News In Brief - Wikimania Attendees Take Over Event

Wikimania Conference Ends Abruptly In Cacophonous Chaos

First Speaker Drowned Out By Attendees With Edits, Footnotes and Sub-Categories

With over 400 paid attendees, dozens of speakers, panels and workshops, the Second Annual Wikimania Conference, held this past weekend at the Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, looked to be like any other conference, on any other day in any other city.

Anything but.

Less then four paragraphs in his opening, welcome address, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was interrupted by an attendee, looking to edit and amend his remarks.

This served as a veritable green light, as more attendees rose up, shouting out their own edits, footnotes and sub-categories to Wales’ speech, and to the comments of the other attendees. Within minutes, the entire conference room was engulfed in a din of cacophonous voices

Many of the comments initially focused on the history of the welcome speech, with edits and sub-categories being yelled out, on other famous and infamous welcome speeches.

Some attendees soon produced their own projectors and began screening their own photographs, charts and graphs behind Wales, as well as pulling the images up on laptop computers, cell phones and other PDA devices.

Wales and the organizers of the conference soon abandoned the room, as scheduled speakers began engaging the attendees directly. Small groups formed around the room, and exchanges began among the various groups, agreeing or disagreeing on the edits and additions being made.

A small group remained out of the fray, busily typing into Wikipedia the account of what was happening at the conference, as well as others blogging the event in real-time.

Wikipedia has become the ubiquitous online encyclopedia that is open to anyone to make additions and edits, but with a devoted and dedicated group of individuals who oversee and maintain the site.

What may have contributed to the problem with the conference was, just last week, Stephen Colbert, from Comedy Central’s ‘Colbert Report” edited his own entry in Wikipedia, “Stephen Colbert” live, on his program

Ironically, included in Mr. Wales’ opening remarks, was a passage about security, and keeping the site accurate.

“That could mean,” Wales told The New York Times, “quality control — making sure the information is accurate — and it could mean a clearer presentation, or more information.” The emphasis going forward, Wales said, would be on quality, not quantity

According to The New York Times, a survey in the science journal Nature found four errors in Wikipedia for every three in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

When reached later in the day, Wales admitted that it was “chaotic” and that “next year, we’ll have to do a better job at laying down some rules and decorum. I’m not sure many of these people understood the difference between the conference and the site.”

Many of the comments initially focused on the history of the welcome speech, with edits and sub-categories being yelled out, on other famous and infamous welcome speeches