Kleinz | |||
| |title=World of Knowledge | |||
| |work =The Misplaced Pages Project | |||
| |url=http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/51/Wikipedia_Encyclopedia.pdf | |||
| |publisher=] | |||
| |date=February, 2005 | |||
| |accessdate=2007-05-12 | |||
| |quote=<small>The Misplaced Pages's open structure makes it a target for trolls and vandals who malevolently add incorrect information to articles, get other people tied up in endless discussions, and generally do everything to draw attention to themselves.</small>}}</ref> This sometimes results in revert wars and pages being locked down. In response, an Arbitration Committee has been formed on the English Misplaced Pages that deals with the worst alleged offenders—though a conflict resolution strategy is actively encouraged before going to this extent. Also, to stop the continuous reverting of pages, ] introduced a "three-revert rule",<ref>{{cite web |url=http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:3RR |title=Misplaced Pages: Three revert rule}}</ref> whereby those users who reverse the effect of others' contributions to one article more than three times in a 24-hour period may be blocked. | |||
| ===Liberal bias=== | |||
| Another criticism is that a politically ] bias is predominant. According to ]: "The Misplaced Pages community is very diverse, from liberal to conservative to ] and beyond. If averages mattered, and due to the nature of the wiki software (no voting) they almost certainly don’t, I would say that the Misplaced Pages community is slightly more liberal than the U.S. population on average, because we are global and the international community of English speakers is slightly more liberal than the U.S. population. There are no data or surveys to back that."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/04/email_debatewales_discusses_po.html|title=Wales Discusses Political Bias on Misplaced Pages|author=Mark Glaser|publisher=PBS Mediashift|date=2006-04-21|accessdate=2007-08-21}}</ref> The belief in a liberal bias at Misplaced Pages led to the creation of ],<ref name="Guardian">{{cite news | last = Johnson | first = Bobbie | date = 2007 | url = http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2024434,00.html | title = Conservapedia—the US religious right's answer to Misplaced Pages | work = The Guardian | date = ] }}</ref> whose editors have compiled a list of alleged examples of bias in Misplaced Pages.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia|title=Examples of Bias in Misplaced Pages|publisher=]|accessdate=2007-07-08}}</ref> In 2007, an article in '']'' criticised Misplaced Pages's coverage of ], saying that it was biased and hypocritical.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070509/27307_'Design'_Proponents_Accuse_Wikipedia_of_Bias,_Hypocrisy.htm|title='Design' Proponents Accuse Misplaced Pages of Bias, Hypocrisy|author= Doug Huntington|date=2007-05-09|accessdate=2007-08-09|publisher=''The Christian Post''}}</ref> ] of the '']'' considered the Misplaced Pages articles on subjects like ], ], and '']'' all to be slanted in favor of liberal views.<ref>{{cite web|last=Solomon|first=Lawrence|title=Wikipropaganda On Global Warming|url=http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/08/opinion/main4241293.shtml|work=National Review|publisher=CBSNews.com|date=2008-07-08|accessdate=2008-07-20}}</ref> | |||
| === Censorship === | |||
| An article in '']'' stated that many "censorial interventions" by editors with vested interests on a variety of articles in Misplaced Pages have been recently discovered: | |||
| {{quotation|" was hailed as a breakthrough in the democratisation of knowledge. But the online encyclopedia has since been hijacked by forces who decided that certain things were best left unknown... Now a website designed to monitor editorial changes made on Misplaced Pages has found thousands of self-serving edits and traced them to their original source. It has turned out to be hugely embarrassing for armies of political spin doctors and corporate revisionists who believed their censorial interventions had gone unnoticed."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2874112.ece|title=Misplaced Pages and the art of censorship|author=Robert Verkaik|date=2007-08-18|publisher=''The Independent''|accessdate=2007-10-27}}</ref>}} | |||
