Getting the Facts Straight

I am a Wikipedia apologist. Thus, I feel honor-bound to defend the user-edited encyclopedia against at least some of the criticisms of Jaron Lanier. However, due to length and time restrictions, I will start simply by investigating his factual claims about Wikipedia and correcting misleading statements. Discussing the greater implications of digital Maoism will have to wait.

In the opening paragraph, Mr. Lanier complains that Wikipedia identifies him as a filmmaker. This is much ado about nothing, if you’ll excuse the cliché. It is true that the article’s first describes him as, “an artist, musician, inventor, virtual reality developer, film director, public speaker, and member of the Global Business Network.” Filmmaking is not mentioned again. Mr. Lanier’s attempt at making a short film may have been to minor to be included about the list, but this seems more like a small error in judgment that the catastrophe he makes it out to be. Mr. Lanier should at least be happy he has a Wikipedia article. As far as I can tell, Britannica online has no page on Mr. Lanier, and his name only appears twice on other pages. In contrast, Mr. Lanier’s Wikipedia currently article spans 450 words (800 including links and sources) and contains over 20 incoming links from other articles mentioning him.

Mr. Lanier’s more pointed claim is a clueless collective constantly reverted re-added the word “filmmaker” whenever he tried to delete it. Fortunately, Wikipedia records all changes made to articles, and the edit history tells a more complete story, which I will investigate in detail.

(see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jaron_Lanier&diff=53931333&oldid=53617698)

On May 18, 2006, user identified only as IP address 65.37.147.131 deleted the entire text of the article “Jaron Lanier” and replaced it with a poorly formatted copy of the biography on his website. The actual text was preceded with a caustic, capitalization-deprived explanation signed “thanks, a pissed-off jaron lanier”.

Let’s count how many things Mr. Lanier did wrong:

1) Deleting and replacing article, instead of modifying existing material or discussing such a drastic change with other editors

2) Failing to add links from the article to relevant Wikipedia pages

3) Taking an entire article from a single source, instead of compiling it from multiple sources

4) Using a firsthand, non-encyclopedic source as the main source

5) Taking the entire text from his web biography without giving a source.

6) Adding a justification to the article instead of to the discussion page.

Three other factors contributed to Mr. Lanier’s changes being reverted

1) Editing anonymously from an IP address rather than getting a free account, a process that only involves specifying a login address an a password.

2) Not giving any proof that he is Jaron Lanier.

3) Not using capitalization and using phrases such “pissed-off”, contrary to what someone of his caliber would be expected to write

Deleting entire articles, copying unsourced material, editing anonymously, claiming to be famous personages, and using poor grammar are hallmarks of malicious vandals. Thus, it is easy to understand why Mr. Lanier might have been misinterpreted as such.

Furthermore, without permission or even citation, the text copied from Mr. Lanier’s website was potentially both plagiarism and copyright violation. Even though it was his own text, from a legal standpoint, Wikipedia had no written permission to use the text and there was no proof that the anonymous editor who claimed that he was “jaron lanier” after his message was the person he claimed to be. Jaron Lanier would have to give written permission for a substantial amount of his text to be used in the article, although paraphrasing and using small, relevant quotes from the text would be preferred. Thus, vandalism issues aside, the text was on legally shady ground, making a reversion all the more reasonable.

The editor who reverted Mr. Lanier’s changes should have attempted to confirm the editor’s identity and explained to him why his edits were not accepted. However, the editor made a reasonable choice to revert an edit that did not add to the article, contradicted policy on copyright, and bore a remarkable similarity to vandalism. Had Mr. Lanier taken fifteen minutes to learn the editing process, he could have deleted the word “filmmaker” and made any reasonable modifications to his biography without any problems. It seems that at least part of what he blames on Wikipedia’s “hive mind” and Maoist attitude can be attributed to his own cluelessness about the project. I do not dispute that the fact that groupthink and truth by consensus are problems on Wikipedia. However, I question how without the understanding of how the collective editing process actually works, or the willingness to find out how, can be qualified to criticize the way information conglomerates in the project.

As a side note, after poring through Wikipedia revisions, I noticed a sentence (unfortunately lacking form the current revision) stating that Mr. Lanier writes a column titled “Jaron’s World” in Discover Magazine. My family subscribed to Discover until sweeping editorial changes dumbed down the formerly solid science into a heap of sensationalist speculation and cool-sounding lingo. I particularly disliked two new feature columns, one of which was “Jaron’s World”. I remember my frustration with the column. I wondered how someone could stuff so many non-sequiturs and baseless assertions into two pages of allotted space – it may have been material for a newspaper editorial, but not a science magazine. How pleasant it is to know that two writers I have grudges against are one and the same.