One of my purposes in writing this blog is not just to opine about life, the universe and everything (though that is one motive!). Rather, it is to provide the reader perspective on a variety of topics, along with numerous resources for individualized learning. We are in deep trouble and rapid learning is absolutely essential if our chances of individual and civilizational survival are to be maximized. Wikipedia is, in my opinion, such a learning resource. As Wikipedia is an open source encyclopedia, meaning that anyone who registers with its control group can post new articles, or amend existing ones, this raises a question as to how accurate these materials can be. The possibly surprising answer is, very accurate.

      An assessment recently conducted by the Denver Post had five experts in different fields use their expertise to rate the quality of Wikipedia’s entries. Four of the five were fully satisfied with these entries. The fifth had reservations.[i]

      The most respected scientific journal on the planet, Nature, conducted an evaluation of Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica with respect to the accuracy of their scientific entries:

      "The British journal Nature examined a range of scientific entries on both works of reference and found few differences in accuracy. Wikipedia is produced by volunteers, who add entries and edit any page. But it has been criticised for the correctness of entries, most recently over the biography of prominent US journalist John Seigenthaler. Wikipedia was founded in 2001 and has since grown to more than 1.8 million articles in 200 languages. Some 800,000 entries are in English. It is based on wikis, open-source software which lets anyone fiddle with a webpage, anyone reading a subject entry can disagree, edit, add, delete, or replace the entry. It relies on 13,000 volunteer contributors, many of whom are experts in a particular field, to edit previously submitted articles. In order to test its reliability, Nature conducted a peer review of scientific entries on Wikipedia and the well-established Encyclopedia Britannica. The reviewers were asked to check for errors, but were not told about the source of the information. "Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopedia," reported Nature. "But reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively."[ii]

      I believe that an open, rapidly growing knowledge base, which is refereed by thousands of experts to prevent false or misleading information from being posted, or to remove it as speedily as readers catch it, is something to be encouraged. In the tumultuous times ahead we will need to make much more use of this method of creating, organizing, and disseminating knowledge to deal with the accelerating crises soon to fundamentally transform our world. Wikipedia citations are usually very accurate. Also, they are instantly available online, and are hyperlinked to multiple external information sources.

      Time Magazine has more to say about Wikipedia in its May, 8th, 2006 Special Issue, which profiles “The 100 World’s Most Influential People.” One of these “influential people” is Jimmy Wales, creator of Wikipedia. Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired magazine wrote the profile. He states:
      
      "Edit this page." Just three little words, but what a miracle they have wrought. Just about every entry on Wikipedia.org, the online encyclopedia, invites visitors to fiddle. Is the entry incomplete? Add something. Is it wrong? Correct it. Is it biased? Edit away. That such a remarkably open-door policy has resulted in the biggest (and perhaps best) encyclopedia in the world is a testament to the vision of one man, Jimmy Wales…Wales created a free-form companion site based on a little-known software program called a wiki (the Hawaiian term means quick) that makes it easy—with the "edit this page" button—to enter and track changes to Web pages. The effect was explosive. That simple button turned readers into contributors and contributors into evangelists. Wikipedia now has more than a million articles in English, nearly 10 times as many as in Britannica. That number nearly doubles each year. And most extraordinarily, the site has not been defaced by vandals or hijacked by zealots. Or more precisely, it is vandalized every day but is usually repaired within minutes by any one of the millions of users who are motivated to protect and nurture the site. Today Wales is celebrated as a champion of Internet-enabled egalitarianism. He describes himself not as antielitist but as "anticredentialist." That's a key distinction. It means that amateurs can have as much to contribute as professionals and that talent can be found anywhere. Everyone predicted that mob rule would lead to chaos. Instead it has led to what may prove to be the most powerful industrial model of the 21st century: peer production. Wikipedia is proof that it works, and Jimmy Wales is its prophet.[iii] [Italics mine]
                                                                                                                                              
       The critical information from the above quote is this:
     
       "And most extraordinarily, the site [Wikipedia] has not been defaced by vandals or hijacked by zealots. Or more precisely, it is vandalized every day but is usually repaired within minutes by any one of the millions of users who are motivated to protect and nurture the site."
      
      Concerns about the open nature of this informational resource leading to its being tampered with, causing the accuracy of a citation to become worthless, are basically unjustified. Sure, it can be tampered with. But in short order the tampering will be undone. This is not theory, not idle speculation, but rather empirical observation, which has been repeatedly corroborated over the past several years.

      I further note that whenever I do utilize a Wikipedia citation, I confirm its accuracy from additional sources, often including Encyclopedia Britannica (http://www.britannica.com/) and other sources, including my own knowledge if it’s something I’m personally knowledgeable about, before actually using it. As this source (Britannica) is only available online to paying customers I do not generally utilize it as a primary citation. I do encourage readers who are interested in educating themselves about a topic, and who can afford to become Britannica online members, to consider using it as a learning resource, as well as Wikipedia.

      This blog is online, so I believe that it is important to maximize hyperlinks to allow readers to further explore topics and tailor their learning about the subject to their own inclinations and needs. Wikipedia citations are one of many resources towards that end. They can certainly be overused. As in all things, striking a good balance is essential.

      I note that with respect to print writing, Wikipedia should, in my opinion, play a much lesser role. In my current book Infinity’s Rainbow: The Politics of Energy, Climate and Globalization, Wikipedia citations comprise less than two percent of the book’s 336 citations. There they mostly refer to very technical subjects, of which the online entries are both succinct, as well as informative. Over half of the books citations have an associated URL to facilitate in-depth learning by the interested reader.

i The Denver Post.com, April 30, 2007, Grading Wikipedia, http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_5786064

ii BBC News, 15 Dec. 2005, Wikipedia survives research test, The free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica, a study shows, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4530930.stm

iii Time.com, May, 08, 2006, Jimmy Wales the (proud) amateur who created Wikipedia, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1187286,00.html