| An article in '']'' asserted that former editors of Misplaced Pages formed ], a site that exposes alleged censorship and infighting on the encyclopedia: "Former editors recently created Wikitruth.info, which purports to expose articles and edits that Misplaced Pages censors and other “atrocities” involving in-fighting among the administrators."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.computerpoweruser.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2Farchive%2Fc0607%2F46c07%2F46c07.asp|title=When The Wiki Hits The Fan|author=Steve Smith|date=July, 2006|publisher=''Computer Power User''|accessdate=2007-10-27}}</ref> According to '']'', Jimmy Wales dismissed the site as a "hoax" created by editors who had their articles deleted or modified on Misplaced Pages.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/personaltech/185303404|title=Misplaced Pages Protest Site 'A Hoax' - Founder|author=Antone Gonsalves|date=2006-04-17|publisher=''InformationWeek''|accessdate=2007-10-27}}</ref> | |||
| === Administrator actions === | |||
| In an article on Misplaced Pages conflicts, '']'' noted criticism that administrators of the site, who have "special powers to lock down vulnerable articles from further editing, and temporarily block problem users from making changes to the site",<ref name=admin /> sometimes abuse those powers to suppress legitimate editors. The article discussed "a backlash among some editors, who argue that blocking users compromises the supposedly open nature of the project, and the imbalance of power between users and administrators may even be a reason some users choose to vandalise in the first place."<ref name=admin>{{cite web|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/mar/25/wikipedia.web20|title=Wiki wars|author=Jenny Kleeman|date=2007-03-25|accessdate=2007-10-04|publisher=''The Guardian''}}</ref> A paper published by ], noted the "social stratification in the Misplaced Pages society" due to the "admins class". The paper suggested that such stratification could be beneficial in some respects but recognized a "clear subsequent shift in power among levels of stratification" due to the "status and power differentials" between administrators and other editors.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.viktoria.se/altchi/submissions/submission_edchi_1.pdf|title=Power of the Few vs. Wisdom of the Crowd: Misplaced Pages and the Rise of the Bourgeoisie|author=Aniket Kittur, Ed Chi, Byron Pendleton, Bongwon Suh and Todd Mytkowicz|publisher=Viktoria Institute|accessdate=2007-10-27|format=PDF}}</ref> | |||
| An article on '']'', dated 4 December 2007 and entitled "Secret mailing list rocks Misplaced Pages", discussed the use of a private mailing list to coordinate administrative actions.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/04/wikipedia_secret_mailing/|title=Secret mailing list rocks Misplaced Pages|author=Cade Metz|date=2007-12-04|accessdate=2007-12-04|publisher=''The Register''}}</ref> A follow-up article on 8 December 2007 specifically alleged that administrators were collaborating with critics of ] CEO ] to "own" articles about him and his company.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/06/wikipedia_and_overstock/|title=Misplaced Pages black helicopters circle Utah's Traverse Mountain |date=2007-12-08|accessdate=2008-05-02|publisher=''The Register''}}</ref> | |||
| === Level of debate === | |||
| The standard of debate on Misplaced Pages has been called into question by persons who have noted that contributors can make a long list of salient points and pull in a wide range of empirical observations to back up their arguments, only to have them ignored completely on the site.<ref>{{cite news | |||
| | url = http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/insideit/story/0,,1667345,00.html | |||
| | title = Log on and join in, but beware the web cults | last = Arthur | first = Charles | |||
