Wikipedia… Fact or fiction, a tale of credibility.
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that has been written by the collaboration of many users since its inception on March 2000, and is one of the applications leading the way in open, collaborative and produsage methodologies with regards to creation, collation of information and knowledge within the web 2.0 sphere (Bruns 2008). One of the main benefits of Wikipedia is that it allows any user the capacity to add and edit information and content contained within the pages on the website. This feature of Wikipedia has been paramount to its success and is one of the reasons why it has become the most popular online encyclopedia. This behavioural shift towards a more participatory nature is one of Wikipedia’s strengths but also one of its greatest criticisms.
This post aims to find out the extent of Wikipedia’s credibility with respect to the information and knowledge contained within the website and how a collaborative approach employed by Wikipedia has helped or hinder its credibility. Wikipedia’s credibility issue has been a thorn in its giant digital spine since it began to gather momentum and popularity, and as such been a centre of debate for many academics.
An article published by Ithacan online senior writer Katie Maslanka (2006) looks into how credible the encylcopedia really is. She interviewed English professor Michael Twomey, who discovered many factual errors and misleading statements pertaining to an article that he was reviewing and blamed the editing process for such errors. He said that he could edit an original entry, but the original writer could easily change it back (Maslanka 2006). He also noted that the editing process has become a battle between contributors of information relating to who has more credible information regarding a specific topic, and that this behaviour has further amplified Wikipedia’s lack of credibility (each writer believes that their information is more valid). Mr Twomey finished by saying that he advises his students to not rely on Wikipedia because he feels that the information is not completely precise (Maslanka 2006).
In an attempt to put this argument about credibility to rest Thomas Chesney conducted an empirical examination of Wikipedia’s credibility and found out of the one million plus articles contained on the site, roughly 13 percent contain mistakes (Chesney 2006). He also noted that cynicism was an attributing factor with regards to Wikipedia’s credibility. In the summation of his study he found that the articles credibility were quite high, but also noted that this result should be taken with caution as the means of the articles’ credibility where only significant in one aspect of the study (Chesney 2006). These results are not conclusive evidence to make suggestion that Wikipedia is a credible source or not, further research into this topic has to be performed in order to gain a more complete answer.
From an advertising perspective (really a PR perspective) it has given users the ability to defame and insult people and companies (this behaviour is known as ‘vandalism’). In 2008 Wikipedia was taken to court over claims that Barbera Bauer (a New Jersey Literary agent) was defamed when users wrote that she was the “dumbest of the twenty worst literary agents” (Nichols 2008). This example of ‘vandalism’ can easily be applied to an instance involving a company. For example, there is nothing stopping a disgruntled employee/customer from writing disparaging content about a particular business. Behaviour such as this has further attributed to Wikipedia’s credibility issues.
I believe that Wikipedia’s open, collaborative approach has been an integral factor which has aided its increase in popularity and not a hindrance, but I do believe that there is a lack of credibility as non-experts can add whatever they feel which further amplifies its lack of credibility (maybe that’s the cynic in me). I think that Wikipedia’s credibility issue will be minimised over time as natural filtering devices of collective intelligence cohorts take over and reduce the amount of mistakes and ‘vandalism’.
I like how you have used extra resources to comment on the credibility of Wikipedia. Although the research did not provide conclusive evidence, as a student who uses Wikipedia regularly, the research conducted by Thomas Chesney was very helpful. I had not heard these statistics before and will keep them in mind when using WIkipedia as a reference in further study.
I agree with you when you say that the credibility issue of Wikipedia will diminish as the ‘natural filtering devices of collective intelligence cohorts take over’, however there could be an argument against this, ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ where the truth could get lost when so many people contribute. Let’s hope not!
Your blog was well thought out and research and I found the points you raised interesting.