Wikipedians are disagreeable trolls (and ugly with it)
Francis Sedgemore, Saturday 10 January 2009
The last bit of the title is journalistic licence, but “disagreeable trolls” is a reasonable paraphrasing of the way in which a team of Israeli researchers describe those strange creatures who contribute to an online encyclopaedia which provides endlessly recyclable material for jaded TV comedians and other broadcast nonentities.
Social psychologist Yair Amichai-Hamburger and his colleagues at the Sammy Ofer School of Communication in Herzliya gave a personality test to 69 wikifolk, and, just as the researchers expected, the results show that these guardians of the wikibits are more comfortable in cyberspace than the real world. They also score low for “agreeableness” and “openness to new ideas”. Amichai-Hamburger speculates that wikipedians prefer living online as they struggle to express themselves in social situations.
My use of Wikipedia is limited mostly to science, and in my professional writing I have frequently recommended Wikipedia pages as reliable and informative introductions to complex science and engineering topics. I have never contributed to the Wikipedia website itself, but I have in the past had an interest in projects aimed at specialist groups which are based on the wiki framework. The technology is particularly suitable for textbooks where the material must be updated often in response to research advances.
Wikipedia can be a very useful resource. But should one instinctively trust technical information published in book form over that posted online? With learned journals increasingly going online, and drafts of research papers published and openly reviewed on sites such as arxiv.org, the answer in the case of science at least must be no.
Useful though the online encyclopaedia may be, those who immerse themselves in wikidom should, for the sake of their sanity and personal growth, ensure that they get out and engage with the world they write about and textually iterate at often interminable length.
Feed the writer! 
Saturday 10 January 2009 at 04:19 GMT
I’d like to see from where Amichai-Hamburger and his colleagues gleaned their huge sample of 69 wikifolk. Surely “just as the researchers expected” never bodes well in a scientific study!
Saturday 10 January 2009 at 04:47 GMT
That’s a good question, Gadj. If Amichai-Hamburger and his chums only sampled Wiki editors responsible for celebrity biographies, for example, the results would be seriously skewed. Without special pleading I don’t have access to the journal paper, so obscure is the Journal of CyberPsychology & Behavior.
It doesn’t take much trawling through the page histories of Wikipedia entries before one loses the will to live. But personally I couldn’t give a monkey’s fart; this story was a good excuse for me to comment about the positive aspects of Wikipedia as they apply to the dissemination of scientific information.
Saturday 10 January 2009 at 08:24 GMT
Balanced comment, Francis. Some of my academic colleagues go absolutely over the top with students who use wikipedia, often on grounds which when examined are fairly, if not completely, spurious. There is actually some interesting stuff on wikipedia, sometimes with involvement from people who really know what they are talking about. (The entry on Cornelius Castoriadis includes, if memory serves, input from Brits who knew him in the 1950s.)
Saturday 10 January 2009 at 11:39 GMT
I saw this report, and the image of The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy sprung to mind.
I’m impressed by how good Wikipedia is, given how bad it ought to be. Its quirks delight: the way that serious articles on military/political leaders have a line about which computer games they feature in; the Aspergerian detail on sci-fi entries; the Pooteresque tone and occasional surrealism.
An earlier version of the article on Maldives President Mohamed Amin Didi contained the passage:
“Before his death he Forgave every Maldivian except Mudhimu salih and Mudhimu Dhon thuthu,the two brothers who harmed his genitals”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohamed_Amin_Didi&oldid=248530346
They should have kept that in. It gives the measure of the man.
Saturday 10 January 2009 at 15:57 GMT
Talking of Aspergers, I have comment to make soon about someone who has this syndrome. He’s a remarkable individual, and I don’t think he spends his time editing Wikipedia entries on sci-fi.