爱华网And now they’ve bailed out Wales（注2）
而现在众人帮忙，Wales先生“保释”了
IT MAY not stir up international outrage like its semi-namesake WikiLeaks, but Wikipedia sparks debate. The free online encyclopedia, which celebrates its tenth birthday on January 15th, is a symbol of unpaid collaboration and one of the most popular destinations on the internet, attracting some 400m visitors a month. It also faces serious charges of elitism.
维基百科跟维基解密半同名，它虽未像后者那般触怒全球，却引发了争论。这部免费在线百科全书，将于1月15日庆祝十周岁生日，它是无偿协作的象征，还是互联网最热门站点之一，每月吸引4亿人到访。而它，也面临着精英主义的严厉指控。
Wikipedia offers more than 17m articles in 270 languages. Every day thousands of people edit entries or add new ones in return for nothing more than the satisfaction of contributing to the stock of human knowledge. Wikipedia relies on its users’ generosity to fill its coffers as well as its pages. Recent visitors to the website were confronted with images of Jimmy Wales, a co-founder (pictured), and a request for donations. The campaign was annoying but effective, raising $16m in 50 days.
维基百科提供的条目超过了1700万，涵盖270种语言。每天都有成千上万的人，编辑旧条目添加新条目，报答无非是一种为人类知识库添砖加瓦的满足感。维基百科依靠用户卖力填充网页，也依赖其慷慨捐资。用户近来访问该网站，会跟创办人Jimmy Wales的照片（如图）打个照面，并碰到一则捐款请求。活动烦人，但很有效，50天就筹到了1600万美元。
With its emphasis on bottom-up collaboration and the broad dissemination of knowledge, the online encyclopedia is in many ways an incarnation of the fundamental values of the web. But Wikipedia also reveals some of the pitfalls of the increasingly popular “crowdsourcing” model of content creation. One is maintaining accuracy. On the whole, Wikipedia’s system of peer reviewing does a reasonable job of policing facts. But it is vulnerable to vandalism. Several politicians and TV personalities have had their deaths announced on Wikipedia while they were still in fine fettle.
这部在线百科全书强调自下而上的协作，重视知识广泛传播，在诸多方面，体现了互联网的基本价值。不过，维基百科也暴露出日益流行的内容创建“众包”模式的一些缺陷。其中之一，是确保准确性。总体而言，维基百科的互相审查体系，在条目真实性监管方面差强人意。但它容易为故意捣乱所伤。好几位政界名人跟电视明星，就曾在维基百科上宣布自己翘了辫子，尽管他们仍生龙活虎。
Some observers argue the site should start paying expert editors to produce and oversee content, and sell advertising to cover the cost. Problems with accuracy “are an inevitable consequence of a free-labour approach”, argues Alex Konanykhin of WikiExperts, which advises organisations on how to create Wikipedia articles. (The very existence of such outfits hints at Wikipedia’s importance, as well as its susceptibility to outside influence.) The encyclopedia’s bosses retort that such concerns are overblown and that taking advertising would dent its appeal to users.
一些观察家表示，维基百科应开始向制作并监管内容的专家编辑们支付报酬，开销用广告费支出。准确性问题“是无偿劳力方式必然会产生的结果”，“维基专家”小组的Alex Konanykhin如此表示，该小组的任务就是建议各种组织如何创建维基文章。（正是这些组织的存在，暗示维基百科十分重要，也反映其极易遭受外部影响。）这部在线百科全书的老板们反驳说，上述种种担忧夸大其实了，并且，承接广告也会削弱网站对用户的吸引力。
That still leaves the site with another, bigger, headache in the form of declining engagement. The number of regular contributors to Wikipedia’s English-language encyclopedia dropped from around 54,000 at its peak in March 2007 to some 35,000 in September 2010. A similar trend has been visible in some foreign-language versions of the encyclopedia.
用户参与度日益下降是另一个问题，更令其大为头痛。维基英语百科全书的固定编撰人数，已从2007年3月巅峰时期的约5万4千人，降至2010年9月的约3万5千人。而某些外语版百科全书也显现出类似趋势。
Wikipedia’s leaders say this reflects the fact that the large majority of subjects have now been written about. Perhaps, but some evidence suggests that neophytes are being put off by Wikipedia’s clique of elite editors. One study by researchers at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre looked at the number of times editorial changes were subsequently reversed. It found that roughly a quarter of the edits posted by occasional contributors were undone in late 2008, compared with less than 2% of those posted by the most active editors. And it noted that this gap had widened considerably over time.
维基百科领导人称，这反映了一个事实，那就是绝大多数条目主题现在已编撰过了。事情或许如此。但某些证据显示，维基百科的精英编辑圈子正在排斥新手。施乐帕洛•阿尔托研究中心所作的一项研究，着眼于维基百科上编辑性修改后来被改回的次数。该研究发现，2008年底，那些不常来的编撰者发布的条目，大致有四分之一被改回了，相比之下，由最积极的编撰者发布的条目，则只有不到2%被推翻。且该研究还注意到，这一差距随时间推移，急剧扩大。
Mr Wales dismisses the notion of a clique as “silly”. Sue Gardner, the head of the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation that operates Wikipedia, notes that people have reason to be protective about high-quality content. Still, the organisation seems concerned. Ms Gardner wants to learn from sites such as Yelp and Facebook that are good at encouraging users to contribute. She hints that in future, contributors whose changes are undone may receive a message urging them to remain active on the site. Time, perhaps, to consult Wikipedia’s entry on motivation—though it turns out to be one of the articles flagged as needing expert attention.
对维基百科存在精英圈子一说，Wales先生嗤之以鼻，认为“荒谬可笑”。Sue Gardner是运作维基百科的非盈利组织Wikimedia Foundation的领导人，她注意到，人们理应确保内容高质量。但即便如此，该组织仍貌似忧心忡忡。Yelp及Facebook之类的网站擅长鼓励用户贡献内容，Gardner女士想跟它们取经。她暗示在未来，那些条目修改被推翻的编撰者，可能会收到维基百科发的一条短信，敦促其积极上该网站编撰词条。或许，是时候请教一下维基百科“动力”一词的词条了——不过查到的结果，只是标记为需要专家关注的众多条目之一罢了。
注1：Wikipleadia
该词脱胎于Wikipedia，即“维基百科”，形音相近，是一种文字游戏。这里的pleadia相当于plead，意思是“借口；为...辩护；托称”，理由源自1、The encyclopedia’s bosses retort that such concerns are overblown and that taking advertising would dent its appeal to users.2、Wikipedia’s leaders say this reflects the fact that the large majority of subjects have now been written about.3、Mr Wales dismisses the notion of a clique as “silly”.等等句子，表示维基百科引发了一些争议，而其领导人为之百般辩护。字里行间，本文作者对这些辩护之词，似并不赞同，语带讥诮。
因此，综合上述分析，再考虑到标题的机巧，将之翻译为“维基百辩”。
注2：And now they’ve bailed out Wales
译为：而现在众人帮忙，Wales先生“保释”了
bail out的意思有：帮助摆脱困境；保释；纾困等。考虑到本文提到维基百科出现种种危机，引发争论，而其领导人不停为其辩护，形同上庭，另从这一句Recent visitors to the website were confronted with images of Jimmy Wales, a co-founder (pictured), and a request for donations. The campaign was annoying but effective, raising $16m in 50 days.可以看出，crowdsourcing content（也就是本句中的they）的提供者用捐资帮助Wales先生暂时摆脱了困境，也就相当于“保释”了，体现了TE一以贯之的幽默俏皮。
