by James Dykstra

Wikipedia is the world’s greatest encyclopedia. With over 10 million entries in 253 different languages, Wikipedia is also the world’s biggest encyclopedia. The amazing thing is that this vast source of knowledge is not only incredibly accurate, but it’s maintained by thousands of volunteers worldwide. Literally anyone can write or edit an article in this encyclopedia.

Simple system

How does it work? If you think there should be an article on your school, you simply join Wikipedia and write one. If you forgot an important detail, such as the address, someone else might spot that and add it in. In theory, if everyone is well intentioned, a solid, intelligent, and thoughtful article about your school should be the final result of lots of people working together to edit your article.

While it works most of the time, not everybody has good intentions. A few years ago some of my students were doing research using Wikipedia. Someone, somewhere, was editing the article they were using, and, as we watched, Stephen Harper went from being prime minister of Canada to prime minister of India. In fairness, this sort of vandalism is usually caught with amazing speed and quickly corrected. When a student of mine vandalized one page, a Wikipedia editor had it fixed within thirty minutes. When humor columnist Gene Weingarten embellished his own Wikipedia entry with references to Pulitzer Prizes he was never nominated for, he was “caught” within 27 hours.

Hierarchy of editors

With over 10 million entries, how does one vandalized page get spotted so quickly? Wikipedia has editors. These are ordinary users who have spent a lot of time editing and contributing and so are given a little more power by the existing editors. These new editors then give themselves a watch list. In other words, they pick a number of pages and when those particular articles are changed by someone Wikipedia e-mails the particular editor. He then decides if the edit was legitimate or vandalism, and fixes the entry up if it needs it. So people who regularly contribute to the Wikipedia community are recognized by that community and given more power. If you’re a Wikipedia fanatic – a geek – you eventually get power in Wikipedia.

Not perfect

It sounds like a good system, but does it always work? Not always, at least in part because the very geeks who edit Wikipedia tend to be a bit fanatical about whatever interests them. A recent New Republic article tells about a battle on Wikipedia to describe Hilary Clinton as a “leading candidate” for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, or, alternately, as simply a “candidate.” In other words, was she likely to get the nomination, or was she just another candidate? Wikipedia editors repeatedly edited each other to have the entry read the way they thought was most objective. Those who supported calling her a “leading” candidate eventually seem to have given up, having a shorter attention span than their opponents.

This seems to have been only a silly argument among Wikipedia editors. If you listen to Lawrence Solomon of National Review magazine, there’s more than that going on. He suggests that on issues such as the global warming question, senior editors at Wikipedia are deliberately overruling their junior partners in order to create much more left leaning articles. He claims that similar things are going on with articles on Intelligent Design, or the U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision. According to Solomon, certain senior editors don’t want an opposing viewpoint to see the light of day and are prepared to break Wikipedia’s rules to make sure that’s what takes place.

Conclusion

Is he right and are some Wikipedia editors deliberately skewing Wikipedia content to the left? You’ll have to read those articles and decide for yourself. It does, however raise two very important points.

1) Wikipedia is a great place to start your research but it’s a lousy place to end it. Wikipedia is merely an encyclopedia, and, like ALL encyclopedias, is meant to give you just the beginning point for your research. However much you might learn from Wikipedia, check other sources. While Wikipedia is usually incredibly accurate, it’s sometimes ridiculously inaccurate.

2) If there are left-wing editors at Wikipedia it’s not that they’re part of some evil left-wing conspiracy out to take over the world. They are hardworking editors who earned their senior positions and by their effort gained the respect of their peers. That’s something that more right-wing people could do, too, if they tried. The opportunity to influence Wikipedia – or society in general – is available to all of us not by complaining that someone else is saying things we hate, but by doggedly and persistently working at it over an extended period of time.

Wikipedia is a great source of information, and a fantastic symbol of cooperation, but you have to understand its weaknesses in order to get the most out of it. Wikipedia is the best – and worst – of all possible reference sources on the Internet. And that’s why I love – and hate – Wikipedia so much.

James Dykstra muses on technology in the classroom at www.befuddled.info. All articles referred to in this article are linked to at http://delicious.com/mrpuffin/DoesWikipediaWork

Reformed Perspective - October 2008