Truth & Truthiness
Nov 9 - by Aleida
I finally managed to wrap up my research paper about Wikipedia and since I’ve been living & breathing Wikipedia for some time now, I thought let’s continue to muse a bit. I watched the documentary above a long time ago, but I got so interested in it I grabbed the chance to write about Wikipedia for my bachelor seminar Mondial Communication & Information Society. Even though the documentary focuses a lot on aspects of Web 2.0 and the difference between the expert versus the amateur (democracy) I focused mostly on the reliability of the information on Wikipedia.
The Concept
As you might already know Wikipedia is a free accessible online encyclopedia. Wikipedia is seen as an example of Web 2.0 because it’s the user who builds the online encyclopedia. But Wikipedia’s editors can work on Wikipedia using a pseudonym and credentials or academic titles are not recognized. Anonymous editors are a big problem for critics of Wikipedia because they can’t see who is an expert or an amateur. Interestingly enough most critics keep on repeating the problem of anonymous editors and vandalism on Wikipedia. Even though Wikipedia has some important guidelines such as using a reference (citation), the information has to be neutral and no own research may be published on Wikipedia – critics still don’t like Wikipedia.
Researching Reliability
With more than three milion English articles on Wikipedia and all the other articles in various languages it’s easy to conclude researching Wikipedia’s articles by comparing it with other resources such as Encyclopaedia Brittanica is pretty hard. The research that has been done does show Wikipedia is not as accurate as more authoritative sources. Wikipedia does contain articles with a decent level of information which is valuable to people who use Wikipedia. Unfortunately the comparative researches are done on a very small scale e.g. compare 106 articles on Wikipedia with other sources. So even after this empiric research, it’s pretty hard to say anything about Wikipedia. Maybe that’s why most critics just focus on taking down the concept of Wikipedia. I still think it’s important to do more comparative research instead of just bashing the concept of Wikipedia.
Be Critical
Still, being critical about the concept of Wikipedia is good because it makes you read the information with more awareness. In the end it’s important to always question the things you are reading on Wikipedia AND other sources. Remember, even Encyclopaedia Brittanica is not a full 100 procent accurate! Knowledge grows and it can change. But I might be biased being a university student and all. Still, I don’t think it’s fair to think Wikipedia is bad just because of editors using a pseudonym. If Wikipedia accumulates knowledge and thus using other sources, we should also be critical of those sources. When (young) students learn to always think critically Wikipedia is not a dangerous place for so called simple minds.
Please note
Feel free to contact me if you need articles about Wikipedia. I can give you the titles of some interesting reads. If my paper receives a decent grade I will consider sharing it on RENOVATIO lucis :D