| | date = ] | accessdate = 2006-07-14 }}</ref> An academic study of Misplaced Pages articles found that the level of debate among Misplaced Pages editors on controversial topics often degenerated into counterproductive squabbling: "For uncontroversial, 'stable' topics self-selection also ensures that members of editorial groups are substantially well-aligned with each other in their interests, backgrounds, and overall understanding of the topics...For controversial topics, on the other hand, self-selection may produce a strongly misaligned editorial group. It can lead to conflicts among the editorial group members, continuous edit wars, and may require the use of formal work coordination and control mechanisms. These may include intervention by administrators who enact dispute review and mediation processes, completely disallow or limit and coordinate the types and sources of edits."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mailer.fsu.edu/~bstvilia/papers/stvilia_wikipedia_infoWork_p.pdf|title=Information Quality Work Organization in Misplaced Pages|author=Besiki Stvilla, Michael Twidale, Linda Smith, Les Gasser|publisher=Florida State University|accessdate=2007-10-05}}</ref> | |||
| === Male domination === | |||
| In November 2006 a group of female long-term contributors to Misplaced Pages formed '''WikiChix''', a group inspired by and modeled after the female-dominated ], in response to their perception of how male-dominated Misplaced Pages has become, and how uncomfortable some women are when contributing in such an atmosphere.<ref></ref> One example of their frustration, though not explicitly cited by the WikiChix community, was the attempt to create the article "]," which became the subject of a revision war which was ultimately resolved, unsatisfactorily to many, by changing the title to "]" in October 2002. The article at "Feminist science fiction" was then only restarted in June 2006.<ref>], Posted on ] on ] ]</ref> The existence of a mailing list limited exclusively to female contributors prompted some controversy; the list was subsequently moved from the ]'s servers to ], the separate wiki-hosting service.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-12-11/WikiChix|title=Female-only wiki mailing list draws fire|publisher=Misplaced Pages Signpost|accessdate=2006-12-21}}</ref> A study by ] found that visitors to Misplaced Pages are almost equally split 50/50 male/female, but that 60% of edits are made by male editors.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1614751,00.html|title=Who's Really Participating in Web 2.0|author=Bill Tancer|publisher='']''|date=2007-04-25|accessdate=2007-04-30}}</ref> | |||
| === Community === | |||
| The Misplaced Pages community consists of people who are frequent contributors.<ref>"", Misplaced Pages (], ])</ref> Emigh and Herring argue that "a few active users, when acting in concert with established norms within an open editing system, can achieve ultimate control over the content produced within the system, literally erasing diversity, controversy, and inconsistency, and homogenizing contributors' voices."<ref name="emigh" /> Editors on Wikinfo, a ] of Misplaced Pages, similarly argue that new or controversial editors to Misplaced Pages are often unjustly labeled "]" or "problem users" and blocked from editing.<ref>"", Wikinfo (] ]). Retrieved on ].</ref> The community has also been criticized for responding to complaints regarding an article's quality by advising the complainer to fix the article themselves.<ref>Andrew Orlowski, "", ], ] ].</ref> Professor ] criticized Misplaced Pages in that he could not change the article about himself;<ref></ref> to ensure impartiality, Misplaced Pages has a policy that discourages the editing of biographies by the subjects themselves except in "clear-cut cases", such as reverting vandalism or correcting out-of-date or mistaken facts.<ref>"{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Autobiography|title=Misplaced Pages:Autobiography|publisher=Misplaced Pages|accessdate=2007-05-03}}</ref> | |||
