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The Big Episode on Wikipedia · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too. Just mister Green Jeans and
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Zipper Face and Madam Lucks all here together bring you stuff.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: You should Who do I get to beat this week?
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: You get to pick?
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'll be Zipper Base of course.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I was gonna be Zipper Face, but okay,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: I'll be mister green Jeans all right? From what was
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: that from Captain Kangaroo.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: The only one I recognize is mister green Jeans. I've
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: never heard of the other two.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: I made them up. Oh okay, perfect, you just heard
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: of them just now.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: I'm not losing my mind.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: No, you're with it. You're with it man, So Chuck,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: I'm really kind of excited about this one. Today we're
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: doing Wikipedia, and as longtime listeners of Stuff you Should
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Know are already aware, we have a standing ban for
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: our writers on using Wikipedia as a source. Don't even
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: peek at it. Maybe maybe to confirm a date or
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: something like that, but just leave Wikipedia out of it.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: And it's really twofold. There's two reasons. One, it's long
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: been notoriously unreliable because anybody can edit any page or
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: write whatever they want on a Wikipedia page, so that
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: inherently makes it unreliable by nature. And number two, we
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: would never want to be accused of using Wikipedia as
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: like our source article. And when you read how some
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: topic works, it's really difficult for that not to infect
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: the way that you interpret it and report it later on,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: meaning that you could accidentally kind of copy the structure
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: of a Wikipedia article. We never want to do that.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: So those two reasons we've always kind of banned Wikipedia.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I mean we don't use ourselves except for,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: like you said, you know, confirmation of the odd thing.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Occasionally I will use it as a I will go
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: to the and we've talked about this too, the links
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: to the original articles and write papers and studies and
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: things like that. It could be handy, and it's handy
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: in my everyday life, but we've never used it. And
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: that's why it's even though it shouldn't bother me, it
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: still gets under my skin when and I don't read
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: reviews that much, but when people say like.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Well these go do a suit down read Wikipedia articles
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: to you.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Right, right, Because people say that they do say that,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: and we want them to be able to be wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: The thing is, I have to say this. I haven't.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: I haven't decided we need to alter our editorial policies
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: or anything like that. But after researching Wikipedia, I have
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: come to have a slightly different, actually a radically different
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: opinion of Wikipedia as a whole, collectively put together, and
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: just what it is, what it stands for, and just
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: how reliable it is. Turns out like our view was
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: maybe a little rooted in pre twenty thirteen, twenty twelve,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: and it may be time to just kind of evolve,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: but still again not touch our editorial policy.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I mean I've always You've always been the one who
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: was a little more grudgey.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, I thought that was both of us. I thought
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: we'd agreed on that. Huh.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: No, I mean I don't think we should use it
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: for a reference, But I've always enjoyed the site, and
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I think you've always been a little more had your
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: nose turned up a little more, which I totally respect.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I would characterize it as nose
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: turned up. I'm not sure what it is, but I
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: don't know is it nose turned up? Is that what
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: I've been doing all these years.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Maybe, but hey, you're in a you're an educated.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Smart toast about town dude.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: No, and I think you've always just been a little
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: bit like that's just not for me, which I get.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, then I'm here to say I renounced
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: that elitist view and I am a lot more accepting
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: of Wikipedia and what it is and what it does.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: All right, Okay, great, I guess.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Call me Saul from now on. Oh wait, Paul, you
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: better I head it backwards, didn't.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I are you speaking biblicaly? Yeah, biblicy, bibugy, bibby. I
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: don't know. Let's not get into that.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: We should quickly just go through a what it is,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: and Dave helped us out with this and just a
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: few sort of fun stats at the beginning. But Wikipedia,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: of course, is an online encyclopedia created or you know,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: maintained by wikipedians who are users, just everyday people.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: So that's what it is.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: But what it really is is the large's reference work ever,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: created ninety times larger than the one hundred and twenty
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: volume encyclop Encyclopedia Britannica.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: That's IMPRESSIB sixty two.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Million articles, three hundred plus languages, four billion plus visitors
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: a month, edging up towards three hundred thousand Wikipedians or
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Wikipedia editors.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: And that's all I got.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: But actually I got one more I did see And
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: this is in two thousand and eight, so this is
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: a long time ago. There was one computer scientist who
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: estimated that up to that point there were one hundred
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: million hours spent developing and getting Wikipedia up to that point.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Wow. Did you mention how many edits are made every second?
