A very happy launch week to WikiFactCheck, the work of Andrew Lih, UCSC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism professor and pundit on All Things Wiki (he wrote The Wikipedia Revolution: How a bunch of nobodies created the world’s greatest encyclopedia). I appreciate the way in which Lih positions this project as an open model “for brainstorming and prototyping how a WikiFactCheck project could provide rapid, crowd-sourced fact checking of news events,” relying on community editorial efforts for the moderation of accuracy in real time. Though in its very nascent stages, the project—or its creator, rather—is entirely self-aware: while would-be authors are obviously encouraged to sign up, log on, and edit away, pages filed under “Topics of Interest” initiate the user to a broader conversation surrounding wiki-ness by linking to existing web-based fact-checking efforts, luminaries in the field, technical implications, and best practices; though still stubs, these pages are certainly a start. And a strategically launched one, at that, given recent developments in Wikiland.
Another favorite wiki-based initiative of mine: The 2010 Whitney Biennial Artist Wiki Project, a digital petri dish wherein we offered each artist their very own page on the Museum’s site, whitney.org, which was built using a collaborative, wiki-based model. Best in show there, in my opinion, was Kerry Tribe’s page, which gave the back story on her Biennial film, H.M. (2009). I’m currently rallying support to extend this project into the future, and hope to offer every living artist that shows at the Whitney a page on the site. Wikis for all!
