If you consider yourself a fan of both Wikipedia and “The Colbert Report,” a kind of cognitive dissonance is inescapable at times — and Monday night was one of those times.
The first was last August, when the faux winger unleashed upon Wikipedia his so-called Colbert Nation — an unknown percentage of his audience willing to carry out simple online tasks (e.g voting in online polls) at Colbert’s request — to make two specific Wikipedia edits: that Colbert’s opinion of Oregon is that it is “Idaho’s Portugal” rather than “California’s Canada” or “Washington’s Mexico,” and that the number of African elephants in the wild had tripled over the last six months (you’d have to see it, but alas, as I advised against, it has been removed from YouTube). The Nation responded, causing headaches for Wikipedia editors and administrators that persist to this day.
On Monday Colbert struck again. While the segment isn’t on YouTube, it is available through Comedy Central, thereby meeting a minimum standard of web literacy but (surprisingly for this show) failing to understand why increased fan control over the content is a good idea. There is an embedding capability to let fans put the videos on their own sites, but the back end is terrible. Just click on the image below — or better yet, open it in another tab:
The subject this time was the recent controversy about Microsoft paying an independent contractor to correct perceived errors on Wikipedia. It’s a new issue and a complicated one, but for now suffice to say that my take is closer to the TWiTters‘ than Michael Arrington’s.
“The Colbert Report,” being the late-night comedy it is, went with the same angle as last time, per the show’s website (image has been altered to remove other segment panels):
I digress.
In the August and latest segments’ opening moments, Colbert announced the night’s Word. Last time it was “Wikiality,” this time it was “Wikilobbying” — and instantly, throughout the Eastern time zone, fingertips fell upon keyboards: was there an entry for Wikilobbying yet?
At that point, no. In those first five seconds (or so) I was one of several hundred, possibly even a couple thousand, Internet users requesting that file. And of that crowd, the quickest-fingertipped member of the Colbert Nation exhibited the same wit that brought us “Frist!” and Fitz!”:
I hit refresh. Moments later, another loyal vandal referenced the recurring migraine mentioned above:
Among those thousand or few who turned up inside of the segment, a handful were actual Wikipedians who had obviously expected this:
Remember, maybe a minute has passed, and Colbert hadn’t specifically asked anyone to do anything. But then he did. According to Colbert, Microsoft’s actions tampered with the very concept of reality itself, and so this time he issued a specific directive:
Actually, this vandal was either a moron or a poor typist, because what Colbert actually asked for was:
Reality has become a commodity
Multiple Wikipedia administrators went into action, cleaning up the mess…
…and even correcting their own mistakes:
One of the great things about Colbert’s show is the audience participation enabled by the Internet. Colbert’s “feud” with Oregon’s own The Decemberists grew out of similarly-themed user-generated video contests. I enjoyed the “green screen challenges” — those were creative. The Wikipedia onslaught may be harmless insofar as pages are immediately fixable and reliably fixed, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t destructive. Not to mention, Colbert’s pranks reinforce overwrought fears about the website’s supposed vulnerability.
But think of Wikipedia like the Internet itself. The structure of the network and the community of editors is redundant by its nature. If one thing goes wrong and even if many things go wrong, the corrections are usually prompt. Yes, they’re less reliable along outlying nodes and even some overtrafficked ones. Neither claimed to be without flaws, yet both will withstand virtually any attack (save electromagnetic pulse).
You have to be a loser with no life — or a late-night comedian and his his unblinking minions — to think vandalizing Wikipedia is a good idea. And it provides further evidence for all the comparisons to “The O’Reilly Factor,” Colbert’s program is not just a parody of O’Reilly’s fanbase, it is the mob they presume to be parodying.
Who Wikis the Wikimen?
I have to disagree with at least part of your assertion here, Bill. I think wikipedia is reliable on topics of pop-culture and nerdery, but in general it’s pretty spotty on anything that has a high level of technical detail. I wouldn’t trust them about, say, proper storage of Hydrogen Peroxide or similar things.
Timothy,
I’m always interested in applying that analysis to campaigns — the wisdom of crowds when it comes to mechanics of campaigns, message, etc. I think there are a lot more people who think they know how to get people elected then there actually are. Love the hydrogen peroxide link, I’ll have to use that sometime. Thanks. NPB
Here’s one: Once you screw up your own page, you can’t correct it. Now, I’m not exactly a moron, I’ve been online since command lines and hyperterminal, but wikipedia makes you jump through bs hoops just ot get a correction on your own entry. they’ve ‘disappeared’ links with the “unverified” tag, yet neglect to tell you what you need to do. footnote? tag? bloodletting? who knows. Never mind attempting to contact anyone there. It’s worse than cancelling your AOL account
I am about ready to say “shove it” to them and just let the page take up space on the server. Incomplete. A testimony to the nonsense that is wikipedia.
Tim: And I disagree with you. Wikipedia is very good on technical subjects where there is little controversy over the details. Where Wikipedia is much less consistent are sensitive political subjects resulting in edit wars, which generally adhere to Raul’s Law of Wikipedia #5.
Jeanne: There is a very steep learning curve to being a Wikipedia power editor — I’ve edited for several months now, and I’m still learning certain protocols as I go along. Which page is yours?
Jim: Wikiwomen?
Bill: Even things that aren’t particularly controversial but are highly technical have a tendency to be badly stated. The section on Lorenz Curves, for instance, is useful but misstates what the Gini Coefficient is, you have to click through to get a decent explanation at the Gini link. The Gini link doesn’t contain reference to Peter J. Lambert’s book in the “references” section, but anybody in normative economics knows Lambert, he has literally the only book on the subject and is extensively published.
The section on general equilibrium doesn’t really talk to much about the informational assumptions needed, the statements of the first and second fundamental theorems of welfare economics are inconsistent in the entries where they’re mentioned, etc. I still that that Wikipedia’s primary usefulness is as a quick reference where detail isn’t needed, and as a list of sources (although even those can be incomplete/shoddy on some subjects). It’s an interesting experiment, and I don’t think it’s a failed one, but for anything technical you’re much better off googling up an expert or reading a book.
That should be “too” much. Gah.
C’mon, Bill, dudes already know about chickens.