Wikipedia

Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has become the encyclopedia of choice for many Internet users. The question is whether or not Wikipedia is an accurate source of information. While some tout its use as a quick resource to research a topic, others realize that although easily accessible, the information procured through Wikipedia can be quite inaccurate. Furthermore, while there are “talk pages” (Wikipedia, 2011) that allow information in an article to be disputed and discussed, these “talk pages” may not be any more credible than the initial article. This is because anyone with Internet access has the capability to edit any article they choose, and users can contribute anonymously (Wikipedia, 2011). I would argue that this poses a problem as there is no accountability to the information provided on Wikipedia. How can one verify the information presented if the sources are not verifiable' According to Zachte, Wikipedia is ranked fifth of all websites in terms of unique visitors, with 381 million visitors as of April 2011 (2011). “There are more than 82,000 active contributors working on more than 17,000,000 articles in more than 270 languages. As of today, there are 3,665,262 articles in English. Every day, hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world collectively make tens of thousands of edits and create thousands of new articles to augment the knowledge held by the Wikipedia encyclopedia” (Wikipedia, 2011, para. 4). Because the information can be edited by anyone with Internet access anywhere, anonymously, there is a credibility issue with information disseminated by Wikipedia. So much so, that some colleges have forbidden the use of Wikipedia as a citation source for school papers (Bogatin, 2007). According to Bogatin’s article, the history department at Middlebury College decided to bar Wikipedia as a citation source after professors expressed their concern at many students citing incorrect information from Wikipedia in papers and on tests, in some cases citing the same erroneous information (Bogatin, 2007).