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, I didn't think you did, And I'm glad you
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: didn't because this one's my favorite.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: You like it.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: This is a I think a twenty twenty two estimate.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Five point two Wikipedia edits are made every second. Wow,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: And each month fourteen million edits are made. And you
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: as we kind of talk about how Wikipedia actually works,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: that will become more and more significant as we go.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: So, I mean that's sort of the overview of some
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: stats and how it's defined, but what it really is,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: and they've kind of nailed it on the head as
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: far as their ethos. It's kind of a utopian idea
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: and an experiment that people can get on the Internet,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and not justly insults, but they can get on the
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Internet and create an important volume of knowledge for people.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw a great quote that said, it's a
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: good thing that Wikipedia works in practice, because it certainly
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: doesn't work in theory.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: Oh interesting.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and no matter where you are around the world,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: that's not one hundred percent true. But in a large area,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: a swath of the world, there are Wikipedias for you
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: in your language about your culture. Whether you speak Zulu
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: or Tartar, or Sanskrit, Old English, Creole, Haitian Esperanto, Yoruba, Piedmontese, Yiddish,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: all of them have their own Wikipedia. There's all a
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: lot of different WIKIPEDIAI I'm just adding eye to anything
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: plural from now on. That's my new thing. But it's
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: really impressive, like the idea that people came together and
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: did this for free as volunteers, and now we have,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: like you said, by far, the largest reference work ever created.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: That's right, a site and we'll get into all this,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the whys of all this, but you know it's a
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: site with no ads. It is a very low fi
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: site that is overseen by the Wikimedia Yeah, that's right,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Wikimedia Foundation.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: It is funded by donations.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: I know at times when you go to Wikipedia, everyone
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: but you, that is, occasionally you might see a little
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: a hat out and said, hey, wouldn't you drop a
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: couple of bucks in this thing if you like using
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: the site.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: I've donated to Wikipedia. Now I get emails for it too.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: I see. That's how they get you.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: You give them an inch and they take a mile.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Operating budget of about one hundred and sixty eight million
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: dollars a year, which is surprising to me. I didn't
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: know it would cost that much.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, I thought that was low. I was surprised. Yeah,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: I mean it's one of the biggest websites in the
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: entire world. I think it's number three or five, depending
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: who you ask for number of visits monthly visits like.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but for something to have be completely created for free,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: mm hm, that seems high.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: I get that. But one hundred and sixty five million
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: of that is Jimmy Wales's compensation, right, and let's talk
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: about who Jimmy Wales is. That's the lie, by the way, everybody.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we should get into the history of it and
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: hop in the old wayback machine. Oh, fire it up.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: We're not gonna have to go far, so we don't
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: need much fuel. Trying to be more efficient with our
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: travels these days in this thing.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're using hamsters instead of kerosene lately.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: So we're gonna go back to the mid nineteen nineties
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  Speaker 1: when the World Wide Web was just a young babe
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: in the crib.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: And very adorably.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: When all these websites websites started popping up, there were
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: people that were like, hey, you know what we need
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: now is we got to be people, got to be
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: able to find this stuff, So we need web directories.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: This is obviously before Google was a just a very
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: convenient way or any or Bang or you know your
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: search engine of choice.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Don't leave Edge out her Edge.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Had come along.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: So in nineteen ninety four, Yahoo had a pretty popular
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: web directory going on. And if you're young enough to
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: where you don't even know what that means, that means
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: literally you would go to a page and it would say,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: like sports entertainment, kind of like a newspaper.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Here's all ten websites on sports.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Exactly, and it would list those websites. But then came
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: along a company called Bomus. It was an early dot
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: com who said no, you know what I think we
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: should do, like an open source version of this web
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: directory and we'll call it a webring.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And the whole premise was if you were a
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: part of the webring, your site was you would have
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: a little thing saying like baseball or something like that
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: the bottom of your site, and that was your connection
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: to the webring, and you could click next and it
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: would take you to the next site that had been
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: connected to the first site, because they're both about baseball
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: or something way more niche than that. And anybody, because
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: like you said, it was open source, could make their
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: own webring. There were usually webmasters who looked at the sites,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: approved them, actually put them together. But eventually, as you
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: had more and more sites added to this ring, you
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: had a more and more dense collection of information about
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: one usually fairly niche topic. Apparently Pamela Anderson was like
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: one of the biggest webrings right out of the gate
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety six. But that was the premise
