A topic of continuing interest here is why and how wikipedia works (which we think it does), and so this commentary by Chris Anderson, writer for Wired, is insightful:

The Probabilistic Age:

"Q: Why are people so uncomfortable with Wikipedia? And Google? And, well, that whole blog thing?

A: Because these systems operate on the alien logic of probabilistic statistics, which sacrifices perfection at the microscale for optimization at the macroscale.

Q: Huh?

A: Exactly. Our brains aren't wired to think in terms of statistics and probability. We want to know whether an encyclopedia entry is right or wrong. We want to know that there's a wise hand (ideally human) guiding Google's results. We want to trust what we read."

And more:

"'Is Wikipedia "authoritative'? Well, no. But what really is? Britannica is reviewed by a smaller group of reviewers with higher academic degrees on average. There are, to be sure, fewer (if any) total clunkers or fabrications than in Wikipedia. But it's not infallible either; indeed, it's a lot more flawed that we usually give it credit for.

Britannica's biggest errors are of omission, not commission. It's shallow in some categories and out of date in many others. And then there are the millions of entries that it simply doesn't--and can't, given its editorial process--have. But Wikipedia can scale to include those and many more. Today Wikipedia offers 860,000 articles in English - compared with Britannica's 80,000 and Encarta's 4,500. Tomorrow the gap will be far larger."

As Anderson writes, a lot of people struggle with the (lack of) authoritativeness of what they read in a wikipedia or blog or other online collaborative effort (compared to the iron clad authoritativeness of what else, exactly, I often think?) But, says Anderson, while there may be flaws at the micro level, there is also amazing value and efficiency at the macro level.

Nature Magazine's Dec 1st issue has an interesting suite of articles about "Science in the web age: The expanding electronic universe".

Great insights in here about how scientists are, and will be, using online tools in their work. Two ideas that I get from the articles that I think are powerful: that scientists are and will increasingly collaborate (rather than compete) because they will make progress more quickly; and that new flavors of research products are emerging and being recognized as valuable, apart from that traditional peer-reviewed products.

The articles, and some quotes from them, include:

"Joint efforts" about collaboration in science via wikis and blog and other tools:

"If someone told me that I could show up at a lecture hall every day and deliver a short opinion, and that 1,500 people would show up to hear me, I'd be pretty satisfied — 1,500 is twice the subscription of many speciality journals", said a senior edpidemiologist blogger.

"The real death of print" about Google's and others' plans to digitize masses of print books, and voices for/against, including:

"Science is moving incredibly fast, and scanning old books is a complete waste of money."Matthias Ulmer

And "Start your engines" about Google Scholar and it increasing impact on how researcher find, (discover!), and use information:

"I follow the citation trail and get to papers I hadn't expected," says Mrsic-Flogel. "I have found papers that way that I wouldn't have found otherwise.

I like the approach of an interesting experiment in live, and open blogging of the "White House Conferences on Aging" (WHCoA) this week. (The WHCoA is a decennial event "designed to develop recommendations for additional research and action in the field of aging." There is some info about the event on the not very helpful conference main web site.)

Worth watching is the WHCOA Interactive Blog Center where about 15 bloggers and counting are posting during the conference about various topics/issues. The folks who conceived of the blog, business advisor Mary Furlong, and Michel Thouati of Lithium Technologies, are actively pulling in a range of people to blog their impressions while the conference proceeds - a great way to expand the visibility and participation in an otherwise face-to-face event.

I also think they could expand interest and participation in the blogs more widely by enabling comments - which do not seem to work, even if logged in?

Techorati tags: aging

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia spoke at an event on 12/1/05 that we (Forum One) , the Center for Global Development, and Brookings co-hosted.

We had a standing room-only crowd of about 220 people - a very Washingtonian group of policy and communications and technology people from nonprofits, think tanks, government, multi-laterals, etc. By show of hands we saw that about 2/3 of the crowd had used Wikipedia, and close to 1/2 said they'd contributed to it - pretty interesting.

(If you're unfamiliar with Wikipedia, it's one of the most exciting collaborative efforts happening on the web today -- a free, open, collaborative, volunteer, online encyclopedia with more than 2 million articles in a few hundred languages! It gets more traffic that the NYT, LA Times, and a lot of other mainstream outlets - combined. It's at www.wikipedia.com, and you can read background about it on a wiki page we've set up about this 12/1 talk at this Forum One - Wales Talk Wiki.)

Some observations:
-Wales is a great speaker - and is passionate about their mission of making available to everyone on the globe a comprehensive encyclopedia of knowledge. And the Wikipedia phenomena - its growth, its community, its evolution (all with a paid staff of about 3 people) is fascinating. A lot of folks told me afterwards that this was one of the best talks they've been to in a long time.
-Wikipedia has more than 200 languages with at least 1000 entries - wow.
-Wikipedia was fortunate to start out in 2001 with a solid base of contributors, from the (faltering) two-year old "Nupedia" project. Wales said this was crucial to their quick growth.
- Wales emphasized how important the community devotion, ethos, culture is to the success of Wikipedia. He also spoke a lot about trust (that most people are good and want to help) and love -- among the community and from the community for the project. (Just another Internet talk!)
- Somebody asked Wales afterwards something like "how/where can you find these 'wiki people' who can be the contributors for a wiki?" He did not have a quick answer. I think the answer is not an easy one - basically that you need to invest in building up a community of contributors.
- Interestingly, this dust-up about John Seigenthaler's criticism of Wikipedia did not come up in the Q&A; I think the issue was just breaking in the news that week.

Spinoffs from Wikipedia Include:
-Wikibooks a project of open-content and any-one-can-edit textbooks, up to 12,000+ "modules in a multitidue of books" - and the effort that Wales said excited him most today.
-Wiktionary
-Wikinews
-Wikiquote

Thoughts on Wiki Applications?
So - if Wikipedia and wikis are so amazing - why are we not seeing them everywhere? Wikis are actually being use in a lot of ways already - and will be more widely used as we all figure out where and how to apply them. It's a human - not a technical - challenge! Some thoughts on ways wikis are in use and/or could be used:
-Organizational knowledge building/sharing (we at Forum One use a wiki for an internal "Guidebook" for our operational knowledge.)
-Small (closed) group collaboration: writing a book, outlining a project approach, etc.
-Resource center: tips and tricks on a topic. In some cases this could be completely open to public, in other cases it may be useful to allow a selected group to edit/contribute, but allow the public to read.
-Others? send comments.

Comments on the Wales Talk
Lawrence MacDonald, of CGD (event co-host), provides his comments on Wikipedia and Development.
Mike Lee's notes.
Tony K get inspired.

More about Wales' Talk
Go to Forum One - Wales Talk Wiki, and even try out the wiki! (We use Wikimedia's free and open-source platform.)

Techorati tags: Wikipedia, wiki, wikis, Jimmy Wales