The Scholarly Internet: 9 - Wikipedia and other novel information sources

9 a - What is Wikipedia?

Wikipedia calls itself "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Launched in 2001 with the apparently idealistic goal of harnessing the "wisdom of the crowd" and of using consensus as the best means of arriving at the truth the English version of Wikipedia now has nearly 2.5 million articles and has become perhaps the most heavily used information source on the Internet.

The idea of an online encyclopedia created and continually updated by its user community is the very essence of Web 2.0 and is rightly treated with great suspicion by many librarians and scholars. It violates one of the fundamental principles of information quality assessment, that of clearly stated and transparent intellectual responsibility. So important is this principle that we refer to academic works by the names of their authors - e.g. Dawkins, 1995.

A second important principle that Wikipedia violates is that of immutability - when we cite an article, book or report we should know exactly what it is that we are referring to. With print this was not a problem and even with the advent of the electronic journal the "copy of record" is still an important principle.

9 b - A closer look

Let's have a look at the Wikipedia entry on the Treaty of Waitangi. What we find here is a well-balanced and informative account of a complex and controversial issue, considerably longer and more detailed than that found in Encyclopedia Britannica. Many of the statements are referenced and several of the major works on the topic are cited. There is a good list of further readings and links to other web material on the topic. It would probably be difficult to find a better place to send someone wanting to know about the treaty.

To see how Wikipedia works click on the history tab at the top of the page. You will see that this page is regularly edited and updated by a number of contributors, some of whom have nicknames and some of whom are simply ip numbers. You can see what each change was by clicking on last and to see the difference between an older version and the present one click on cur.

9 c- Quality

Wikipedia tends to work best when there is a strong community of users monitoring changes for an entry and ensuring that it is not hijacked by extremists or vandalised. If you click on the discussion tab you can see the conversation or debate as it takes place. It is also really good for "technical" and scientific subjects like the carbon cycle, accounts of historical events like the Field of the Cloth of Gold, biographies of prominent figures like Edward Gibbon Wakefield and many other topics.

However the quality of Wikipedia content is very uneven and much of it is poorly researched, badly written or just lame. The entry on Te Rauparaha is very light on detail and a look at the discussion tab indicates that Wikipedia itself doesn't rate it highly.

The history indicates that there has not been a lot of editing activity on this article.

Some of what is on Wikipedia is just plain bad. A good way to check out an encyclopedia is to look up a subject about which you know something. I have an interest in the transition from alchemy to chemistry but when I look at the Wikipedia entry on Alchemy it presents a view of the subject that is at least fifty years out of date. None of the recent literature on the subject is listed and the list of references includes a number of introductory texts on chemistry and physics. The research could have been done in any small college or public library.