Waving the Wikipedia Flag

(This is actually a re-post from a now defunct blog o' mine. However, I feel it's important enough to replicate here.)

Okay. This isn't really about me, nor is it about Boston. It's really just a rant in support of what I find to be one of my most favorite sites on the net: Wikipedia.

Over the last year or so, much has been made of the accuracy of the entries on Wikipedia. For the uninitiated, the site is an immensely popular online encyclopedia, whose entries are created and updated by... well... anyone. And this last bit is the point of contention.

Numerous high schools and universities across the country - and, one suspects, around the globe - have forbidden students from citing Wikipedia entries as source material. On the surface, this seems sound - if anyone can change any article, a student writing a report about Abraham Lincoln could find out that he was born in 1925 and married a horse named Phyllis. Furthermore, how is a teacher supposed to reliably double-check a student's source material when said material can be completely overhauled between the time that the student conducts the research and the teacher evaluates the work? (Teachers actually do this, right?)

The problem with such rigid ban on Wikipedia is that such malicious and mischievous editing of the site - You mean he didn't marry a horse?? - is incredibly rare. While certain high profile occurrences have been reported by mass media - the John Seigenthaler controversy, Stephen Colbert's frequent references - the vast majority of Wikipedia's 1,743,092 entries (as of April 17, 2007) are free from such tampering. More to the point, the site has a solid system of checks and balances in place. Each entry has a History tab at the top of its page; clicking on this shows who changed what and when. Also, Wikipedia's dedicated visitors are ever vigilant, quickly tagging any sentence wherein the author does not cite a source. In this respect, the site itself is not unlike the term papers whose accuracy learning institutions seek to protect. With this in mind, why not allow pupils to use Wikipedia, while instructing them how to evaluate the entries? Students would learn not only about their research topic, but also how to apply critical thinking skills.

Why the bother, you ask? Why use controversial Wikipedia when there are other online encyclopedia out there? I'll give you two reasons. One, it's user-friendly. The search function is great, there are no pop-ups, and most entries contain links to various related items both within Wikipedia and without, allowing one to fluidly conduct research. Two, due to the fact that anyone can hop online and update the site, most information is as current as it can be. The moment that virtually any announcements are made in the general media, someone somewhere is busy adding or updating the news on Wikipedia.

So, that's my pitch. I'm standing here on the hill, waving my flag in support of Wikipedia, and I am highly dubious that I can be dissuaded or otherwise lured away. I just wanted to share that tidbit. But, perhaps I also wanted to provide a tiny bit of damage control on behalf of the site. It doesn't deserve the corporal punishment it's received in the media. I suppose if I can turn even one person on to Wikipedia, then this flag waving has been well worth it.