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1 Why Wikipedia is Awesome
2 Hello :)
3 Pages I've Started
4 Pages I Enjoy Working On

[edit] Why Wikipedia is Awesome

from a personal persuasive essay

Imagine a giant community that anyone on earth could visit at the click of a button, completely free of charge. This community centers around an infinitely expanding library of ideas from every great mind and every humble mind that chooses to contribute, where whatever you seek, be it current events, historical records, or a biography on an actor in that movie you saw last weekend, you can find. Then, if you think you know something that someone else is looking for, you can immediately publish your own knowledge for the world to see. That community is already in progress, and its name is Wikipedia.org – “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit” (Wikipedia 2007). Deriving from the Hawaiian word for “fast,” a wiki is an online database that runs entirely on the creations and edits of its unlimited users. Originally founded by a man named Jimmy Wales in 2001, this encyclopedia-type wiki has grown to include over six million articles in more than 200 different languages on thousands of topics as diverse as their writers (Helm 2005). Its only setback resides in the fact that a few vandals have the potential to alter information with a bias, the few people that inevitably exist in any community, yet critics are denouncing the site’s immense value just for that. Wikipedia could ultimately be the greatest compilation of global knowledge ever known, and should be used to its fullest potential as long as common sense is maintained in believing what one reads online or anywhere.

A handful of scandals have occurred regarding major vandalism of articles by unregistered users, scandals that spawned many of the harsh opponents of Wikipedia’s credibility. In December of 2005, a major affair arose regarding the biographical Wikipedia entry for journalist John Seigenthaler. An unregistered vandal inserted an allegation that the 78-year-old famed writer, once an administrative assistant to Robert Kennedy, was somehow involved in the JFK assassination plot. Fortunately for WikiMedia Foundations, the Communications Decency Act passed in 1996 dictates that collaborative online service providers like Wikipedia cannot be sued or in any way held liable for such accounts of defamation. However, Seigenthaler was furious as he referred to the article’s implications as “false and malicious,” claiming that the entire website must be “a flawed and irresponsible research tool.” After the organization attempted to tighten security by restricting unregistered users from creating new entries, the heavy fire against it did not cease. Registration to the site often takes less than a single minute, and allows complete anonymity by not requiring the input of any personal information (Said 2005). Be it due to grudges, bias, a prank gone wrong, or just honest misunderstanding, it is easy for facts to be erroneously altered by anyone with access to the Internet.

This brings up the important question of Wikipedia’s overall reliability, which members have been working hard to prove positive. Besides the ban on unregistered users, Wikipedia has several strict policies to ensure the success and credibility of their articles. Contributors must fully cite their sources for any controversial facts they enter, or facts that are likely to be challenged. This is arguably the single most important rule Wikipedia has, because it guarantees that, although edited by the general public, this knowledge is not based upon assumptions or original research. To encourage correct study technique and further consistency, Wikipedia offers its citizens a complete tutorial on how to create citations for the site. Also, several different banners and templates are used to mark pages that might contain problems. The templates include warnings for issues like lack of citations, incomplete lists, dynamically changing coverage of a current event as it ensues, or problems with cluttered or biased writing style. The most prevalent matter is certainly the one of writing style, and so the templates are very helpful in letting readers and critics know that no article’s intent is to brainwash or mislead. Wikipedia never claims to be perfect, because such a structure with such an enormous amount of articles is bound to coexist with flaws, so instead precautions are taken to make viewers aware that problems may be present. Furthermore on that point, a special rule of NPOV is exceptionally emphasized. An acronym for “neutral point of view,” it means that contributors must maintain a completely impartial tone in their writing. An enemy of a certain topic is likely to prejudice the article with negatives, while an overly-enthusiastic fan may use “weasel words” to sneak around all the bad facts, or go too much into depth on a specialized subject. NPOV is imperative to make facts and events sound more straightforward and less like a persuasive essay. Wikipedia’s editing guidelines create a formal yet user-friendly environment.

Even with these measures, some academic organizations have gone so far as to ban the use of the widely-known Internet resource from their scholars, although their doing so tends to reveal quite a bit of hypocrisy. One concerned institution is Middlebury College in Vermont, who moved to eliminate its use due to its many fallibilities based on the faulty idea of collaboration. Curiously, that same schoolboard hosts the “Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory,” also known as HASTAC. It is a “voluntary network of academics” that can be commented on and edited by anyone at any time, just like a certain other association that is locally disallowed, and apparently is very successful in its purpose (Davidson 2007). Additionally, there are other kinds of double standards running rampant in the world of education that might soon be overruled by recent findings.