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: of what Wikipedia eventually was built on. It was open source,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: people could contribute, and the the initial body of knowledge
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: was built upon by more and more people.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Bomas got popular. They kind of focused on
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: manned stuff for lack of a better term, and I
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: think that's what they literally called it. It was like
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: car things and sports things, Pamela Anderson. And then they
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: quickly realized, hey, naked women on the Internet performs really well,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: as it turns out, so they really started focusing on
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: that kind of adult material. I guess to call it
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: something a little tame and chiefly nude pictures of women.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: And they really drilled down on that and got very,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: very popular because of that, but then pivoted pretty quickly
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: because Jimmy Wales, the guy you mentioned, one of the
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: founders of Bomas, had a larger, more pure vision in
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: mind when he said, hey, I think we could create
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: a free encyclopedia. So we founded new Pedia, which was
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: financed by Bone.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and everybody uses an encyclopedia, whether you just need
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: to make a quick reference, whether you're a kid writing
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: a research paper, whether you're a parent researching your kid's
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: research paper. Like, people just need an encyclopedia. It's a
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: basic thing. So let's create one and then let's sell
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: ads against it. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: we do. We put out free content and then there's
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: ads that like that was essentially the basic premise of
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: websites forever and still generally is right. The thing about
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: it that made it a little more than just like
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: a money making scheme was that from the outset, James
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Wales and his partner, a guy named Larry Sanger, were really,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: really like they placed a tremendous amount of emphasis on
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: truth and correctness and their articles being error free. So
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: it wasn't just something they slapped together. It had nothing
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: to do with long tail or any terrible ideas like that.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: It was really well researched article was vetted by academics
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: and professionals, with ads sold against it. That was new
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Pedia and it was a great idea, except that in
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: the like go go hustle early part of the Internet
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: where you could just get things in like that, New
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Pedia was glacially slow, and it was that was ultimately
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: its downfall.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, And that's in you, by the way,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: not in ew in Upedia. It was slow because they,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: like you said, they wanted to get things right. There
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: was a seven step process in place before anything was published,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: so it was sort of the traditional publishing model that
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: had been used for you know how long However, long
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: publishing traditional publishing had been around like this, which is,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: you you have something reviewed, whether you work for a
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: newspaper and you do your fact checking, or you have
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: your editor in chief checking on things. In this case,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Larry Sanger was the editor in chief of new Pedia,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: or you know, have things reviewed by experts and then
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: you published. That was what they were doing sort of
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: in that order. You write something, you review it, review
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: it through that seven step process, and then you publish
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: it online.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: And it was, like you said, slow.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I think twenty one articles came out in that first year,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: and Sanger, it seemed like, in particular, was pretty frustrated
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: with that speed.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, getting content out.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: For sure. So just put that aside. These guys are
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: kind of in suspended animation at this moment. In I
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: think nineteen ninety nine, end of nineteen ninety nine, a
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: few years earlier earlier than that, there was a guy
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: named Wag Cunningham in the very early nineties. He was
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: a software engineer. He was trying to figure out how
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: to share ideas at his company that anybody at the
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: company could like kind of contribute to, right, So he
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: actually took an Apple program called HyperCard and created a
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: hypertext program that he called quick weeb I believe was
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: the first name for and that was basically where anybody
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: could go into this program and contribute to this body
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: of knowledge, this body of information, and it would grow
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: and grow and grow, and things would link to other things.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: That's hypertext and very fortunately. Ward Cunningham went on vacation
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: to Hawaii also in the early nineties, and he noticed
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: that there were little airport shuttles called wiki wiki airport buses,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: which means quick wiki means quick and he just loved
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: that name. So he changed the name from quick web
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: to wiki wiki Web, and that was the first wiki.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: What we understand is a wiki a bunch of user
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: generated content that anybody can contribute to and edit and
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: link to other stuff. The whole thing just becomes self
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: referential and grows as a result.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was basically, in his mind, a way
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: for programmers to talk to one another about programming. But
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: he realized he was on to a larger concept. Not
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: so much that he tried to get a patent on
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the concept of a wiki, which was probably a grave error,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: but he said at the time he didn't think like
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: anyone would be interested in something like that, so it
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: wasn't worth pursuing.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: The other thing we should mention about.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Ward Cunningham is he has now been credited with what's
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: known as Cunningham's law.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: Have you ever heard of this?
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: I have?
