According to John Seigenthaler, journalist, civil rights
activist and former assistant to Attorney General Robert
Kennedy, Wikipedia is a groundbreaking online encyclopedia
that is "populated by volunteer vandals with poison-pen
intellects."
Founded in 2001, Wikipedia boasts a database of over 3.7
million articles and is ranked the 37th most visited website.
A huge free source for information, Wikipedia is composed
of articles written and freely edited by users. The text
on the site includes extensive hyperlinks which gives readers
exposure to related articles, while also providing external
links, pictures and video. There is also a discussion tab,
which allows readers to view discussions and arguments posted
by users about the topic.
However, although being found to
have the accuracy comparable to Encyclopedia Britannica
by the journal Nature, Wikipedia has recently been under
fire
by critics for publishing false information, most notably,
an article accusing famed journalist John Seigenthaler
as an accomplice in the Kennedy murders, as well as an article
denouncing Simon Wiesenthal (on the day following his death),
a holocaust survivor who helped track down more than 1000
Nazi war criminals, as a homosexual sex addict. Additionally,
after the death of the Pope, an anonymous user replaced
the
image of incoming Pope Benedict XVI with the evil emperor
from Star Wars.
In response to recent scandals, co-founder of Wikipedia,
Jimmy Wales, offered his response: "Such pranks are
a little disappointing, but given how insane the whole idea
is in the first place - that you could let anybody edit any
page - it's a miracle that so little vandalism goes on."
Wales, at the risk of sounding callous, may have a point.
With the amount of information posted by volunteers and edited
by the public, it is amazing that there are only a handful
of articles written/edited with intent to sabotage. Although
Wikipedia's articles are checked by Wikipedia's staff of
editors and can be flagged by users for false information,
with the extensive amount of information posted, it is impossible
to catch fallacies immediately after posting. According to
Wales, Wikipedia is currently perfecting a new device which
will serve as a more proficient accuracy tester.
Do you have a comment or feedback on
this article? Email
us and let us know what you think.
|
