Wikipedia Midterm Analysis

I’ll start out bluntly - I do not think Wikipedia should be used as a scholarly source in academia, and I think that the presentations we were shown in class proved that without a doubt. Every presenter’s general closing statement, as well as our own, said that Wikipedia was generally full of good general or scientific information, but any “hard-to-cite”, controversial, or opinion-oriented information was subject to pretty significant bias in Wikipedia Articles. Our article had fantastic scientific information, but once it reached the “ethical issues” of cloning, it was full of statements that needed citation. It was also missing some important historical information.

I think that Wikipedia’s credibility can only grow. People will rely on it even more in the coming future for their main or only source of information on important topics - and they already do it a lot. This can be either very good or very bad. On one hand, this could mean a lack of credibility in many important sources and papers, or Wikipedia vandalism showing up in important documents. On the other hand, this might instead force Wikipedia to get better, and better cite and read its sources. As Metcalfe’s Law states, “the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system.” (Wikipedia: Metcalfe’s_law) Wikipedia’s future gains in users will only create a better Wikipedia for everyone else.

I learned not to trust Wikipedia as much as I thought I could. The constant enforcing of Wikipedia as a “bad” source by authority figures such as professors almost made me want to “root” for Wikipedia, and give it more credit than it deserves. After this midterm, I have come to appreciate that Wikipedia is an incredible project and resource, and even more than that, an incredible display of the world’s humanity. One day, I’ll be able to use it in my dissertation.