Oh, Wikipedia. You owe me.
Countless research assignments marked down due to unreliable sources, constant grief caused by questionable editing, premature stress lines appearing around my eyes resulting from teachers, lecturers and tutors shrieking your evils.
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, collaboratively created and edited. The English version of Wikipedia contains over two million articles, ranging from creation theories to breaking news. This version alone also hosts over 4.5 million registered users.
The problem my teachers have with Wikipedia is that anyone can edit its articles. They believe this means that although registered and anonymous contributors consist of ‘approved’ educated persons such as doctors, lawyers and academics, they also consist of unapproved, uninterested, uneducated parties, who mess with the factual content of pages for their own amusement.
It has been proven that Wikipedia has been used for less-than-orthodox purposes: according to Bruns, senators and congressmen have been caught tampering with their entries, and the entire United States’ House of Representatives has been banned from Wikipedia several times. The perpetrators in these instances of misuse are not likely the sorts of people my teachers had in mind when they declared Wikipedia unreliable due to their open-editing policy. Boyd highlights their ignorance( in Bruns): ‘many librarians, teachers and academics fear Wikipedia (not dislike it) because it is not properly understood.’
The truth is, Wikipedia is a self-correcting adhocracy – any new post will most likely be revised, corrected, and added to by other users. In cases where attempts are made to undermine Wikipedia’s development process (e.g. posting offensive material), users have usually responded quickly, reverting the page back to its previous state, correcting the changes made, or temporarily blocking repeat offenders from editing the page. The whole point of Wikipedia is that anyone can publish information, as anyone can edit existing information. So, although a minority (and not just uneducated delinquents, as generally thought) may post incorrect information on a Wikipedia page, it is highly likely another user will correct incorrect information within a few hours. According to Pink (in Bruns): ‘making changes is so simple that who prevails often comes down to who cares more. And Wikipedians care. A lot.’
The problem with Wikipedia is that its structure – around a self-correcting adhocracy – is not publicized. Unless teachers search the ‘about’ page in Wikipedia, it is not likely they fully understand (or will bother to learn) how methods of produsage are used in establishing the encyclopedia as a constantly updated and revised source of information. This is also pointed out by Bruns: ‘many of the critiques of Wikipedia… point to the as yet limited public understanding of that model’s underlying principle’.
It would seem that although my teachers have drilled into my head that using Wikipedia as an academic source is a big mistake, it is in fact their own beliefs of unreliability that have caused me so much grief. So many professionals and academics refuse to consider Wikipedia’s possibilities, that their students are now suffering from their prejudices.
Apologies Wikipedia, it seems the blame for my stress lines does not extend to you.
Damn right. Wikipedia is an absolutely amazing source of information if you’re sensible about it. Just because some kid can say “penguins are sexy” in an article about Rockhopper Penguins (yes, it happened), lecturers completely discount Wikipedia as a valid source of information. If Wikipedia is used sensibly (for example looking at the edit and talk pages, and seeing where their sources are coming from) it can be a completely wonderful.
I agree that it is the lecturer’s complete lack of understanding about Wikipedia’s purpose, and its editing structure. If they realised how dedicated regular Wikipedia users are (I’ve seen pages be reverted back from vandalism the same minute they are tampered with) they would understand the huge amount of knowledge that is to be gained from it.
I love your defence of Wikipedia’s systems and the Wikipedians. It is basically the reason why I love it, and trust it more than anything else on the internet. I would have liked if you provided advice on how to use Wikipedia responsibly, but ultimately that wasn’t the goal of your entry. And it gave me the inspiration for mine. Overall, it was a very enjoyable read.
Hey Madelaine, really clever way of starting and finishing, your blog post is definitely an attention grabber! I completely agree with all that you have focused on in your post. Teachers and scholars say not to use it because it is unreliable, online users love to edit and contribute and well we students live for it. Whilst many people may label it as an unreliable source who really has the authority to make such a claim? Who gets to decide who has expertise in a particular field? Or which entries are reflections upon the truth? What is the truth?
I think the best way to overcome such criticism is for people to begin to except that this is why Wikipedia is different. It has gone outside of other encyclopedias and sources of open participation to be diverse and to offer others the chance to edit entries and to make their own entries. I think it’s brilliant! It is definitely that it is not properly understood rather than being completely unreliable or unworthy of attention or reference.