Text is not Dead

While reading Wikipedia’s articles on itself and on using it as a research tool, I’ve found that it has an elevated sense of its contributors and users.

Wikipedia has certain advantages over other reference works. Being web -based and having a very large number of active writers and editors, it provides fast coverage of many topics and provides hyperlinking, unavailable in traditional media.

Also, it often provides access to subject matter that is otherwise inaccessible in non-native languages. Since English Wikipedia editors come from all around the world, the relative lack of non-Western topics found in many Western publications is significantly less noticeable on Wikipedia.

In comparison with most other web-based resources, Wikipedia’s open approach tremendously increases the chances that any particular factual error or misleading statement will be promptly corrected. As Wikipedia is a collaborative, ongoing project, one may also ask questions of an article’s authors. And thanks to its extensive hyperlinks and external links usage wiki can be an excellent guide to other related material, both on and off Wiki.

While it cites problems of accuracy and recommends ways to understand an article and assess its value in research, if someone were to use it as a research tool or even cite it in a paper, I am doubtful that that person would have read the article pertaining to how to do so. It suggests examining an article’s history, time in existence, and how many sources it cites. However, the vicious cycle is that an article’s reliability is strongly reliant on the topic’s popularity and the Wikipedia community’s attention to keeping it accurate and, as Wikipedia would say, unbiased.

I find Wikipedia to be a quick and convenient way to double check something I already think to be true, such as the birthplace of a certain writer, the year a movie was made, the symbol for a Greek god, if zinc helps vitamin c get absorbed or is it magnesium that aids with calcium, etc. I do not use it to further understand the issues in Afganistan, the case with the Yale killing, or wether the balloon boy story was a hoax. However, Wikipedia upholds its accuracy on such types of current events.

Wikipedia often produces excellent articles about newsworthy events within days of their occurrence, such as the 2007 Wimbledon Championships, Lal Masjid siege, Kidnapping of Alan Johnston or the Benoit family tragedy . Similarly, it is one of the few sites on the web even attempting neutral, objective, encyclopedic coverage of popular culture, including television series or science fiction. It is also developing across-the-board global coverage of subject areas where for one reason or another existing sources are highly fragmented, including sports such as football/soccer and golf.

I noticed the words, neutral and objective in the above quote. Really? People’s whose careers are to provide the public with information are often accused of biasness; however, Wikipedia users are supposed to feel it’s a more objective news source than NY Times, CNN, Wall Street Journal, etc. How do less experienced researchers and less avid followers of current events learn to differentiate between an editable, fallable source and a vetted one? Wikipedia puts its integrity in the hands of the general public, and the users trust it . Wikipedia itself cannot even remain consitent on its value as a research tool. It asserts that it should not be cited accademically but goes on to explain how one can determine the worthiness of the information for research purposes. One question prevails: how do I use this thing?