By the way, “What is WikiPedia?” Never been there and after reading this I probably never will visit. Lastly……how many angels really do dance on the head of a pin? Fact, fiction, truth or lies…..ain’t it a riot. WAY too heavy for my lil brain.

And any endeavor of Microsoft contacting them to stress the urgent need in particpating to balance the issue……means rumours would have been generated out of thin air and blown way out of proportion - that Microsoft tried to intimidate or put pressure on Wikipedia.

The problem is that also no matter MicroSoft did or did NOT choose to do - they would have been critcized by someone

I attempted a trackback ping to this post which I don’t see right now. Anyway, I have written a post about this in the form of a reply to Dare’s original post.

Summary: Wikipedia is a bit of an acquired taste, but there is an underlying wisdom that plays out (sometime a little slower than desired) en route to preserving the facts.

I have experienced the good, bad, and ugly with Wikipedia (as detailed in my post) while continuing to believe it delivers far more good than bad.

Our industry is littered with lots of deliberate misinformation which typically takes the form of marketing and corporate communications. Larger companies have dominated this part of the game for years, and Wikipedia is flipping this mode of operation on its head - one of many Web and Internet driven inflections.

Microsoft simply needs to edit and debate it’s way to defending its position. That’s what the Talk pages are all about.

This is what Citizendium is trying to address although it remains to be seen how successful they can be.

1. The objectivity of Wikipedia articles.

However, given that anyone has the opportunity to edit almost any article (a small number are locked due to their controversial nature), the resulting article is at least going to end up presenting several sides of ‘the story’. In fact, the success and superiority of Wikipedia’s approach has forced Encyclopedia Britannica to now accept open requests for reviews or changes to EB articles.

2. The ongoing sales and profitability of Microsoft’s major business unit, and one that pulls along lots of associated Microsoft products, is under real competitive pressure for the first time ever.

The risk to Microsoft amounts to tens of billions of dollars of potential lost profit. Microsoft’ s ongoing dirty tactics, already well documented at investigative sites such as Groklaw.net, are simply to be expected, given that Microsoft continues to use the same self-serving tactics it has been employing for more than twenty years.

With tens of billions of dollars of annual profit at stake in the ODF v OOXML struggle, nobody should be surprised at the lengths to which Microsoft will go to kill competition.

What we’re witnessing is the fundamental bias of the opensource community and the institutions they hold so dear. There better be some fundamental changes in governance over this stuff or there cannot be any trust. Intellectual freedom necessarily means ideas cannot be suppressed, even when they come from sources (such as Microsoft) that the “community” doesn’t agree with.

Until these “community” run institutions support other ideas and broader contributions, nobody will believe the “information” in Wikipedia. If that’s the case, one must then ask, what’s the point of its existence?

When the Wikipedia incident blew up, Mr. Mahugh was at least man enough to own up that he alone (gasp!) contacted the Australian guy. But Microsoft still has guys like Alfred Thompson, an admitted gun-loving ring-winger, who has been using every opportunity to preach his Republican-tilted messages, and Microsoft leadership has to pray that Mr. Thompson does not cause another embarrassment for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W....._all_rules

I don’t understand why people are saying they couldn’t update information about their own technology.

Is the problem here that OOXML sucks? I know nothing about it but what I gather from this is that Microsoft was hiring someone to specifically do this for them. Paying someone to do this work would be the same as someone internal doing this for them. Money is money.. people are people.. employed or not. Doesn’t matter.

But if Microsoft felt so strongly about their viewpoint.. they should have just changed it.. and been a MEMBER of the community..

I read some articles about them saying that Wiki was just a fad and it will pass.. Why would someone wish or say that about a great community achievement?

Just dogging the opposition as usual.. and THAT is what makes me mad at Microsoft.

There actions pale in comparison to your own Wikipedia alterations.

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t through stones.

Nick Carr put it well today when he said: “It seems like we’re getting to the point where anyone who has gained deep enough knowledge of a subject to have developed a point of view on it will be unwelcome to edit Wikipedia.”

I completely agree; however, I’d like to add that “anyone who has gained any knowledge of a subject is generally unwelcome to edit Wikipedia.” I was a frequent editor until last year, and probably one of those gatekeepers PJC mentions. I created one of the most popular templates whose quality has diminished over time due to an incredible degree of bloat. Being a gatekeeper [of quality] is hard, actual work; unfortunately, this work is unpaid and anyone performing this work is reviled. There’s no sense in contributing to a project whose community of volunteers does not want you to contribute.

On reading the original entry , I believed (and still do) that there is nothing wrong with this.

a) Rick has flagged in a very public forum that he has been made and accepted the it.
b) Rick also was very clear that he was being paid for his time, not to alter his opinions. He would continue to express himself as professionally as possible.

But anyone that has ever tried to edit anything in Wikipedia knows that the content is guarded ferociously by a handful of gatekeepers. It is NOT the true, open democratic encyclopedia that the general public has this romantic notion of.

I admire what Wikipedia is trying to accomplish, but I know of many more companies that have been bitten by the same thing Microsoft is now being publicly flogged for…trying to change something that is percieved as inaccurate only to be stonewalled by the gatekeepers. The problem with Wikipedia’s approach is that each subject only has one (collective) point of view and very few things in life are that simple.

I agree with this comment - “It’s all tricky, you know” Jimmy Wales.
(http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Jan24/0,4670,WikipediaPaidEntries,00.html)

Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer - Rick Jelliffe, who is chief technical officer of Sydney computing company Topologi, based in Pyrmont
http://www.smh.com.au/news/web.....ntentSwap1

A coincidence is that there is a large IBM office here in Pyrmont aswell.

-=- Jason

htttp://www.tekno-world.blogspot.com

“I agree this is now more straightforward.

I still find it strange, however, that this article uses specific qualifications such as “Microsoft maintains” and “Microsoft has stated,” whereas the Wikipedia entry on OpenDocument uses general language such as “some argue” and doesn’t ever say whose opinion is being expressed in phrases such as “intended to provide an open alternative” or “without any implementation barriers.”

Why is the Open XML entry full of qualifications and attributions, while the OpenDocument entry presents similar types of information as fact without saying whose opinion is being expressed? I’m with Microsoft, so if I were to change anything in the OpenDocument entry I’m sure some would feel that’s inappropriate, but the lack of consistency in editorial style is pretty striking and seems to reflect a strong pro-Sun/anti-Microsoft sentiment. Hardly encyclopedic, in my opinion.

- Doug Mahugh, Microsoft131.107.0.103 17:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC) ”

If you can find any others, please let me know. Some of the other comments may be microsoft people without attribution, or even with (there are thousands of comments).