Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Something weird is going on with the Wikipedia page for Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. 

As reported here eight days ago, Yahoo is now offering WordPress blogs in addition to Movable Type.  

Better Bad News: "Mena Trott call for civility jeered in Paris as US torture practices spread to secret European prisons." 

Wikipedia: "Wikipedia does not present opinions as facts." 

Ross Mayfield sees the pros and cons of editing your bio page on Wikipedia. Here's my take on it. No, you must not edit your bio page, or any page about a topic in which you have an interest. It's impossible to disclose that interest, so the poor reader has no idea how to credit what's on the page. This is the weakness of Wikipedia, in fact of all wiki. But his point about the knowledge you have about yourself is an important one. Imho, the obvious answer is that your page, on your site, edited only by you, should be linked to from the equivalent Wikipedia page, in a consistent and prominent way. Your review of a page about something you're involved in is important, but it must be clear to the reader that they are reading something that's interested. Ultimately, this combination of wiki and blogging is going to be the answer. It's how Jimmy Wales will be able to tell us he doesn't think the stuff on his Bomis site was porn and how his Ferrari cost less than most SUVs, and how Adam Curry can tell you all about himself and edit everyone else out. Now the question is, who is qualified to edit the Wikipedia page? 

Larry Sanger to Jimmy Wales: "A few weeks ago you edited the article about you to remove all references to my role in getting Wikipedia started. You now call that a minor factual correction." 

It's time for an unconference on the future of Wikipedia. Put all interested parties in a room for a couple of days, and see if the current concerns can be turned into new approaches which create a system with more integrity.  

Rex Hammock explains, eloquently, why blogs matter. It's the one place where you can tell your own story, without anyone interfering.  

Scoble's Wikipedia policy is the same as mine, and I'll add that I don't even read my bio, or articles about things I contributed to. It just gets me all riled up and there's nothing I can do about it, so I don't even look. 

If you use Movable Type or Typepad, read the comment on this post from Anil Dash of SixApart. 

Mike Arrington: "Vaios don't ship with the original CDs any more, so I'm totally screwed." 

Transit strike in NYC. Something to think about during the strike. How quickly NYC would turn into a New Orleans if a terrorist struck the NYC subway system. You hear a fair amount of bitterness in New Orleans about the argument that New Orleans is not a good place to build a city. New York is easily as dependent on the subways as New Orleans is on its levees. And the weak link is just about as weak. Think about that as you hear stories in the next few days (hopefully that's all it is) about NYC without a functioning subway system.