Jack Ludtke
Business Manager
I was in eighth grade, and about to be given back my first essay of the year. When it was handed to me, I was thinking high 80s, low 90s, at least. To my surprise, there was instead the ominous message of “come speak with me” written in the corner. When I came to my teacher, she only had to say one word for me to realize what the issue was:
Wikipedia, in case you have been living under a rock for ten years, is a free, nonprofit online encyclopedia that has become nearly ubiquitous in its use. In 2011 alone, it received 32. 4 billion hits, which means the average American visits the site roughly 100 time a year.
However, since its inception in 2001, Wikipedia has been a lightning rod for different opinions amongst all parties when it comes to use in school. One of the website’s hallmark traits is that it is publicly built. In other words, anyone who logs on to the site can change the content on the pages. Teachers have therefore felt for years that Wikipedia cannot be used as a credible source in school projects or even background information, as all information has the possibility of being faulty or straight up wrong. Students disagree, saying that Wikipedia’s built-in editing system, ancillary resources, and use of locked pages make the database a great source of knowledge.
Fortunately, in this case Wiki-haters are wrong. Indeed, because of this perception, Wikipedia is the single most misunderstood website in the world. As any student can testify, while it isn’t perfect, this website is a legitimate source of knowledge and a valid tool for any report.
What most people don’t know is that Wikipedia is far from a piecemeal collection of ill-informed stuff from every Joe Taxpayer around the world. The website is actually policed by a stringent group of editors who patrol the site for inaccuracies.
Every time you edit a Wikipedia page, editors receive a notification and have to verify the information before it can be made a permanent part of the page. According to the site, editors are assigned different areas, and are sent notifications in order of page importance to make sure that key pages are addressed first. Until this analyzing happens, phrases that are inputted by viewers and posted are often ‘tagged’ with indicators that the information might be unreliable. By using these indicators, one can avoid the bad information that some say is typical of the site. For example, I remember inputting an all-too-hilarious line about Superman’s body odor (in my less mature days) on the aforementioned hero’s page. I checked back five minutes later only to find that it had been removed with the ‘flagged as inappropriate’ indicator.
This kind of normal page is directly different from the locked page, another Wikipedia tool to avoid cyber vandalism. You can still ‘edit’ the page in the conventional Wikipedia fashion, but your information will not be online until an editor approves it first. This is directly different from a typical, unlocked page in that any edit you make will not be automatically added to the final product. Locked pages often include sensitive topic matter or important historical figures which constitute a sizable portion of the Wikipedia database (like Superman).
In addition, Wikipedia is not restricted to a singular purpose. On most Wikipedia pages, there is an “external links” section that categorizes useful sources where a reader could learn more about a subject. According to the site itself, Wikipedia editors have vetted these links for authenticity and content. I personally have found these links to be very useful in finding more specific information across all subjects. Model UN, for example, demands a wide swath of different sources that add different viewpoints, and Wikipedia is useful in determining what you should research next.
Clearly, the old epithets warning of Wikipedia’s flaws are not as dire as Wiki-haters think. In actuality, you could argue that the ability to pool communal knowledge in the site is one of its greatest strengths, in that it allows people from all walks of life to communicate their own information on a subject that may be neglected. Why read a book written in the collective knowledge of a few, when you can read a database written in the collective knowledge of the world?
This epithet felt equally valid to my Saxe self as it does today. The night after my experience in eighth grade, I went home and researched the information in my paper again, except this time without the use of Wikipedia. I was totally unsurprised to find that the information I had found on this database matched up with such credible sources as Encyclopedia Britannica, CIA Factbook, and other “reputable” sites that I looked on. At the end of that day, I finally learned the cold, hard truth about Wikipedia. It is mere public perception that keeps this site underappreciated and under-used, not the information it contains.