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Which is kind of the foundation of the Internet in
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: some ways, and definitely Wikipedia, which is he said the
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: best way to get a correct answer online is not
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: by asking a question, but by posing a wrong answer.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: And it was sort of a theory but has kind
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: of proved to be true in his mind at least.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: And I agree that, like, when you ask someone something online,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: it can be very hard or slow to get a
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: correct answer, but if you post something wrong then people
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: are very very quick to correct you. And so that
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: was sort of the basis of his WikiWikiWeb with programmers
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: talking to one another.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's preserved at wiki dot C two dot com,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: And like, I can't make heads or tails of any
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: of it, but it's still there. It's super cute and
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: quaint looking, but it's neat. The usability is really amazing too,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: especially for what he built it on.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: That'd be fun if you could go to a year
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: of the Internet.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: I know, what I'm man, and I think you can
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: on Internet archive.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: No, I mean like turn your Internet into two thousand,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: like two thousand and one or nineteen ninety seven, and
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: not just read things, but have it just be like
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: from that year and what it was like.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: I got to just give check GPT like three more months.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Right, you're probably right.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: So now we're going to come back to Jimmy Wales
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Larry Sanger and this dispute over who came up with
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: the idea of taking the wiki concept that Ward Cunningham
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: came up with and applying it to the encyclopedia concept
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: that Wales and Sanger had come up with new Pedia.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: It doesn't ultimately matter, but just to name check, a
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: guy named Jeremy Rosenfeld was a bonus employee. He's the
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: one who Jimmy Whale says came up with the idea
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: of using a wiki. Larry Sanger said he came up
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: with the idea after having dinner with a guy named
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Ben Kovitz. He says he even remembers that he ordered
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: enchiladas at the dinner. That's how much he remembers it
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: either way, regardless, within two weeks of that dinner, that
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Larry Sanger had where he was introduced to the concept
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: of a wiki. New Pedia had become a wiki, and
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: the new Pedia advisory board was like, we don't like
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: this idea. The smells of like brand new stuff and
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: we're afraid of it. And also, what's this whole concept
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: of write, publish and then review. That's that's like sacrilegious,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Like you can't do that. And so Wales and Sanger said,
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: all right, you guys stay over here with new Pedia.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: We're gonna go over here with our thing. We're gonna
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: call it Wikipedia, and Wikipedia within two weeks was born
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: on January fifteenth, two thousand and one. Larry's had that
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: dinner on January second, two thousand and one.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: And as far as that claim for what it's worth,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the actual Wikipedia article on Sanger confirms that it was him. Well,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: then I don't know, true, I don't know Jimmy Wales
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: just begrudgingly allows that to stay there or not. But
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: everything I saw kind of said it was Sanger. So
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: just like I said, take it for what it's worth.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: It's funny you mentioned Jimmy Wales begrudgingly just letting it
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: stay there because He was caught very early on in
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: the early days of Wikipedia, editing the Bonus dot com
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Wikipedia entry to remove softcore pornography from it, say like
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: the words softcore pornography, and he got called out for that.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: And they're like, dude, that's how that was our foundation
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: at first.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: So but that's a really good example of what's starting
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: to happen at this time around two thousand and one
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: with Wikipedia. It's brand new, but people are starting to
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: kind of come to it, figure it out out, get
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: the hang of it, and become like enthralled by it
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: and starting to like write articles, edit articles, discuss how
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: to how to best make an edit. Like it's starting
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: to kind of grow. But it took a truly horrible
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: event for Wikipedia to truly come into its own for
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: the very first time. And I say, we take a break, Chuck.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: That's quite a cliffhanger to stop. You should.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: All right, So you were hanging on a cliff here.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: You talked about a terrible event. You probably don't have
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: to be a rocket scientist to figure out what that
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: event was. Considering Wikipedia really got cranking in January of
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: two thousand and one, kind of sped along for about
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: nine months, growing pretty quickly compared to initially. I think
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: there were about ten thousand articles written over that period.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: And then nine to eleven happened, and that changed everything
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: because news sites crashed. Everyone was trying to get information
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and they were going to these you know, super heavily
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: ad filled websites, websites with videos, pop up ads, all
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: kinds of things that like slow traffic down and overload things,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and all these people were trying to go to these
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: sites to find out news and information. Wikipedia is there
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: with its lo fi, no ads, no pop ups, no
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: video kind of layout, and it didn't crash. And so
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: the September eleventh, two thousand and one terrorist attack article
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: on Wikipedia grew at a speed that I don't know
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: any web page has ever grown before.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: No, and that was that it's like Wikipedia. The idea
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: finally took off on September eleventh and the days after
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: because people were searching for information on it, like every second,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: they were just looking for more and more info. Stuff
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: was news was coming out hard and fast like that,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: and with the news sites down, that Wikipedia article became
