Wiki-woes?

Swinging back into things with an examination of Wikipedia...

As a librarian-in-training and a Reference Desk Monkey, I've been hearing a lot about the Wikipedia debate -- like everyone else who has happened to use the Internet in the past five or so years. So I'm sure it's mostly old hat to you, Dear Reader: that furious debate over whether Wikipedia is A Valid Source of Information.

Jimmy Wales himself, on a recent video interview on Yahoo's "Tech ticker," proposed this sticker to put on the open encyclopedia: "Use With Care." Basically, Wikipedia is a decent source on some topics; that much-cited study by Nature magazine found Wikipedia's quality in a sampling of scientific articles was comparable to the Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, while a mini- review panel in Library Journal concluded that Wikipedia was a particularly rich pop culture guide and also fairly rewarding for current events -- even on controversial topics.

Wales pointed out that Wikipedia does have features to help, with flags for articles lacking sources or those including statements that smack of bias -- and users should pay attention to these notes when perusing the site. He believes that contributors and users have a social responsibility in "attempting to be very high-quality, very neutral," and a system of critique and review has been created for that purpose. There is a system of policies and guidelines and a structure of administration privileges within the active volunteer community of over 85,000 contributors and about 75,000 editors (these numbers are probably obsolete already, of course -- Wikipedia is always in flux).

Plus, users can check out the "History" tab on any article to see what changes have recently been made, along with all previous versions (which are automatically saved, contributing to protections against vandalism). The "Discussion" tab shows what is currently being debated in the article's creation/editing process, therefore highlighting any areas of particular dispute. There's even a guide to "Researching with Wikipedia," outlining the site's strengths and weaknesses as a potential source, along with useful features.

Wales concludes -- and I have to agree -- that the question of "Should Wikipedia be used?" is ultimately a useless one. It is being used, widely and constantly; by students, the general public, and yes, even researchers and teachers and librarians.

The question that instructors need to help their students (and librarians their patrons) address is how to use Wikipedia wisely, with active judgment and awareness. Citing Wikipedia isn't the point, since you shouldn't really be citing an encyclopedia in your research anyway -- encyclopedias are launching platforms, where you get a broad sense of a topic and find trails to more the detailed, in-depth information that you need for your paper/project.

So by all means, you can start your Quest for Knowledge at Wikipedia...just make sure you follow those daisy-chains of references and citations outside the encyclopedia to confirm all your lovely, erudite conclusions.