Annual Report. The Wikimedia Foundation 2012–13 annual report covers the fiscal year of July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013. Now in its sixth edition, the Foundation's annual report celebrates the Foundation's first extraordinary decade, and shares some of the voices of the tens of thousands of people who make the Wikimedia movement possible. The report can be read in PDF format, or you can access a wiki-based version where you can collaborate in the translation of the report or add your comments and feedback. Download the 2012–2013 Annual Report: PDF (poster format, 300 dpi , 2 MB) Prior reports The Wikimedia Foundation 2011–12 annual report covers the fiscal year of July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012. The report can be read in PDF format, or you can access a wiki-based version where you can collaborate in the translation of the report or add your comments and feedback. Download the 2011–2012 Annual Report: PDF (poster format, 300 dpi , 3.9 MB) Highlights include: Download the 2010–2011 Annual Report: Translations.
Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism. Let me preface this by saying that I know Wikipedia is very cool. A lot of people do not think so, but of course they are wrong. So the following must be taken in the spirit of someone who knows and supports the mission and broad policy outlines of Wikipedia very well. First problem: lack of public perception of credibility, particularly in areas of detail. The problem I would like to point out is not that Wikipedia is unreliable.
The alleged unreliability of Wikipedia is something that the above (TechCentralStation and AP) articles make much of, but that is not my point, and I am not interested in discussing that point per se. My point is that, regardless of whether Wikipedia actually is more or less reliable than the average encyclopedia, it is not perceived as adequately reliable by many librarians, teachers, and academics.
You might maintain that people are already using Wikipedia a lot, and that that implies a great deal of trust. I am willing to grant much of this reply. Mo' Better News? - Center for Media and Democracy. Wikipedia, the successful open source encyclopedia, is launching a daily news website called Wikinews. Its goal is to "create a diverse environment where citizen journalists can independently report the news on a wide variety of current events. " Will it succeed?
I think it's got some problems, but also potential. I've been a fan of Wikipedia ever since I first saw it demonstrated at a conference in Amsterdam. In fact, it served as the inspiration and model for our own Disinfopedia. The word "wiki" comes from a Hawaiian term for "quick" or "super-fast. " Wikinews, of course, is just getting started. The number of articles and contributors will undoubtedly grow over time.
First: The software isn't really designed to do news well. Second: Wikinews is trying to emulate Wikipedia's policies, and that isn't how news works. The neutral point of view attempts to present ideas and facts in such a fashion that both supporters and opponents can agree. Plurality, not neutrality. Wikipedia / Nupedia. For your information: Wikipedia / Nupedia (as far as I can tell they are basically the same thing, but Nupedia has fewer articles) are run by a bunch of Ayn Randite/US Libertarian/Anarcho-Capitalist loonies. I find it is always helpful to know the ideologies of people when dealing with them. It can help you determine their motivations and what to watch out for. In the case of "Wikipedia" (god I hate the term "wiki" .. almost as retarded as "blog"), they are creating an encyclopedia. So I'm reading this thing, and some of the articles on it are okay, others are lousy, but at least none of them are as outright awful as "Everything 2"'s are.
Then I stumble upon a synopsis of "Atlas Shrugged" .. ok.. but it's going on and on for pages upon pages of descriptions of each chapter, the setting, the characters, etc. and I'm thinking the author of this synopsis is going a bit overboard. Probably just another lone objectivist nutcase, right? So what is my point? Anyway, that wasn't my real point. Free Range Librarian: Chicken from the Ashes!: Wikipedia. LOCAL MAN: Wikipedia's NPOV. Neutral point of view.
"Neutral point of view" is one of Wikipedia's three core content policies. The other two are "Verifiability" and "No original research". These three core policies jointly determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles. Because these policies work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three. The principles upon which this policy is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editor consensus.
Explanation of the neutral point of view Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as neutrality means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias. Avoid stating opinions as facts. Achieving neutrality See the NPOV tutorial and NPOV examples. Naming Article structure Due and undue weight.
Limitations of Wiki News' Neutral Point of View Policy. Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales was at the Harvard Blogging Conference this weekend, and he spoke about the Neutral Point of View Policy (aka NPOV) and how it might apply to Wiki News. Wales said that the NPOV policy works best as a means to get a lot of people to collaborate and synthesize news from other primary news sources, but that it would be probably difficult for WikiNews to do much original reporting. They have high standards of neutrality and verifiability, and they also don't accept original reporting unless it is from a known and trusted wikipedian. The NPOV philosophy seems to work well for historic topics where there is time for long deliberations over controversial issues, but coming to a quick consensus of neutrality in day-to-day news coverage could potentially water down the news. Wales made the comment that 'if you want your writing to survive, you have to write in a fairly neutral manner.' (rough paraphrase) BALANCE WITHOUT TRUTH Wikipedia's explanation of NPOV says: