You heard it from CGD first. Or would have, if you had been among the more than 200 people in the standing-room-only crowd that showed up to hear Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, discuss the giant free encyclopedia and development last week. During his talk (sponsored by CGD, Brookings and Forum One, and nicely summarized by Chris Wolz on Forum One's INfluence blog), Jimmy said that Wikipedia was planning to tighten controls on who could create an article, in order to address concerns about incorrect information.Sure enough, this week the announcement became official, as reported in Wired and dozens of other news outlets. Demand for tighter standards was fueled by an article in USA Today by John Seigenthaler Sr., a one-time assistant to Robert Kennedy, complaining about errors in his Wikipedia biography. Jimmy also said that China was blocking Wikipedia. This may help to explain why the China Daily, Beijing’s official English-language newspaper, ran Seigenthaler’s searing critique which concludes:
When I was a child, my mother lectured me on the evils of "gossip." She held a feather pillow and said, "If I tear this open, the feathers will fly to the four winds, and I could never get them back in the pillow. That's how it is when you spread mean things about people."For me, that pillow is a metaphor for Wikipedia.
So, what’s all this got to do with development? Plenty. Despite these teething pains, the incredible success of Wikipedia suggests that Wiki-like ways of creating and sharing knowledge could have far reaching implications for global poverty reduction. Over lunch at CGD after his talk, Jimmy heard suggestions from some 20 development and communications experts about ways to make Wikipedia a more effective development tool. One idea he said he had never heard before came from the World Bank’s Pierre Wielezynski: tap Wikipedia’s vast but unexplored revenue potential in order to buy $100 laptops for poor people in developing countries. For our part, we at CGD are looking into the possibilities of a Wiki-based development textbook.
CGD blog posts reflect the views of the authors, drawing on prior research and experience in their areas of expertise.
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