Blogosphere reacts to Wikipedia after Harvard conference
In the aftermath of the Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility conference (wikinews coverage), the credibility of online information sources was again a topic in the media over the past week. A lot of discussion in the press and among bloggers came out of the conference, and while much of it focused on blogging and its relationship to journalism, or debated the merits of the conference itself, Wikipedia also continued to receive attention along with the fledgling Wikinews project.
The conference itself was held at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government on January 21-22. In spite of its title, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was among those invited, partly because of the relationship between Wikinews and the concept of blogs as citizen journalism. As a result, quite a bit of the discussion as it involved Wikipedia was on the relationship between blogs and wikis.
With respect to issues about what people need to disclose about themselves and their activities, something that has been a hot topic in the blogosphere recently, several people noted the ability of Wikipedians to be completely anonymous if they wish. In contrast with the Wikipedia system, where credibility and trust are developed in group editing, Dave Winer observed that authority among blogs worked differently, often based on how one blog tends to be spawned from another.