Thursday, November 13, 2008

Issue#3; In Wiki We Trust?

Dear readers,

How many of you, when given an assignment, head straight to http://www.wikipedia.org/? I’ll admit: the site’s clean-cut lines and neat layout are seductive. The matter-of-fact information is compelling. But hark: what of the cries regarding its inaccuracies?

A bit of background information for you readers: Wikipedia was founded in January of 2001 by employees of the American company, Bomis. The now-head of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, was the chief executive of Bomis. After developing Wikipedia, he created a non-profit organization to run it. Currently, the Wikipedia Foundation is fuelled by donations and has a paltry three employees: a software developer, an assistant for Mr. Wales, and an intern (Hickman & Roberts, 2006).

Alistair Coleman of the BBC wrote an article entitled Students ‘should use Wikipedia’ (click for the article!). In this article, he discusses Jimmy Wales’ viewpoint regarding teachers who ban students from using Wikipedia as a source, calling them “bad educators”. The article goes on to argue Wikipedia’s credibility and reliability as source; with Wale’s insisting that “there is no substitute for peer critique”.

On the flipside, however, Ian Allgar of Encyclopaedia Britannica maintains that thanks to its 239 years of service, it remains the best source to use: the basic argument of “of paid-for, thoroughly-reviewed content” versus peer-reviewed and prone-to-vandalism Wikipedia.

However, according to Terdiman (writing for CNET News, article here: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica), “is about as good a source of accurate information as Britannica”. This fact was uncovered in a study by Nature journal, which found “eight serious errors (such as general misunderstandings of vital concepts) in the [selected] articles. Of those, four came from each site”.


(Cyanide & Happiness, Explosm.net, 2005.)

However, Britannica would definitely never have mistakes such as the following!:

- David Beckham was an 18th-century Chinese goalkeeper.
- The Duchess of Cornwall carries the title Her Royal Un-Lowness.
- Robbie Williams earns his living by eating pet hamsters in pubs “in and around Stoke”.
(Roberts & Hickman, The Independent, 2006.)

To conclude, despite the obvious credibility and reliability issues inherent in Wikipedia, I personally would still head there first when given a topic to research. Obviously, I would back it up with concrete facts later on: but to give me a vague, overall feel of a topic; it is the first stop on the information superhighway I’d make.

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