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: like the de facto source of information, and so as
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: more people came to it and were like what is
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: this and then kind of figured out right there on
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: the fly how Wikipedia worked. They actually stuck around and
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: started adding to the article, editing the article, discussing like
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: the wording for the article, and that single article on
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: the September eleventh, two thousand and one terrorist attack that
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: became the cornerstone of how Wikipedia developed. That article did
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: in all of the discussions, and still today they archived
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: all the discussions all the way back to the first day,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: and it is really interesting to see like the arguments
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: and discussions that people got into over that because it
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: was at the time and then in the years following,
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: it's just always been such a controversial topic and such
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: a sacred topic too here in the United States.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and not only just the topic, but kind of
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: everything that they were, all the subtopics, and that was
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: where Wikipedia really came to find what it was and
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: what it wasn't because they were doing things like truly
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: helpful things at the time, like a list of victims,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: blood drives and links to where you could go to
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: help and donate and things like that. But as that
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: was happening, like you said, it was sort of happening
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: in real time, and their talk page was flooded with
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: people saying, well, wait a minute, I'm not sure beyond
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: just like editing, you know, the news and facts. They
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: were like, well, what are we doing here? We need
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: to be truthful and accurate, of course, but do we
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: have stuff like is this an encyclopedia or not? Like
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: do we have a list of victims of you know,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I hate to say it, but like people who aren't
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: well known, because an encyclopedia probably wouldn't. Would we have
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: links to blood drives? Probably not, because an encyclopedia wouldn't.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: So as they went through those really pretty tough discussions,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: what Wikipedia wasn't became pretty clear.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it became what's known as the five pillars, which
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: we'll talk about in a second. But one of the
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: things that emerged from it too was they weren't there
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: to report the news. So anybody who had breaking news,
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: it became clear Wikipedia was not a place for that.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: They were meant to be behind the curve. They report
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: on reliable sources reporting. That's what the entries were built on,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: and that was a huge, huge foundation that was kind
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: of laid that day, I guess. But just as one
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: little aside at this time, shortly After this, Wikipedia attracted
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: a lot of people. People started sticking around and writing
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: other articles that were related to the two thousand and
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: one September eleventh attacks, and it just started to grow.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: At the same time, it also attracted trolls essentially out
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: of the gate, and there were trolls on the site.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: And Larry Sanger did not have the stomach for that
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: at all. And I don't blame him. Trolls sucked. They're
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: the worst. But he quit because he said, we need
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: to have some sort of structure here. We need to
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: have a constitution, We need a way to vet these
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: these claims and these facts that are in these articles.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: We got to slow this down, man. And Jimmy Wales
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: is like, no, that's we're not going to do that.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: We've met in ein ran chat forums, for God's sake,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: We're not gonna We're not gonna do this. We're going
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: to go the opposite direction. We'll figure it out as
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: as we go. And so Larry Sanger quit and became
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: one of the biggest critics of Wikipedia. He was only
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: there for I think fourteen months.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Weiss called them their most outspoken critic In two
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: thousand and seven, he said the site was broken beyond repair.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: He has said that there's a large and this is
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: just a few of the criticisms. Of course, there's very
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: very many. You might want to say he has a
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: bone to pick with Wikipedia, but I also feel like
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: he truly believes his stuff. Sure, he said that it
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: has a massive left wing bias and has used examples
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: on everything from LGTBQ websites to Donald Trump versus Barack
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Obama's I keep saying websites, I should call them Wikipedia
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: articles rather Oh yeah, okay, Donald Trump's page versus Barack
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Obama's page, all kinds of stuff, basically saying that, hey,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: we're only getting one point of view here. We're not
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: getting the right wing side of things, We're not getting
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the libertarian viewpoint on things. So he's had a bone
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: to pick with Wikipedia, although I think he has softened
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: it here and there saying that I think he said
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: that the bias is probably the least of their problems.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: So that's not like really where he's.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: Hand has had. I don't want to make it seem
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: like that.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Well, what's interesting is his criticism seem to have worked
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: themselves out because one of the things that Wikipedia strives
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: for is neutrality is close to neutrality and objective, I don't.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: I keep wanting to use the word reporting, but that's wrong.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Reporting makes it documenting. It's neutral, objective, documentation of knowledge.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: That's what it's after, right. And So I was looking
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: at banned users and a lot of them seem to
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: be like social justice warriors who are like righting wrongs
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: and they get banned for life. So I mean, I
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: don't think that it necessarily has a political bias one
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: way or the other, if anything. Politically, from what I
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: can tell, it's that's where it's closest to neutral. Of
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: all gender, ethnicity, that's a different story. But politically it