| The community has been described as "cult-like,"<ref>{{cite news |url=http://technology.guardian.co.uk/opinion/story/0,16541,1667346,00.html |title=Log on and join in, but beware the web cults |first=Charles |last=Arthur |date=] |publisher=]}}</ref><ref name="WhatIsItWithWikipedia">{{cite news |title=What is it with Misplaced Pages? |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4534712.stm |date=] |publisher=] |first=Bill |last=Thompson}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/06/wikipedia_bio/ |title=Who owns your Misplaced Pages bio? |date=] |first=Andrew |last=Orlowski |publisher=]}}</ref> although not always with entirely negative connotations.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/08/03/wikipedia/index.html |title=Misplaced Pages: The know-it-all Web site |date=] |first=Kristie |last=Lu Stout|publisher=]}}</ref> A popular joke is that Misplaced Pages cannot possibly work in theory, but does work in practice.<ref name="WP_works" >, 14 April 2006, accessed on 2007-01-30</ref> A larger social community also helps in maintaining a supportive atmosphere and collective etiquette, such as resolving disputes by appealing to reliable sources and Misplaced Pages's own policies.<ref>"," Misplaced Pages (] ]).</ref> | |||
| Misplaced Pages does not require that its users identify themselves. This anonymity has been criticized, since it does not allow editors to be held accountable for their edits.<ref name="WikipediaWatch">]. <nowiki>http://wikipedia-watch.org</nowiki> - Misplaced Pages Watch. Retrieved on ].</ref> It also means that multiple people may use one account—or, more often, one person may use multiple accounts, often in an attempt to influence an argument. The latter practice is known as "]," which is actively discouraged on Misplaced Pages.<ref>"", Misplaced Pages. Retrieved on ].</ref> | |||
| === Essjay and the lack of credential verification === | |||
| {{main|Essjay controversy}} | |||
| In July 2006 '']'' ran a feature about Misplaced Pages by ].<ref name="New Yorker">Schiff, Stacey. , ''The New Yorker'', July 24, 2006.</ref> Experts including the president of ''],'' ], and Misplaced Pages's ''de facto'' leader ],<ref name=defacto /> gave their opinions on the future of Misplaced Pages. Cauz stated that Misplaced Pages risked a "decline into a hulking, mediocre mass of uneven, unreliable, and, many times, unreadable articles" and that "Misplaced Pages is to ''Britannica'' as '']'' is to the ]." Wales countered by stating that he would consider ''Britannica'' a competitor, “except that I think they will be crushed out of existence within five years.” | |||
| The ''New Yorker'' article included an interview with a ] known by the ] Essjay, who was described in the article as a ]d ] of ].<ref name="guardian">{{cite web | |||
| |url = http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,2028328,00.html | |||
| |title = Read me first | |||
| |accessdate = 2007-08-01 | |||
| |last = Finkelstein | |||
| |first = Seth | |||
| |date = ], ] | |||
| |work = Technology | |||
| |publisher = ] | |||
| |archiveurl = | |||
| |archivedate=}}<small>At some point, Essjay claimed he had sent a letter to a real-life college professor using his invented persona's credentials, vouching for Misplaced Pages's accuracy. In the letter he wrote in part, "It is never the case that known incorrect information is allowed to remain in Misplaced Pages."</small></ref> Essjay's Misplaced Pages user page<ref>{{cite web|title=Archived copy of Essjay's Misplaced Pages user page|publisher=The Internet Archive|url=http://web.archive.org/web/20060111060701/http://en.wikipedia.org/User:Essjay}}</ref> (now removed) made the following claim: | |||
| {{quotation| | |||
| I am a tenured professor of theology at a private university in the eastern United States; I teach both undergraduate and graduate theology. I have been asked repeatedly to reveal the name of the institution, however, I decline to do so; I am unsure of the consequences of such an action, and believe it to be in my best interests to remain anonymous.'' | |||
| }} | |||
| Essjay also claimed on his user page that he held four academic degrees: Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies (B.A.), Master of Arts in Religion (M.A.R.), Doctorate of Philosophy in Theology (Ph.D.), and Doctorate in Canon Law (JCD). Essjay specialized in editing articles about ] on Misplaced Pages, including subjects such as "the penitential rite, transubstantiation, the papal tiara";<ref name="New Yorker" /> on one occasion he was called in to give some "expert testimony" on the status of ] in the ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk:Five_solas&diff=prev&oldid=15002257|title=Talk:Five solas|publisher=Misplaced Pages|date=2005-06-11|accessdate=2007-06-18}}</ref> In January 2007, Essjay was hired as a manager with ], a wiki-hosting service founded by Wales and ]. In February, Wales appointed Essjay as a member of the ], a group with powers to issue binding rulings in disputes relating to Misplaced Pages.<ref name="Orlowski">{{cite web|url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/02/wikipedia_fraud/|title=Bogus Misplaced Pages Prof. was blessed then promoted|accessdate=2007-03-18|last=Orlowski|first=Andrew|authorlink=Andrew Orlowski|date=], ]|work=Music and Media|publisher=]}}</ref> | |||