Despite the perpetual attacks on reliability, it has actually been found that Wikipedia is just about as accurate as other, more accepted works of publication. It has been statistically proven that its error rate is no worse than that of the universally conventional Britannica. A team of expert reviewers were asked to check for errors in pairs of scientific articles from Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively, without being informed of the sources. Only eight total serious errors – precisely four in each encyclopedia – were discovered, suggesting that the opponents of Wikipedia as a research tool are the real ones who haven’t been doing their research (BBC News Online 2005). “We can’t ignore the influence of digital technologies” (Davidson 2007), and just because an idea is new doesn’t mean it cannot work as a work in progress. While obviously not everyone is an expert, the biggest thing that can be trusted is majority rule. “[T]he sum of everybody's knowledge,” says founder Jimmy Wales, “will tend toward the truth over time.” Five and a half million people, by sheer numbers, can’t all be wrong, and appreciating all that Wikipedia has to offer depends on that logic. At over a hundred edits being made every minute, the manpower in proofreading is almost unfathomable (Wikipedia 2007). All printed and published books have editors, but none have editors like Wikipedia has. Wikipedia will always have errors, but the difference is that it has an entire “community that’s empowered to do something about it” (Helm 2005), and, on average, something is “done about it” within a matter of hours (Davidson 2007). When errors are made, there is almost always someone there to spot and revert it efficiently. Most critics consider the huge Wikipedian staff a detriment, but in truth it is the most useful advantage to maintaining its accuracy. Looking past the surface, calling Wikipedia inferior to other sources, or calling it anything other than an equal or even a novelty, makes little sense when one can discern the facts.

Above and beyond the vast amount of intellect stored within the domain, Wikipedia offers the development of several personal and societal values. For one, its broad spectrum and encyclopedic format, while a learning tool in itself, gives just enough information to instigate further research. Writer and educator Cathy N. Davidson, a firm supporter of both group effort and modern technology, says that she has been inspired by the results of such teamwork in a site and notices that her “book purchasing has probably increased threefold due to Wikipedia” (Davidson 2007). The encyclopedia is meant to provide an insight to various topics, but only scratches the surface and highlights the most notable details. For this reason, people are able to refer to the “External Links” and “See Also” sections at the bottom of each article to continue an enlightening expedition for further information from more sources (Wikipedia 2007). Besides personal gains, there are collective public values to be gathered by looking at Wikipedia. As reporter Jo Swift puts it, it’s all about “trusting that humans can respect someone else's opinion in a democratic public sphere.” Like was previously alluded to, Wikipedia goes past a mere crowd of people and into a true community. It is a small-scale representation of an ideal society, where people adhere to the rules on civility, consensus, and personal attacks or else lose their rights; in Wikipedia’s case, that would mean the right to have their voices heard in edits. Lastly but not least, Wikipedia is a magnificent model of moral merits. Mr. Wales considers this the most purposeful aspect of his creation, because “we are doing something humanitarian and should all be respectful.... It is very reassuring about human nature to see how many people are doing great quality work and sharing it” (BBC News Online 2005). Contributing to a collaborative effort like Wikipedia is something that anyone can do and that anyone can feel good about. It is a symbiotic relationship amongst the global community that offers both an extraordinary service and a way to service others. This is more than an encyclopedia; it is a life-enriching experience.

Never complete but constantly improving, Wikipedia is a brilliant resource to use as long as its information found can be reasonably verified. Among the greatest innovations of this technological age is that there can be a library written entirely by “you.” If we can’t trust ourselves, then who can we trust? Mr. Wales has stated that although the community does its best to keep its facts accurate, its information needs to be “taken with a grain of salt” (BBC News Online 2005). A reader simply must be able to think sensibly in choosing to believe the things one reads online, or for that matter, anywhere. Never rely on just one person’s word; in fact, that is exactly what Wikipedia aims to prevent by allowing millions of users to share what they know. Wikipedians don’t ask, “Think you can write any better?” Instead, they graciously invite you to. *