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: does seem to be pretty centrist.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well Sanger doesn't feel like it at least, but
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: you know that's his take.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Well get him on the phone.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Oh man, what if we took Collers, that'd be great,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Go ahead, Collar. I've always wanted to say that, Hey,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: long time, first time. So in two thousand and two,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Wikipedia avoided what would have been a sea change when
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: they thought about getting ads on the site and making money,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: you know, the good old fashioned webway, and the people
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: of Wikipedia got upset. Users were like no, no, no,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: this is what makes you guys different. You can't do
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: that in Spain. There were some Spanish Wikipedians who got
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: so upset they created their own well, I guess you
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: would say Encyclopedia libra, but it's just spelled differently. They said,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: you know, that scared them off, basically to where they're
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: created their own And he said, all right, I'll hear
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: you loud and clear. We'll launch the Wikimedia Foundation.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: That was pretty early on.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: It was in two thousand and three, and then they
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: change from dot com to dot org. They shut down
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: new Pedia that same year and got together and figured
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: out these five pillars that you mentioned earlier, one of
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: which you just reference, which was neutrality.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So there are five pillars the fundamental principles of Wikipedia,
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: and a lot of these were find its roots in
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: that September eleventh, two thousand and one page, but they've
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: also really been refined and developed over time. And I
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: think we should cut to the last one first because
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: it really kind of gives a It gives you, like
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: the right impression when you hear the rest of the rules.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: And the last one is that Wikipedia has no firm rules.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: There's no one in charge. There's a group of people
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: who are volunteer administrators who actually can ban you. They
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: actually can delete like entire entries if they feel like
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: that's necessary. But those are those people are few and
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: far between, and they are meant to like not wield
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: their power. Essentially, no one's in charge, No one owns
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: an article, and there are different competing philosophies about how
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Wikipedia should be built, how articles should be written, what's truth,
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: what's a reliable source? And these competing philosophies battle one
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: another or engage in conversation and dialogue with one another
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: on the talk page for these amazing like like the
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: really well written, well researched articles or entries that people
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: really care about. There's really fascinating discussions about, you know,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: just wording, like just what word to use or this
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: word doesn't quite fit, or what's a reliable citation? And
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: that the reason why it works is because there's it
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: will constantly evolve in that in that setup, there's no rigidity.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: It's like whatever philosophy wins out wins out, and that
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: one specific disagreement over that one specific edit on that
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: one specific entry, and then the next time it may
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: have a completely different outcome, but collectively as a whole,
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: that leads to that leads to the neutrality that we
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: referenced earlier.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: That's right, So that's I guess five and two. Pillar
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Number one is that it's an encyclopedia, which speaks for itself.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Number three is that it's free. And that well also
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: kind of part three because you said that no one
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: owns a Wikipedia article. I imagine that can be tough
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: at times. If you have, if you're if you have
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: created an entry that is very very niche that you
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: knew a lot about and you care a lot about,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I imagine it can it can be very tough to
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: sort of hand that over and say, okay, like I
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: guess anyone can change this right, so that that must
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: be hard, but still a pillar.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: And the number four is.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Editors should treat each other with respect and civility. I'm
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: sure that that well, we know that that is gotten
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: out of hand because there's been reports of bullying within
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: the what are they called wikipedians. But the pillar at
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: least is to avoid these edit wars and work with
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: your fellow editors instead of against them, to not bully,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: to have patients with new editors, and things like that
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: and try and foster like kind of a different community
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: for what usually happens online.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what's amazing is it generally works. The whole premise
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: of that pillar is assume good faith. That it's such
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: a it's such an important point that it's abbreviate is AGF,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: and that is that if you see somebody adding some dumb,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: dumb fact that's clearly a conspiracy theory, as if it's
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: fact to some article, don't don't take that act as
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: a like like they're willfully trying to harm that article
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: or hurt Wikipedia or personally insult you. What they're doing
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: probably if you assume good faith is in their mind
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: they think they're actually helping Wikipedia, they're helping the site,
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: they're making this entry more legit, even though they're totally
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: completely wrong. So if you come at it from that
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: premise where you assume good faith, then that's where it's
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: going to. That's where it's least likely to devolve into
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: an argument or name calling or threats or wiki bullying.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: And that seems to be like the the case or
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: the place that the editors that I saw will go from.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Like that whole assuming good faith first part a lot
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: of them, do not all of them obviously, because it's
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: the Internet for sure.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: All Right, I say we take another break and come
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: back with blocks and bands and whether or not Wikipedia
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: is truly reliable?
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: Is that sound good?
