Wikipedia is Good

Wikipedia: Friend, Not Foe

Darren Crovitz and W. Scott Smoot

The authors of this paper present solid arguments towards acceptance of texts like Wikipedia as a new kind of transitional knowledge that presents strengths that differ from traditional fixed texts and challenges that require a paradigm shift if teachers are to encourage their students to look to the digital environment for information.

The idea that knowledge is not fixed is not new, but the idea that an encyclopedia can reflect this concept and still provide accurate, neutral information is still novel. One of the drawbacks of traditional encyclopedias is that they are bound by a finite number of pages and therefore need to create a hierarchy that, while not necessarily arbitrary, is nevertheless imposed on the information it contains. For example, one author might receive no entry, another a short entry and a last one a long entry, based on no more than the fashions of the time in which consideration is given to their works. Wikipedia democratizes such choices and each entry contains information that is based upon its own merits, or the time that has thus far been given to developing it. This reality was demonstrated by no more than a cursory exploratory comparison of information presented by a traditional encyclopedia and the Wikipedia entry on a fairly obscure post-revolutionary silversmith: the Wikipedia entry was more complete, but the definitive nature of the text was no less authoritative than that of the traditional encyclopedia that presented less information due to space constraints.

The idea that such information contained in an encyclopedia is reached through consensus and negotiation, also does not differ essentially from the process by which all knowledge is processed, confirmed, re-evaluated, presented or published, and in some respects Wikipedia differs from traditional encyclopedias only in the public nature of this processing. Readers did not previously see the process of developing encyclopedia entries, and it can be an unnerving idea to consider that all texts need to be given due process in order to verify the accuracy and neutrality of the information presented. In some respects, the idea that encyclopedias were formerly written by unbiased experts is ludicrous: by definition, an expert must be biased in some manner.

So, game on. The arguments for utilizing Wikipedia as a source of information, foundational for research are sound. The wiki can only grow and improve over time, reflecting, undoubtedly, the acquisition of new information, the ascent of new prejudices, and the interests of those who come after us.