What's wrong with Wikipedia?

What's wrong with Wikipedia?

In my last podcast, I talked about how the Internet is revolutionizing the way we use information in our daily lives. While doing so, I mentioned Wikipedia as a valuable source of information. In follow-up, I feel it is necessary to address some of the issues surrounding Wikipedia.

If you are a student, you probably hear the following sentence on a near daily basis: Wikipedia is not a valid source for your schoolwork. As much as it pains me to do so, I must agree with that sentiment. Wikipedia is not a valid source. However, it is vital that we understand why Wikipedia is an unacceptable addition to one’s bibliographies.

Bibliographies are to academic papers as evidence is to lawyers. If you were a suspect in a murder case, you would almost certainly object if the prosecutors brought in art supplies and painted all your clothes bloody red. The situation is similar when you are writing a paper. Your bibliography is your evidence, your proof that all the bold assertions in your paper were not made up on the spot. Bibliographies are meant to provide a list of sources that, as long as the original source still exists in some form or another, can be used to find the exact same information you used during the writing process.

Wikipedia is the antithesis of a static source. The same fluidity that allows its articles to stay current with new research and discoveries guarantees that it is exceedingly difficult for someone to view the same article that you did. In fact, the only way to guarantee a static resource is to provide either a saved copy of the page at the time you accessed it or a timestamp of when you accessed it. Neither method is satisfactory; including the entire article as a citation is cumbersome, and a timestamp requires several minutes of searching through deprecated edits to the article in question in search of the same text you cited. Citing a resource that can change from second to second is perhaps as contrary to the scientific method and proper academic practice as you can manage.

So, if Wikipedia is not a good source because its articles are constantly changing, what then of its accuracy? What about the constant threat of vandalism? Wikipedia has two million two hundred seventy eight thousand nine hundred sixty two articles as of twelve seventeen and forty five seconds, PM, on March 14, 2008. Such accuracy is necessary because the number of articles increases every second. Monitoring so many articles would be impossible for site visitors to accomplish, even considering that Wikipedia is currently the tenth most visited website on the Internet. The Internet being what it is, a solution was found: bots. Bots are automated programs that make edits to Wikipedia articles. Bots collect data, fill out forms, correct minor spelling errors, and, most importantly, identify and revert large-scale vandalism. If an article is wiped out, a large portion is removed, or if new text is added that deviates significantly from the old article’s text, the bot will automatically take the article back to a previous instance. Bots have been known to pick up and remove vandalism in as short a time as several seconds after the edit was made.

So, large-scale vandalism is taken care of; what about small-scale edits, such as a changed date, a rearranged sentence, or just blatant falsehoods? Well, next time you are on Wikipedia, take a look at an article’s Talk page or its history of edits. You will find that nearly every article has a group of several people who spend their time maintaining that article. They add new information, make sure that sources are properly cited, and prune unnecessary or untrue information. They could be described as Wikipedia’s immune system, and they do a pretty good job of making sure that articles are of good quality. And, if you require more in-depth information or you wish to check the veracity of a statement, there are almost always end-notes providing links to online sources. Articles without citations are clearly marked, and statements needing verification and citation are usually marked as such with a [citation needed] tag. You are probably already familiar with the study performed by Nature, which compared Wikipedia’s accuracy to the online version of the Encylopedia Britannica, but I’ll sum up: articles dealing with varied scientific topics were submitted to a panel of expert reviewers. 42 usable responses indicated 123 inaccuracies from the Britannica articles and 162 inaccuracies from the Wikipedia articles. The results are surprisingly close for an encyclopedia written and edited by experts and an encyclopedia written and edited by average joes.

Wikipedia is an excellent resource if you wish to brush up on information or merely need an introduction to a topic. It may not be a valid source itself, but there is no better place to start looking for a source. Just realize that, when you are writing, your audience is your future readers, not yourself. Even the most accurate information is of no use if it is only available for half an hour.