Spring Break
Wikipedia gets a bad rap
Saif Ansari- Daily Bruin, UCLA
Issue date: 11/17/08 Section: Opinion
In January of 2001, Wikipedia, "the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit," was born. Initially composed of only a few hundred articles and a fairly unattractive home page, Wikipedia currently boasts over 10 million articles in 262 languages. Offering instantaneous access to a nearly infinite amount of knowledge to Internet users all over the world, Wikipedia is regarded by some, next to the printing press and sliced bread, as one of the greatest human innovations of all time.
Some scholars, however, disagree. Citing difficulties associated with Wikipedia's open-source policy, critics complain that the online encyclopedia is rife with vandalism and inaccuracies. With more than 8 million registered editors alone, many of whom have questionable credentials, Wikipedia does not meet the rigorous standards of serious academic use. Simply put, critics think that Wikipedia can't possibly be a reliable research tool and that it should be eschewed by students of knowledge everywhere.
That's just baloney.
Wikipedia is not an editing free-for-all. All changes are recorded in the article's page history, which includes both an edit history and older versions of the article. Every article is monitored by users who are notified any time an edit is made and have the ability to reverse it if necessary. Along with those patrols, teams of users that roam Wikipedia to verify new edits, and automated editing software, which routinely scans for and corrects bad edits, Wikipedia employs a cyber army devoted to identifying and eliminating deliberately harmful changes.
In fact, a 2007 PC Pro magazine study showed that errors inserted at random in a number of articles were corrected within minutes.
In addition, Wikipedia has several authentication procedures designed to ensure that article content is as accurate as possible. Attributing claims to reliable, published sources is absolutely essential in order to verify all claims. Moreover, the introduction of new information in an article requires the consensus of all editors involved. This practice prevents radical, unsubstantiated, and biased views from gaining ground.
Some scholars, however, disagree. Citing difficulties associated with Wikipedia's open-source policy, critics complain that the online encyclopedia is rife with vandalism and inaccuracies. With more than 8 million registered editors alone, many of whom have questionable credentials, Wikipedia does not meet the rigorous standards of serious academic use. Simply put, critics think that Wikipedia can't possibly be a reliable research tool and that it should be eschewed by students of knowledge everywhere.
That's just baloney.
Wikipedia is not an editing free-for-all. All changes are recorded in the article's page history, which includes both an edit history and older versions of the article. Every article is monitored by users who are notified any time an edit is made and have the ability to reverse it if necessary. Along with those patrols, teams of users that roam Wikipedia to verify new edits, and automated editing software, which routinely scans for and corrects bad edits, Wikipedia employs a cyber army devoted to identifying and eliminating deliberately harmful changes.
In fact, a 2007 PC Pro magazine study showed that errors inserted at random in a number of articles were corrected within minutes.
In addition, Wikipedia has several authentication procedures designed to ensure that article content is as accurate as possible. Attributing claims to reliable, published sources is absolutely essential in order to verify all claims. Moreover, the introduction of new information in an article requires the consensus of all editors involved. This practice prevents radical, unsubstantiated, and biased views from gaining ground.
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 3
Gregory Kohs
posted 11/17/08 @ 9:43 PM CST
Ansari says: "a 2007 PC Pro magazine study showed that errors inserted at random in a number of articles were corrected within minutes", suggesting that this is somehow an authoritative test of Wikipedia's accuracy. (Continued…)
Cedric
posted 11/18/08 @ 12:03 PM CST
One has to wonder if the author of this article is a Wikipedia editor, in that it is fairly typical of the sort of bilge that wiki-apologists put out to try to justify their continuing unpaid labor on Wikipedia. (Continued…)
Dave Tonga
posted 12/06/08 @ 3:29 PM CST
The term "open-source" refers to the source code of the MediaWiki tool that is used as a content management system by Wikipedia. There is nothing about MediaWiki that implies any kind of open-source editing policy except that MediaWiki allows the administrators to control who is permitted to edit pages. (Continued…)
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