Wikipedia Assignment

Strenski, Ellen. The Wikipedia/Encyclopedia Britannica Controversy. A Dialectical timeline. WR 139W, Fall 2006, UC Irvine
http://compositioncafe.com/?25950/wikicontroversy.html
Schneider, K.G.. Free Range Librarian. http://freeangelibrarian.com/archives/052905/wikipedia.php
Colbert, Stephen. The Colbert Report:Wikiality. The Colbert Report: The Word Season Z Archive, Sunday 07/30/2006. http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=72347

After reading the discussion board this evening, I checked out our assignments. I started reading the postings in the text of the assignment. The first site connects with articles chronicling a rather heated argument between Nature magazine and Encyclopedia Britannica. The gist of the problem is that the magazine did a semi-scholarly study and published their results in an article which basically claims that the Internet Wikipedia has an accuracy close to the noted Encyclopedia, after a number of entries were reviewed from both sources. Following the article in Nature, several rebuttals were written by former staff and by representatives of the Encyclopedia Britannica. In an official rebuttal, the Britannica cited numerous mistakes, mis/information and erroneous conclusions they say were made in the Nature article. They ended by demanding the story be recanted. Nature, of course, would have no part of this. In the end, those representing Encyclopedia Britannica seem mostly appalled that a source this scholarly, impeccably well-written and eminently respected could be remotely paralleled with the unscholarly and edit-as-you-like reliability of Wikipedia. The second link in part 1 of the assignment links to an article written by a librarian . She takes issue with the reliability of Wikipedia's information. Her career involves providing information to the public and researching the sources she recommends to give the public an idea of the accuracy of that information. She expresses reasonable concerns about Wikipedia's edit-on-the-fly policy but mostly in regards to the possibility of misinformation being 'digested' by readers who do not use a critical eye or check their sources with other sources. She compared it to students who do research and write a paper from only one source-an encyclopedia.
As I read through the links I couldn't help but chuckle. Embedded in both sides of the argument was the fact that overall there were only eight errors of real significance discovered in both sources, five in Wikipedia and three in Encyclopedia Britannica. Both sides readily admitted that they make mistakes and take measures to correct any mistakes immediately when brought to their attention. Nature complains that the reviews were done by experts who did not know the source of the information they were reviewing. They claim their results were unbiased and any mistakes should have evened out in the long run. It appears that these two publications are stuck in a pissing match and the only one on the winning side is not in the argument at all-Wikipedia! The librarian's message is reasonable and well thought out, she bashes no one and her arguments stand on their own. They are in support of one side over the other and should be seen as such, but she points out the importance of information being available to all. She reminds us that too few people check their sources and in the case of the young don't yet have the critical thinking skills to evaluate information and sources.
Perhaps the most important overall point of these articles is that Wikipedia is not advertised as an authority on all subjects, it is an information source for a very large number of subjects. I cannot believe that it represents a real threat to the Encyclopedia Britannica. I fact the whole idea of this is quite preposterous. The Encyclopedia is historically recognized as an authority and takes this responsibility very seriously. Wikipedia is a new and very novel source of information. They also take responsibility for the information they disseminate as is evidenced by the low number of errors reported in the Nature article and their willingness to correct any errors they find. I have to believe that the editors at Encyclopedia Britannica have taken themselves a bit too seriously. The value of Wikipedia is in the open format that is used. While anyone may post information on a subject others are just as free to add to or correct the information. All of this adding and editing takes place in the open and in public. Reading these links reminds me of a quote I heard attributed to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. He stated that "the answer to bad speech is more speech".