匿名、易動手腳 維基兩大問題

Anonymity and Ease of Access Spell Trouble for Wikipedia

維基百科2001年創始，充分善用網路之利，至今共已收入以200多種語文撰寫的820多萬篇文章，其中211萬篇以英文寫成。

Launched in 2001 and making the most of Internet technology, Wikipedia now operates in more than 200 languages and hosts some 8.2 million articles, 2.11 million of which are in English.

維基百科的詞條應有盡有，從艱深的愛因斯坦相對論，到最「市場」的話題，無所不包，常年名列全球十大人氣網站，今年十月吸引561萬人次到訪，排第八名。

Wikipedia lists almost every topic that people want to find, from ones as difficult as Einstein's Theory of Relativity to those most common. So Wiki frequently ranks among the top ten most-visited websites worldwide. In October 2007, Wikipedia attracted 5.61 million people and ranked 8^th that month.

維基百科創辦人維爾斯面對Google來勢洶洶，淡然以對。許多人認為維基有點輕敵，維基貼出的文章採合作式，理論上如此集思廣益，會更周全、透闢、精確，其實不然。2007年八月，英國一位研究生以自己研發的「維基掃描程式」追蹤維基文章作者身分，發現多家企業對有關他們公司的文章動手腳，去惡揚善。

In the face of powerful and growing competition from Google, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales remains unruffled, but many believe he is underestimating his rival. The articles posted on Wikipedia are written in a collaborative format, which in theory means that they will thus be more thorough, complete, accurate and reflective of a full spectrum of knowledge on the topic in question. The reality, however, is often different. In August 2007, for example, a British graduate student used the Wiki Scanner program he had himself developed to track the identity of persons making edits to Wikipedia articles, and discovered that many corporations were tampering with articles about them by removing unfavorable comments but leaving anything complimentary.

另一問題是撰文者在散播知識外別有動機，人身攻擊屢見不鮮。此外，維基的匿名制度方便有心人惡作劇，因為匿名則不必負責，文章內容失實或不正確，是自然的結果。

Another problem is that persons posting to Wikipedia often have other motives than the spreading of knowledge, and personal attacks are not uncommon. In fact, the Wikipedia system of anonymity works in favour of people with ill intentions because anonymity means no responsibility, and a natural result is that articles often end up featuring information that is untruthful or inaccurate.

This article is spiteful and picky.

conservapedia 偽基百科

entry, topics 詞條

calm and unruffled 淡然

UGC = user-generated content

“Don’t tamper with the truth, young man.”

“I’ve no ill intentions.”    evil/ malicious intent

assault (physical) 暴力