'Open Source Content' Has No Quality Control
The flap over the man who spoofed the Wikipedia with a bogus entry claiming a journalist was involved in both Kennedy assassinations and spent 13 years living in the Soviet Union is a powerful indictment of what I'm calling "open source" content.
There is a stupid notion going around that the news media would be better off if anyone and everyone got to make a contribution to it. Blogs and podcasts are examples of this and reader-generated electronic "newspapers" are beginning to spring up. People who should know better see this as democratizing the flow of news and information.
It may do that, but it also makes quality control very difficult. Unlike an open source application, which may have many contributors, but in the end either works or doesn't work.
Full Story.
In other Wikipedia News:
The online encyclopaedia Wikipedia is often referred to as an open source project because it is written, edited and policed by a global group of volunteers.
However, the open source label doesn't really fit Wikipedia. Free-for-all, in fact, may be a better match.
Open source, at least the way it's been used in tech circles over the years, usually connotes successful, volunteer projects like the Linux operating system, which has strict controls and is monitored by a handful of people who make the call on what is handed over to the public.
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