With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Love it or hate it, Wikipedia is a powerful force. As the site matures, optimizing that force in the pursuit of truth will mean that Wikipedia must learn from others as much as it teaches.

To start with, say some critics, Wikipedia could stop letting editors hide behind made-up names. Even before Wikiscan, Wikipedia was embarrassed by several scandals, including one in which Wikipedia editor "essjay," supposedly a professor of theology with doctorates in theology and canon law, turned out to be a 24-year-old college dropout. Clay Shirky, adjunct professor at New York University, agrees that "the essjay controversy certainly demonstrates some need for individual reputation" in addition to the group-reputation model that Shirky believes is key to Wikipedia's better articles.

But beyond the quality issues, anonymity and power are a toxic potion, particularly in the hands of people responsible for a project as visible and ambitious as Wikipedia. What Wikiscan reveals more than anything is that when all controls are lifted, many people succumb to tempation.

Another step Wikipedia could take would be to borrow from Wikiscan and similar websites, and create a shadow Wikipedia—or Wikimorgue—composed of all deleted articles. (A commenter also facetiously suggested this idea on Carr's blog, Rough Type.) A Wikimorgue could be a small but powerful check on Wikipedia's editors, who might think twice about deleting articles if they knew that by routine practice and internal policy, Wikipedia preserved all deleted pages, including their histories and discussions. (Jimmy Wales, one of Wikipedia's founders and now its titular head, did not respond to an e-mail query about this idea.)

Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist who writes the monthly column Jaron's World in Discover Magazine, has discussed his own issues with Wikipedia in the past, calling it part of a troubling online Maoism. Lanier rejects even the idea of a Wikimorgue. "Let's say the Wikipedia is like fast food compared to real food-then this suggestion would be like eating off the floor of a fast food place...yuck," he said in an e-mail message.

But others—including some strong supporters of Wikipedia—see the potential for a repository for deleted Wikipedia articles. Jonathan Zittrain is an Internet lawyer, professor and author of the forthcoming book The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It, in which Zittrain is largely approving of Wikipedia. Zittrain says, "I'm not sure anyone would read that Wikipedia [of deleted articles] any more than people go back and look at the edit histories of articles routinely, but it shows that arbitrary edits sustained within [Wikipedia's] governance structure can be somewhat blunted."