| In late February 2007 ''The New Yorker'' added an editorial note to its article on Misplaced Pages stating that it had learned that Essjay was Ryan Jordan, a 24-year-old college ] from ] with no advanced degrees and no teaching experience.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6423659.stm|title=Fake professor in Misplaced Pages storm|publisher=BBC|last=Staff|date=2007-03-06|accessdate=2007-03-08}}</ref> Initially Jimmy Wales commented on the issue of Essjay's identity: "I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it." ], ]<ref name="Larry_Sanger_Springs_Citizendium"/><ref name="sanger-NYTimes">{{cite news | |||
| |title=Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You | |||
| |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E5D6123BF933A1575AC0A9679C8B63&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fSubjects%2fC%2fComputer%20Software | |||
| |publisher=] | |||
| |accessdate=2007-08-01 | |||
| |date=]}}<small>"I can start an article that will consist of one paragraph, and then a real expert will come along and add three paragraphs and clean up my one paragraph," said Larry Sanger of Las Vegas, who founded Misplaced Pages with Mr. Wales.</small></ref><ref>{{cite news | url = http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/02/12/bias_sabotage_haunt_wikipedias_free_world/?page=4 | title = Bias, sabotage haunt Misplaced Pages's free world | author = David Mehegan | work = ] | date = ], ] | accessdate = 2007-07-30}}</ref> of Misplaced Pages, responded to Wales on his ] blog by calling Wales' initial reaction "utterly breathtaking, and ultimately tragic." Sanger said the controversy "reflects directly on the judgment and values of the management of Misplaced Pages."<ref name="cz">{{Cite web|url=http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/01/wikipedia-firmly-supports-your-right-to-identity-fraud/|title=Misplaced Pages firmly supports your right to identity fraud|accessdate=2007-03-02|publisher=Larry Sanger|date=] ]|author=Larry Sanger|work=Citizendium Blog}}</ref> | |||
| Wales later issued a new statement saying he had not previously understood that "EssJay used his false credentials in content disputes." He added: "I have asked EssJay to resign his positions of trust within the community."<ref>{{cite web|title=User talk:Jimbo Wales|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&oldid=112270687}}</ref> Sanger responded the next day: "It seems Jimmy finds nothing wrong, nothing trust-violating, with the act itself of openly and falsely touting many advanced degrees on Misplaced Pages. But there most obviously is something wrong with it, and it’s just as disturbing for Misplaced Pages’s head to fail to see anything wrong with it."<ref name="sanger2">{{Cite web|url=http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/03/jimmy-wales-latest-response-on-the-essjay-situation/|title=Jimmy Wales’ latest response on the Essjay situation|accessdate=2007-03-03|publisher=Larry Sanger|date=] ]|author=Larry Sanger|work=Citizendium Blog}}</ref> | |||
| On March 4, Essjay wrote on his user page that he was leaving Misplaced Pages, and he also resigned his position with Wikia.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wikia.com/User:Essjay|title=Essjay's Wikia user page|accessdate=2007-09-19}}</ref> A subsequent article in the '']'' suggested that the new ] he had posted at his Wikia page was exaggerated.<ref>{{cite web |first=Andrew |last=Wolfson |title=Misplaced Pages editor who posed as professor is Ky. dropout: Man resigns post after controversy |url=http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070306/NEWS01/703060446/1008 |publisher=] |date=] ] |accessdate=2007-03-07 |archiveurl=http://www.kctcs.net/todaysnews/index.cfm?tn_date=2007-03-06#9315 |archivedate=2007-05-17}}</ref> The March 19, 2007 issue of ''The New Yorker'' published a formal apology by Wales to the magazine and Stacy Schiff for Essjay's false statements.<ref name="WalesApology">{{citation| last = Wales| first = Jimmy| author-link = Jimmy Wales| newspaper = ]| date = ]| year = 2007| title = Making amends| pages = 24 }}.</ref> | |||
