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SvD's review of Swedish online encyklopedias

On March 30, 2006, the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) published a comparative review of three different online encyklopedias: Nationalencyklopedin, The Swedish language instance of Wikipedia and Susning. SvD used nine experts to review and rank nine different articles within their fields of expertise.

Nationalencyklopedin (NE) is the largest regular Swedish encyklopedia. The articles are written by field experts and reviewed by NE's editorial staff. The online version reviewed is a pay service. Wikipedia is a wiki-based online encyklopedia available in 200 different languages and maintained by its users. Susning is also wiki-based, but not any longer open for the public to edit, due to vandalism. It is since April 2004 maintained by a number of already registered enthusiasts.

Nine article subjects were chosen for the study: Stella McCartney, Scientologi (Scientology), Slobodan Milosevic, Bear Quartet, Kubism (Cubism), Flykting (Refugee), Dokusåpa (Reality show), Muhammedteckningarna (Mohammed cartoons) and Homeros (Homer). The articles were ranked by the expert on the subject from 1 to 3, where 1 was the best.

The results can be seen in the table below, where the numbers show the number of times the encyklopedia has been given the ranking of that column:

Encyklopedia	1st	2nd	3rd
Nationalencyklopedin	6	1	2
Wikipedia	3	6	0
Susning.nu	0	2	7

NE is generally the highest ranked, due to its higher degree of objectivity but it lacks information on recent happenings and pop culture. Wikipedia holds a high standard and is surprisingly well updated, but does not always cover all important details and also has some errorounus information. Susning is hardly comparable to the others, it lacks objectivity and does not cover recent events as good as Wikipedia.

Another aspect of the test was to inject errorounus information into the Wikipedia to analyse how quickly it would be corrected by its users. SvD added information about two fictive authors and also put false information about their own newspaper in the article on Svenska Dagbladet. Both authors were deleted within three days, but the false information about the newspaper were left unmodified after two weeks.

Discussion
What does this kind of news research show us about collaborative material on the Internet? First of all, there exists a lot of critism on the second part of the evaluation. To alter information in the way the reporters did is by many seen as a form of sabotage. Stefan Rimm asks on his blog (translated from Swedish): "in what other area sabotage is accepted as a method of journalism?" (Loci.se) arguing that it would not be seen as good journalism to hide library books or pull the emergency brake on a train, just to see if it stops. His point is that this reflect a lot of peoples view on Wikipedia and similaronline sources. They are places where you can do that kind of things because it is possible, forgetting about the people actually using this kind of information sources in their daily life. Although it is unenethical to perform this kind of information disturbance experiments, we can never prevent them from being done. Others have done it earlier, like Alexander Halavais and his Isuzu experiment, and others will do it in the future. It lies in the Wiki concept itself that it can be done and it will be done, but it will also sooner or later be undone.

On another blog, Suburbia, the writer is critic to that the reporters are not only comparing the content of the encyklopedias but also the different technical platforms, pointing out that it is a bigger problem that errors can not be immediately fixed in the NE than that anyone can alter Wikipedia. Regardless of the source, you should always read with a critical eye.

Web links

Alex Halavais - The Isuzu Experiment. August 29, 2004. http://alex.halavais.net/news/index.php?p=794

Loci.se - Stefan Rimms blog. SvD, Wikipedia och sabotage som journalistisk metod. (March 30, 2006). http://loci.se/2006/03/30/svd-wikipedia-och-sabotage-som-journalistisk-metod/

Nationalencyklopedin. (May 8, 2006). http://www.ne.se/

Suburbia - SvD och Wikipedia. (March 31, 2006).

Susning.nu. (May 8, 2006). http://susning.nu/

Svenska Dagbladet. Gratis nätlexikon får bra betyg. March 30, 2006. http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/kultur/did_12245366.asp

Svenska Dagbladet. Experterna föredrar NE. March 30, 2006. http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/kultur/did_12245317.asp

Svenska Wikipedia. (May 8, 2006). http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huvudsida

posted by Jimmyroq @ 01:03