circular editing

Indeed, it appears that not only high school kids find Wikipedia totally irresistible. A Slashdot reader wrote that the German press recently published this pretty dandelion:

The name of Germany's new minister of economic affairs is Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. Before he was appointed, someone added the name "Wilhelm" to his name in the Wikipedia entry - perhaps just to screw with the public. Besides, with a name that long, who would notice? Well, certainly not the German press who picked up on and published the false entry. When Wikipedia editors asked for proof of the name "Wilhelm," the published articles with the false entry were used as proof.

Sounds like a case of circular editing. And since this is probably very confusing, here's a little illustration I did to show how this worked.

At the Silicon Flatirons Conference last weekend, a cyberlaw professor Eric Goldman who loves Wikipedia talked of its inevitable self-destruction. He says that Wikipedia cannot be both high-quality and open to the public to edit. It has to choose one or the other.

I'm not so sure I agree. I believe that our widespread access to knowledge today presents us with an even greater opportunity to see all sides of a story, to question "facts", to think critically and self-edit. The web has given rise to a collective intelligence and this natural group integrity leads to high-quality work. Call me an idealist, but I do believe in the organic filtering of information.

What do you think?