Wikipedia wins Princess of Asturias Foundation Award
I’m a long-standing admirer and staunch advocate of Wikipedia. I regularly donate money to the project — and believe all of us who use it should take the opportunity to do so when we can. What’s more, I am always telling my students and anybody else who’ll listen about the impressive scale of the work undertaken over the last two decades to create what is without doubts the most complete and up-to-date encyclopedia ever, and how open systems are superior to closed ones like what Britannica or Encarta used to be. And while I’m at it, can we please lay to rest that old chestnut about not using Wikipedia because “anybody can edit it, and so it cannot be trusted”? Any number of irresponsible people, among them many journalists, have, over the years tried to prove that the ongoing revision process is open to abuse, although they never point out that when they have deliberately introduced mistakes into pages, other people have immediately spotted them and taken them out. In short, I use Wikipedia every single day, sometimes making small contributions, and including links to it in my daily blog.
I have written about it on 23 occasions over the last decade, and included an incalculable number of links to its pages, each and every one of them my way of saying: “Yes, I’m an academic and I am firmly convinced that Wikipedia is the best source of information on a great many subjects, and is the place that I send my readers when they need some more detail on a topic I have mentioned!”
And now, finally, Spain’s very own Princess of Asturias Foundation has decided to award Wikipedia its 2015 International Cooperation Prize, which should put an end once and for all that Wikipedia is not to be trusted and that students shouldn’t use it or quote it: If you are one of those academics, let me say it now: YOU’RE WRONG. It isn’t that the Princess of Asturias Foundation is infallible, nobody is. But the prize is a major slap on the back for Wikipedia and its wonderful project, and recognition that the great Jimmy Wales is somebody who humanity will remember for many, many years into the future.
That said, Wikipedia is not Jimmy Wales, and he would be the first to say so: it is a collective effort; it is perhaps one of the greatest collective efforts in recent times. But Jimmy Wales represents the Wikimedia Foundation and all those who use and edit Wikipedia and its myriad related projects.
So, congratulations to Wikipedia for putting knowledge in an encyclopaedic and structured way within everyone’s reach, and for making the world a better place. The award is more than well-deserved.
(En español, aquí)
