User:Robrhine

Wikipedia: The Most Quaker of Encyclopedias?

Many teachers have had it ingrained into their students: Do not use Wikipedia! They emphatically cite reasons such as: anyone can edit any entry, regardless of their expertise; the articles are not cited so they cannot be cited in a student’s paper; Wikipedia’s entries have no personal accountability as far as information content. I simultaneously agree and vehemently disagree with these statements. Wikipedia is an online, user-created encyclopedia where anyone is able to edit entries so that the information collected is a result of the communal knowledge of all people. At first glace, it makes sense to immediately consider Wikipedia as not reliable and untrustworthy, as “any fool could say anything.” However, last year, one of my teachers emailed the class with an example of Wikipedia’s unreliability: she had looked up the entry on ‘Saddam Hussein’ and someone had apparently changed each instance of Hussein’s name in the entry to some sort of derogatory remark. However, when I looked up the ‘Saddam Hussein’ entry some three hours after my teacher did, all derogatory remarks had been removed, the page was restored to its previous information, and the user who made the incorrect/bad changes had been banned from changing any more entries ever. FakeNews Anchor Steven Colbert recently tried to make the same point by changing quotations of his on his Wikipedia entry. However, a Wikipedia administrator noticed the changes were inappropriate, changed the entry back, and banned user ‘StevenColbert’ until the user could prove that he was, in fact, Steven Colbert.

Wikipedia should not be used as a ‘primary source,’ to be used indiscriminately as citation without a ‘background check’ being performed on the information. But I would argue that the same is true for Encyclopedia’s in general, if the information is not cited completely or accurately, as has happened to such noteworthy publications as World Book Encyclopedia. (This information is completely unsupported, and in fact I made this fact up completely. However, you can cite me on it.) The fact of the matter is that people like to feel like a part of a community, and a collective community of knowledge based on consensus seems to be exactly what the Quaker ideals I have learned at Guilford College encourage. I believe it is an excellent idea to not allow Wikipedia.com’s information as a citable source for research papers. However, if you look up something in Wikipedia, and that information is cited, then now you know how to start looking. I don’t think teachers should hear Wikipedia and shriek “Ewwwww! Don’t touch that, it smells bad ikky!” Teachers should continue to teach what they have for centuries: how to be an intelligent, discriminating consumer of information. If students believe that they shouldn’t use Wikipedia just because it is consensus-based, then how will they ever learn how to identify valid and useful information? ( In fact, I encourage all readers to view Wikipedia’s entry on Consensus – it is excellent.) If students only ever turn to information with unquestionable reliability, then how will they ever learn how to identify bad information in the first place? Don’t discourage the use of Wikipedia -- encourage the use of good information.