| Discussing the incident, the '']'' noted that the Misplaced Pages community had responded to the affair with "the fury of the crowd," and observed: | |||
| {{quotation| | |||
| The Essjay episode underlines some of the perils of collaborative efforts like Misplaced Pages that rely on many contributors acting in good faith, often anonymously and through self-designated user names. But it also shows how the transparency of the Misplaced Pages process—all editing of entries is marked and saved—allows readers to react to suspected fraud.<ref>{{cite news |first=Noam |last=Cohen |title=A Contributor to Misplaced Pages Has His Fictional Side |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/technology/05wikipedia.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=f79cc41f899c2de6&ex=1330750800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss |work=] |date=] |accessdate=2007-03-05 }}</ref> | |||
| }} | |||
| The Essjay incident received extensive media coverage, including a national U.S. television broadcast on ] '']''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2929512|title=ABC News broadcast on Essjay|accessdate=2007-03-08}}</ref> and a March 7, 2007 ] story that was picked up by more than 100 media outlets listed in the ] news cache.<ref>{{cite news |title= After flap over phony professor, Misplaced Pages wants some writers to share real names |url= http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-03-07-wikipedia-credentials_N.htm |publisher=Associated Press|first=Brian |last=Bergstein|date= ] ]}}</ref> The controversy has led to a proposal that users claiming to possess academic qualifications would have to provide evidence before citing them in Misplaced Pages content disputes.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,129702-c,webservices/article.html|title=Misplaced Pages Founder Addresses User Credentials|first=Martyn|last=Williams|publisher=IDG News Service|date=2007-03-09}}</ref> The proposal was not accepted.<ref></ref> | |||
| === Humorous criticism === | |||
| Misplaced Pages is frequently satirized by humorists who call attention to factual inaccuracies that may appear in articles owing to sloppy or biased editors or vandalism. For example, an article in '']'' was entitled . In a piece on ], entitled "]," ] encouraged his viewers to change Misplaced Pages's article on ]s to state that the number of ] had tripled over the past six months.<ref>{{cite news|title=Colbert speaks, America follows: All Hail Wikiality!|publisher=c-net news.com|url=http://news.com.com/2061-10802_3-6100754.html|author=Caroline McCarthy|date=2006-08-01}}</ref> Colbert's comments provoked a wave of vandalism of various articles at Misplaced Pages.<ref>{{cite web|title=Misplaced Pages satire leads to vandalism, protections|publisher=Misplaced Pages Signpost|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-08-07/Wikiality|date=2006-08-07}}</ref> On the ], ] edition of his program, Colbert did another segment on an attempt by ] to hire writers to skew certain Misplaced Pages articles in their favor, ending with a call by Colbert to change the Misplaced Pages article on "]" to the phrase "Reality has become a commodity" and offering a $5 cash reward to the first viewer to do so. In the animated '']'' episode "]" the character ], seeking the “one place where a person can put out crazy information with no evidence that millions will accept as true,” turns to Misplaced Pages.<ref>{{cite web|title=Fox Broadcasting Company recaps: American Dad - Episode 13: Black Mystery Month|url=http://www.fox.com/americandad/recaps/index.htm|date= 2007-02-18}} Retrieved on March 8, 2007</ref> '']'' has spoofed Misplaced Pages several times in a section of "short takes" on topics of current interest. Satire also exists in the form of parody encyclopedias such as ]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://usinfo.state.gov/usinfo/USINFO/Products/Webchats/wales_19_may_2006.html|title=Freedom of Speech through Misplaced Pages|date=2006-05-19|accessdate=2007-10-04|publisher=U.S. Department of State}}</ref> and ].<ref name=internet>{{cite news |url = http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/magazine/01WIKIPEDIA-t.html|title = Misplaced Pages |author = Jonathan Dee |publisher = New York Times Magazine |date = 2007-07-01 |accessdate = 2007-11-19}}</ref> Allegations that Misplaced Pages has been used as a platform for defamation gave rise to a joke in ] of ], where jailed hoodlum Snake says to his girlfriend, "Hey, baby. Listen carefully. Someone’s been editing my biography on Misplaced Pages. I want you to kill him."<ref></ref> | |||
