Wonderful Wikipedia

Wikipedia has been receiving a lot of criticism lately. There are those that say that it is full of anti-elitism (1 2), libel and that their He-Man article is just plain wrong.

Oh boo hoo. Cry me a river.

For examples of other works written without the peer review of a lot of stuffy academia types, go read any religious text like the Bible or the Qur'an.

Many people seem to read Christian religious texts without any verification of sources (Has the text been manipulated or translated wrong in the past 2000 years?) and with a great deal of open-minded interpretation.

If you were to talk shit about religious works or their followers your head would end up on the chopping block alongside Salman Rushdie. (who is married to this woman, proving that crazy haired people are babe magnets.)

The simple truth is that Wikipedia need not change as much as would-be critics need to educate themselves about what Wikipedia is, what its capabilities are, and how the world in general functions.

• Learn the meaning of "Caveat lector"
  Whether it is written by anonymous Wikipedia contributors or Reuters, there is an implicit disclaimer that not all information is dependable - whether you pay attention to this fact or not.


• Fix false statements
  If you see something wrong with a print article, your only recourse is to write a letter to the author which will be widely disregarded while the original information still floats around in public unchanged. Wikipedia allows you to go ahead and change that information for every future read of that document. Perception of what is wrong sometimes differs, which results in an edit war. This is a huge pain in the ass, but it isn't the devil as the sides of every argument are outlined on the article's talk page which allows a reader to discern for themselves which is correct - the article usually ends up with some sort of phrasing compromise or dodging the subject altogether but the talk page is good for watching battles as they happen.


• Deal with vandalism
  People bitch about vandalism on Wikipedia all the time. Inevitably some juvenile will change a complete article to a bunch of toilet humour. But such vandalism exists on our walls and streets already - the difference is vandalism on Wikipedia is a lot easier to undo. So who cares?


• Pay for more "reputable" information
  If you're looking for something as seemingly reliable as journal or published encyclopedia articles, then go out and buy an encyclopedia. If the internet was a place full of information digitally signed by respectable people, then it would be perceived as more solid reference. Then again, are you going to find as much information about Battlestar Galactica or the recent London bombings from these perfectly substantiated sources? No.

Say nothing but praise for Wikipedia, as if it dies then you will lose a major source of entertainment.