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: That sounds great, Chuck? All right, Still you should know
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: so even though you assume good faith that you're supposed
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: to assume good faith, like we said, it can become
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: clear that somebody's like willfully being a jerk. There's a
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: whole thing called vandalism, where you are purposefully like inserting
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: incorrect stuff into an article just to mess with people, right,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: just to mess with the article. It can be hilarious.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: Spamming is another one, where you promote yourself or your product,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: which is just you should just know that you don't
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: do that, but people do that.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: What else, well, obviously we've talked about the bullying and harassment,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: the three revert rule, which is basically you don't revert
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: or change or undo three edits on the same page
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: within twenty four hours, which is kind of like a
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: slow year role move a little bit. Copyright violations pretty
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: self explanatory. Using multiple Wikipedia accounts, which they call sock puppetry.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: It's very cute and anything. Just that's against the idea
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: of what they're trying to do, which is to build
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: out this encyclopedia and all of this is this is
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: not decided upon by just your average user or Wikipedia Wikipedia,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: and rather but the volunteer administrators. I think the English
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Wikipedia has more than eight hundred administrators, and they are Wikipedians.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: They're just really experienced ones who know the ins and
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: outs and take it really seriously. They do not work
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: for the Wikimedia Foundation and get a cut of that
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty million bucks a year, right, but
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: they're the ones in charge of determining when a block
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: or a ban can happen.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: Blocks being.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Temporary, they can be longer duration wise, it can be shorter,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: can be a one specific thing you did in an
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: article or the whole article that you're blocked from for
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: a little while. You can appeal those, but it's meant
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: to be a preventative measure and not a punitive. And
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: then you have the ban, which kind of speaks for itself.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: It's usually a site band, which means you just you
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: can't come on here anymore.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: You know, you can go on, but you can't make
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: a single edit. All you can do is sit there
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: and read pal.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Oh well yeah, I mean we're talking about editing, not
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: like anyone can read anything.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Sure, sure, right, And also anybody can edit unless you've
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: been blocked or banned, and you don't even have to
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: create an account, which is one of the cool things.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: But there's entire site bands, so like you can be
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: completely banned from English Wikipedia, or you could be globally banned,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: so any Wikipedia in any language. And I believe some
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: of the other Wiki projects like wictionary, like you just
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: you'll be you can't do anything on those.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So that kind of brings us to where we
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: started with this whole thing and why we didn't use it.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Why we don't use it and started out at least
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: and still don't. Is that is it? Is it reputable?
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Is it truthful? Is it accurate? You usually can't use
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Wikipedia as a source for a school paper, certainly not
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: a college paper. We make up our own rules, as
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Josh and Chuck do stuff, you should know, so we
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: could do whatever we wanted. Sure, that was just something
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: that we did from the beginning. Like, no one, I
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: don't think anyone told us to do that, did they?
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: No? Apparently it was just my idea because I'm a
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: big snob.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: Right, No, not at all. We were both on board.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: There was a study into two thousand and five and
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: there's I tried to find something more recent, but they
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: compared forty two entries on Wikipedia to the same thing
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: in the Encyclopedia Britannica and found that the average mistakes
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: per article was four for Wikipedia, three for the Britannica,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: which is a little bit startling. Yeah, the differences between
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Wikipedia and Britannica is that you can change something really
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: fast on Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica, at least for the
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: hard copy volumes. You know, obviously he's going to have
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: to wait till the next publish. And they've tested out
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: the speed of Wikipedia changes or I guess corrections, and
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: they filed false information in thirty three different articles about
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: dead philosophers, and in forty eight hours, a third of
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: those had been fixed, and three of those within sixty seconds.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I looked those up and some of them are hilarious.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: They all seem rather innocuous, but if you stop and
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: think about what they're saying, they're pretty funny. Like Wickenstein
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: was fined for poisoning squirrels in his yard, or Spinoza
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: supported himself by selling stolen jewelry, or that David Hume
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: used to wrestle with local sportsmen, like we just but
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: just completely like the way that the sentences were written,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: like you would totally buy them and they still got corrected.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of like the whole premise of Wikipedia
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: is like eventually somebody's going to find that and they're
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: going to correct it. Might be in a minute, it
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: might be in forty eight hours, it might be in
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: six weeks, but eventually it's going to get created, like
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: you'll eventually get to the truth or correctness.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, And Dave points out and this is
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: really really the truth of the matter is something as
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: as large as Wikipedia created by users. There's going to
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: be some great articles. There's going to be some good ones,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: and there's going to be some not so great ones.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Just how it shakes out, and so are they're actually
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: labeled now, which is something that a lot of people
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: may not really realize, but they can be labeled good
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: or fee. If it's good, that means it's got a
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: little small plus sign inside a green circle. They're close
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: to forty thousand good articles on the English version. If
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: it's featured, that means it's the cream of the crop
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: as far as Wikipedia vetting goes. And there are close
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: to sixty five hundred that are featured with that bronze star.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw the Museum of Bad Art as a
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: featured article. There's a but there's just tons of them, thousands, right,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: And you can just go look at the list and
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: be like, oh, Okay, this is a really good article.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: I'm going to read this one. Despite all that, I
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: think the featured articles represent one out of every thousand
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: and fifty articles on the site. It's a very low percentage.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: And because of that, Wikipedia even says Wikipedia is not
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: a reliable source. They say it it's expressed on their website.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: And you can't actually use a Wikipedia entry as a
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: citation on another Wikipedia entry. You link to other stuff,
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: you can hyperlink it, but you can't use that to
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: or support that sentence or that fact or whatever. And
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: there's the reason why. One of the reasons why. It
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: was kind of perfectly captured by that amazing comic XKCD,
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: and they coined the term cytogenesis, where somebody can put
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: in a fake fact on a Wikipedia page and then
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: go to that Wikipedia page to prove that their fact
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: is correct. Right, So it's like this snake that eats
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: its tail. And there's actually an example of that. There's
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: an Australian duo called Peaking Duck and one of their
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: fans got backstage because he inserted his name as a
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: relative of one of the band members and showed it
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: to like the guy who was guarding the backstage and
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: ended up getting backstage because of it. Isn't that amazing?
