Wikipedia Analysis Page 7-113

     Wikipedia has revolutionized the age of the encyclopedia. With thousands of articles being created each day, Wikipedia offers an incredibly wide range of information, from the most obscure issues to worldwide phenomena. The act of collecting information from a broad range of topics and ideas and compiling it into an enormous group of text began thousands of years ago with the work of Pliny the elder. Pliny constantly took notes and wrote down excerpts of what he read until he had collected enough information to create the Naturalis Historia. Pliny was the first person to use the term encyclopedia. Many followed in Pliny’s footsteps to assemble another encyclopedia and throughout the years it has evolved to become a competitive industry. Among the most popular was the Britanica. They faced many drawbacks trying to keep an updated text, due to the fact that many people did not feel the need to purchase a new edition each year. They faced even more competition when encyclopedias began to transition to online databases. Microsoft created a program called Encarta, which could be sold quite cheaply, causing the Britanica to significantly reduce their prices. 

     Finally in January of 2001, Wikipedia was created as an expansion of the former Nupedia by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Wikipedia was different than Nupedia because new information could be added or altered by the public wherever they saw fit. This feature created much controversy since anyone, no matter their level of intelligence or background, could create and update new Wikipedia articles without proper citations, leading to many inaccuracies. Ira Matetsky was quoted as saying, “The best feature of the site is that anyone can edit virtually anything contained on it. The worst feature of the site is that anyone can edit virtually anything contained on it.” This statement is quite true. Wikipedia is a great resource when it comes to its vast range of topics, but can also be detrimental due to its lack of reliable sources. Many peoples’ biographies have been altered with misinformation that could defame their character. One example of this was the Seigenthaler incident. Brian Chase, an employee at a Nashville delivery company, added information to John Seignethaler’s Wikipedia page stating that he might have been involved in the Kennedy assassination. What was intended as a joke, turned into a highly publicized event that cost Chase his job, smeared Seigenthaler’s name, and greatly affected the credibility of Wikipedia.

     Postman, the author of Technopoly, would surely find issues with the usage of Wikipedia, as do many others. He might view this as society taking advantage of technology and power, and altering information for their own sadistic purposes. In retrospect this may be true, but the amount of information that is factual and beneficial to users all over the world, to me, seems to greatly outweigh the negatives. I use Wikipedia quite often when I want to expand my knowledge on a specific subject. For quick searches, Wikipedia almost always yields the top results. Although there are some drawbacks to the site, Wikipedia will continue to grow and overflow with new information each day which will be used all over the world.