| == See also == | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| *] and ], two web sites dedicated to criticizing Misplaced Pages and its leadership | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| ==Further reading== | |||
| *]. ''The Cult of the Amateur''. Doubleday/Currency, 2007. ISBN 9780385520805 (substantial criticisms of Misplaced Pages and other web 2.0 projects). Listen to: , NPR interview with A. Keen, Weekend Edition Saturday, June 16, 2007. | |||
| == Notes == | |||
| {{reflist|2}} | |||
| == External links == | |||
| <!-- Articles listed here should be notable in some sense--either: | |||
| * Written by an authority on the subject | |||
| * Written by an otherwise notable individual | |||
| * Appearing in, or referred to, by a notable and/or widely-circulated publication | |||
| * Can otherwise demonstrate SOME modicum of notability. | |||
| Articles (critical or otherwise) which fail to meet some notability standard, will likely be removed. This includes blog entries (unless the blogger or blog itself is notable), postings on Internet forums, other self-published articles, etc. This is not intended to be a laundry-list of articles critical of Misplaced Pages; use google (or another search engine) to find those. | |||
| Notable articles are welcome. --> | |||
| * Wednesday, ], ], 10:27 GMT () | |||
| * ], ] | |||
| * -by ''Cade Metz'', '']'', ], ]. | |||
| * - by '']'', '']'', ], ]. | |||
| * - by ''Evan Lehmann'', TheTranscript.com, ], ]. | |||
| * by ] '']'' ], ] | |||
| * - by ], '']'', ], ]. | |||
| * - by Elvira van Noort, '']'' (South Africa), ], ]. | |||
| * - by ], '']'', ], ]. | |||
| * , ''Editor and Publisher'', ], ]. (Login required) | |||
| * - by ] in , ], ]. | |||
| * - by Rosemary Righter, '']'', ], ] | |||
| * - by Stephen Cauchi, ], ]. | |||
| * - by Andrew Orlowski, , ], ]. | |||
| * - by Andrew Orlowski, '']'', ], ]. | |||
| * by ''Jack Schofield'' '']'' ], ] | |||
| * by ''Julian Dibbell'' '']'' ], ] | |||
| * - by Rogers Cadenhead, ], ]. | |||
| * - by Evan Lehmann, TheTranscript.com, ], ]. | |||
| * - by Brittany Anas, ], ]. (Login required) | |||
| * () by ] at ] 3 in Cleveland, Ohio | |||
| * , ''Wired'' article that provides sarcastic advice to new Misplaced Pages contributors. ], ] | |||
| * , May 11, 2006, criticism of Misplaced Pages by noted author and essayist ]. | |||
| * , ''boingboing'', ], ], retrieved ], ]. | |||
| * by''Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols'' '']'' ], ] | |||
| * by '']'' ], ] | |||
| * by ''Nicholas Carr'' ], ] | |||
| * '']'''s satirical view ], ] | |||
| * by ''Ben Macintyre'' '']'' ], ] | |||
| * {{cite news | last=Segal | first=David | title=Our love/hate relationship with Misplaced Pages | date=], ] | publisher=Washington Post | url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/02/AR2006120201111.html}} | |||
| * {{cite news | last=McNamara | first=Paul | title=Look Me Up Under 'Missing Link' | date=], ] | publisher=NetworkWorld | url=http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/9474}} | |||
| * {{cite episode |title = |series = |network = CBC Radio |station = CBC Radio One |city = Vancouver, BC |airdate = 2006-12-19 |minutes = 165}} | |||
| * {{cite episode |title = |series = |network = CBC Radio |station = CBC Radio One |city = All of British Columbia except Vancouver | airdate = 2006-12-20 |minutes = 105}} | |||
| * by ] ], ] | |||
| * by ] ], ] | |||
| * Encyc.org article | |||
| * Editorial note from '']'', biweekly newspaper of the ] | |||
| * Letter and response from ''Workers Vanguard'' on Misplaced Pages | |||
| * ] article | |||
| * | |||
| {{selfref|This article incorporates text from the ] ] page ].}} | |||
| {{Wikipediahistory}} | |||
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Revision as of 17:02, 24 July 2008
REDIRECT{Cheese}