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: Pretty amazing?
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: I love that story, And apparently Peaking Duck they said
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: it was a genius mastermind move, so I guess they
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: appreciated it too.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: So so, you know, we mentioned a bias earlier.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: With politics, but the real bias comes in, like you
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: mentioned at the beginning with kind of who is who
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: these wikipedians are, eighty seven percent of these editors are
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: men and eighty nine percent are white.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: That means one hundred and seventy six percent are white men.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Half of them are in Europe and twenty percent live
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: in North America. So unsurprisingly you're going to have some
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: gender bias playing out. I think less than nineteen percent
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: of the English language biographies are about women, and those
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: are also the articles that are most often flagged for
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: deletion as being you know, not notable enough. And they've
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: combatd this over the years in different ways. They get
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: together sometimes and organize edit athons where they try and
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: boost content about women and minorities, people of color, ethnic diversity,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: like anything like that. They could have an edit to
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: though about to try and you know, bring more, bring
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: more of a light onto those groups.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we have to say, there's so that whole
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: idea that premise that Wikipedia is unreliable. It seems to
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: basically find a single source. Initially, there's a journalist named
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: John Seigenthaler who had a joke Entry made about him.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: He was an advisor, i think to Bobby Kennedy, and
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: the Hoaxter wrote that he was a suspect in the
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: assassination of Bobby Kennedy and John Kennedy and John Siegenthaler
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: heard about this, and he did not find that funny
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: at all. He just happened to be one of the
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: founding editors of USA Today. So he took to the
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: pages of USA Today and completely excoriated Wikipedia, called it
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: out as a completely unreliable irresponsible research tool, right. That
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: was two thousand and five, and that really kind of
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: laid the foundation for Wikipedia's bad reputation for a while.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: But if you go on to the Wikipedia entry about Wikipedia,
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: which I admit I read some of, they even say
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: around starting sometime in about the twenty tens, that reputation
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: started to get shed and we're finally reaching the point
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: today where people are saying, go use Wikipedia, just use
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: it as like a an introduction to your topic, and
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: then go out and do further research. So it's really
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: kind of come into its own twenty years on.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: If you want to get into editing, there are tutorials.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: There's an introduction tutorial of how to do everything from
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: creating things from scratch to editing. I mean, good luck
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: creating something from scratch and finding something that doesn't exist
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: already at this point. And if you want a gamified version,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: you can check out the Wikipedia Adventure to help with
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: your tutorial, and they also have a help desk and
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: the Tea House, which is where new editors can learn
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: the ropes in a friendly manner.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think just going on the talk page
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: of any article will kind of familiarize you with what
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: you should be doing. If you want to contribue, but
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: do contribute. It's nice, I said, it's nice. I don't
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: think Chuck has anything else because he didn't respond, So
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: I think that means it's time for a listener mail.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: I'm going to call this bonsai inspiration.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: It was very cool.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, a few years ago you did the bon
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Si episode. My dad and I listened to it became
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: very inspired. I have a horticultural degree from USU.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: That's Utah.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: By the way, he thought it might be interested too,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: so as father and son, we began working on trees.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: Fast forward to today, we have thirty different trees. We've
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: lost a few along the way, but have learned so
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: much through a Bonsi show. In twenty seventeen, we became
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: members of the Utah bon Si Club and have both
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: entered bon Sai into a show hosted bly hosted by
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: Red Butte Gardens. Who would have thought that a simple
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: podcast could have inspired my dad and I to do
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: this and go this far with it. I would love
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: to give my dad a shout out. He turned sixty
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: this year. Proud of him and what we've accomplished. That
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: is from Nathan Staker in Utah and as Pop's mister,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Brent Steaker.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: Nice congratulations Nathan and Brent. That's pretty great. We love
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: inspiring people.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: Beautiful trees, very beautiful.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: If you want to be like Nathan and Brent and
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: let us know how we inspired you to do something cool,
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: We love that kind of thing, you can send it
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: in an email to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.