Development Seed Blog

How can we help make information online, especially news, less partisan? Well this is a start. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, has just launched a news wiki! Wikinews just demoed in November and has amassed 106 articles. The goal is to have citizen journalists report on current events.

The headlines today are from all across the board:

• Omnibus Appropriations bill includes many unrelated riders
• 170 workers trapped in Chinese mine after explosion
• Researchers discover high temperature enables more efficient hydrogen generation

 Pretty diverse, but how accurate and unbiased will this new outlet be? A lot can be said looking at how Wikipedia works. On Monday November 29th the AP ran the story “Got something to share? Try a Wikipedia.” "Some Wikipedia readers recently tried to test the site's credibility by introducing errors on purpose. And some contributors have attempted to impose their personal viewpoints; an article on abortion was briefly replaced by "murder" written 143 times."

"That's why contributors police Wikipedia. All changes are recorded, so reversions are easy. Though vandals aren't easily banished - they can reconnect anonymously from another computer - a single troublemaker cannot keep up with 100 users set on preserving the community. "

To read more about wikipedia and wikinews in the press see the 90 articles currently listed on google news.