By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-01-14 18:43:19 | Word Count: 664
The incredible success of Wikipedia’s popularity and usefulness to internet users continues, despite being banned from academia and being persecuted for its unreliability.
The concept of an Open Source encyclopedia that anyone could edit helped to usher in the age of user generated content. However by taking the concept a step further into the realm of academia, the company had to endure many attacks against it credibility.
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Many people initially jumped on the source, and not just college students looking up research papers wither. News sources such as newspapers and magazine, broadcast media and others also originally quoted Wikipedia as the source of its information, only to be publicly disgraced afterward. However, all criticisms were taken seriously by founder Jimmy Wales, the result of which has led to the improved reliability of its content and better safeguards against information vandalism.
The democratization of information, originally championed by them, has now led to Wikipedia “being generally used and accepted far more in academia than any conventional encyclopedia ever was,” according to founder Jimmy Wales, who was interviewed by Wired yesterday.
There is certainly no way to argue with that statement. The truth is that in the post Web 2.0 world, places like Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter simply have more up to date content. Academia itself has sustained attacks against its credibility, especially with respect to the social sciences like anthropology and history –and with respect to arming students adequately to compete in the fields that utilize Web technologies extensively (outside of IT).
Critics have argued that traditional academia with regard to social studies has been written from a specific, limited point of view. Wikipedia gives those on the ground, with knowledge imbued with a grassroots level understanding, to be able to contribute to the body of knowledge in a specific area. Even a research paper that heavily cites more accepted sources might now begin with a Wikipedia search first, so that its author might be able to better focus his / her research towards more relevant information. The fact that Wikipedia is available in many languages (from varied global authors) in a public place (the Web) also influences the continued study of many disciplines.
It is a work in progress when it comes to accuracy, but it is improving. There are many pages full of correct information as well. What the public and critics generally ignore is that other encyclopedias don’t get updated often. The information contained in them could be incorrect or outdated because new information has come to light. Wikipedia does not suffer from that problem. In addition, many trusted professionals currently working in their field contribute to the pages.
Wales has announced that the company is planning to open their first outside office in India this year, proving their commitment to continued growth. The online encyclopedia shows up in the first 10 results listings of practically any Google search, and doesn’t show signs of decreasing in popularity or in user contributions.
When asked where he sees Wikipedia in the next 10 years, Wales responded, “More languages, more information, higher quality.”
