Organisational challenges as Wikipedia grows

Wikipedia's awkward adolescence - Several incidents in the past have caused speculation that Wikipedia has an informal inner circle consisting of administrators, outside of which edits might not survive very long. The wider issue at hand is that Wikipedia's governance structure is at a cross-roads - between that of a digital experiment and that of its "broader ambitions". In Wikipedia's favour is its transparency, where every article maintains a history and edit comments, but that has not prevented others from proposing sites that store text that has been rejected from Wikipedia, to enforce greater accountability. A problem that Wikipedia has to deal with is its use of jargon; following along the lines of the Simple English Wikipedia, perhaps Wikipedia could move towards explaining decisions in plain English.

Blogs vs. New York Times bet ends with Wikipedia declared winner

Long Bet Winner: Weblogs vs. The New York Times - Rogers Cadenhead, reviewing a " long bet" made five years ago by Dave Winer and Martin Nisenholtz, concluded that while weblogs edged the New York Times in getting news-related entries ranked on the Google search engine, Wikipedia was solidly ahead of both. Using keyword phrases from the top five news stories for the year, as chosen by the Associated Press, Cadenhead compared the top-ranked blog entry against the highest-placed story from the Times website. He found that Wikipedia articles appeared before either one for four of the five stories. The one story for which Wikipedia didn't win, the current mortgage crisis, it had the fourth overall entry on Google, but the Times placed first; this was the only story for which either the Times or a blog had the top overall result, whereas Wikipedia had the top result twice, for Iraq war and Virginia Tech killings.

Wikipedian invited to Israel

Your wiki entry counts - David Shankbone, a Wikinews editor, went to Israel at the invitation of the Foreign Ministry, to offer him a first-hand look at the country. He was with a dozen or so American journalists who were invited in the hope of reversing a "one-dimensional view of Israel" that is said to persist through the narratives told by the media; the visit was said to be useful because Wikipedia editors aim to present a neutral, world view in articles. Shankbone defends Wikipedia by comparing it to a bulletin board, which merely hosts the information, and implores users to consider more than one source of information, even though Wikipedia is a useful starting point.

Other mentions

Other recent mentions in the online press include:

• The random endorsement: Wikipedia - A blogger endorses Wikipedia, after it helps him with his study to the extent that "Wikipedia has replaced Google in my life"
• Wikipedia: No Place for PR - Those who were formerly the audience are now producers of content too; others might end up writing about your company on Wikipedia, but beware the conflict of interest rules if you decide to contribute.
• Ex-Wikipedia COO Has Record - (see archived story) The case of Wikimedia's former COO continues to receive press coverage; new applicants now undergo background checks.
• Truth, anonymity and the Wikipedia Way - There is a contradiction between the anonymity of editors on Wikipedia, and the guidelines against editing with a conflict of interest.