Outside discussion of Wikipedia quality goes another round
Discussion in the media and the blogosphere about quality issues in Wikipedia articles continued over the past week, following an earlier admission by Jimmy Wales that some problems existed (see archived story).
This particular cycle in the debate was set in motion by Andrew Orlowski with a column in The Register on Tuesday, reporting that "Wikipedia founder admits to serious quality problems". As part of the article, Orlowski picked his own example out of "the many, many atrocious entries", using a diff as evidence. As he described it, "whoever wrote the entry for soul legend Baby Washington has no idea who she is, but makes a wild guess, then gives up completely".
Subsequent editors determined that Orlowski, although pointing to an article about Jeanette Washington, was actually referring to a different singer named Justine Washington, who sometimes also recorded using the name Jeanette. Until this incident, the article about the real "Baby" Washington was not wrong; rather, it did not exist at all. Meanwhile, in a resulting Slashdot discussion, several people observed that The Register is not exactly noted for its accuracy either. One offered the following as a humorous newspaper headline:
Register: Wikipedia Inaccurate, Badly-Written
Pots, kettles war over who's the blackest