Read me if you’ve ever used Wikipedia
You’re sitting at a prestigious dinner. So far, you’ve been able to keep up with your colleagues and their intellectual table conversation. When all of a sudden, the ‘too smart for his own good’ guy across from you brings up a topic that you know absolutely nothing about.
Ha ha ha… Damn.
Panicking, you whip out your phone (despite the amount of stank eye you’re receiving) and discreetly pretend to respond to an “emergency” text from your mom. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. With your fingers moving at an unbelievable speed, you type the topic into the search bar and click the first link that pops up: Wikipedia. Your eyes quickly scan the blurb at the top of the site trying to absorb as much information as you possibly can.
And, boom. Knowledge.
Problem solved, right? Hm, maybe not.
Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that allows its audience to be the reader, the writer, and the editor. Its public maintenance means that anyone with a login and a computer, and I do mean anyone, can contribute to the millions of published articles online. Wikipedia is ranked the 6th most popular website in the world and the United States. It is also one of the most controversial websites on the web in regard to its validity and credibility as a source.
Here’s the thing though, everybody loves Wikipedia.
Thanks to the internet we have too much information, too much to choose from, and too little time to weed through it all because, ain’t nobody got time for that. Nowadays the best way to figure out what’s the best is to see what everyone else is doing.
“We now live in the age of the crowd, when we have more faith in what others think collectively than what we are told by the experts. In fact, the crowd is the new expert,” said Jaime Bartlett in the Daily Telegraph,
“Are two heads better than one, or do too many cooks spoil the broth?” Michael Blanding in Forbes.com
That is the million dollar question.
In 2005, the journal Nature conducted a study comparing the accuracy of Wikipedia to the well established source Encyclopaedia Britannica. Researchers chose articles over a wide range of topics from both sources. The articles were then sent to experts in the particular fields for peer review.
“Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four form each encyclopaedia. But reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica respectively.” Nature
Despite its collaborative nature and higher risk for false information, Wikipedia was and still is comparable to Britannica. Shocked? Me too.
Yet, the debate lives on.
As Wikipedia continues to grow in volume, so does its reputation for validity. But regardless of the studies, I believe the online encyclopedia:
- Should be used as a starting point for research.
- Is not citable for academic use.
- Is still not a primary source. Wikipedia even agrees.
Boom. Knowledge.
