Courtesy Scienceroll
Despite our many, and I would argue, valid questions, citizen journalism continues to grow in scope and influence. Wikipedia has had the same impact. Let’s be honest. When’s the last time you opened the dusty cover of an encyclopedia or paid to subscribe to one online? When’s the last time you checked something out on Wikipedia? For me it was 11 days ago – at work as a journalist! Type in just about any query and there are a few paragraphs to a few pages of information, often with detailed citations that can point you in the right direction for further research.
The strength and potential weakness of Wikipedia is that everyone can submit material, from those who know a lot to those who don’t. In this 2005 video, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said, “The types of people who are drawn to writing an encyclopedia for fun tend to be pretty smart people.”
Still, Wales has repeatedly had to deal with what he has called“jerks” who like to ruin the party. The difference in a published encyclopedia is that those jerks wouldn’t have gotten past the bouncers at the door. The editors of the online Encyclopedia of Earth make a pretty clear case for this and other differences between a published encyclopedia and Wikipedia. I paraphrase:
- Anyone can change content in Wikipedia. Encyclopedias employ people judged by their peers to be experts in their field.
- Wikipedia gives equal weight to all who want to contribute. Encyclopedias may use many people but senior editors have the final say.
- Wikipedia believes expert involvement is not necessary to produce an authoritative article. Encyclopedias believe scholars are necessary to create trustworthy content.
- Authorship in Wikipedia can be anonymous. All articles in encyclopedias are attributed to their authors.
The venerable Encyclopaedia Britannica maintains that its articles are more trustworthy because they’re written by experts in their fields and signed off by dedicated editors. Yet even Britannica has admitted that the public LOVES contributing to and having access to a free online encyclopedia.
Britannica opened its own doors to the wiki concept with one difference, what it calls a “collaborative but not democratic approach.” That means writers can publish their own material on the Britannica website but it remains outside the online Encyclopaedia. Suggestions to improve an Encyclopaedia article are authorized only after review by editors.
“In this way we aim to leverage the power of the Internet to integrate the work of many people in a common project and on a large scale, but without relinquishing the editorial oversight that makes Britannica’s content trustworthy,” wrote Britannica bloggers in 2008.
Interestingly, even Wikipedia has found there are some cases where real time peer review isn’t enough. After Senators Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd were erroneously reported to have died last year, Wikipedia instituted “flagged revisions.” Changes to biographical pages of the living now don’t go public right away but are first reviewed by trusted Wikipedia editors. Wikipedia users can also now plug in a WikiTrust algorithm that shows potentially unreliable information in shades of orange and stable content in black and white.
These changes back up my feeling that published encyclopedias, with their built-in checks and balances, are more trustworthy than Wikipedia out of the gate. But does it really matter?
Like traditional mainstream media, old-style encyclopedias can’t keep up with the agility and reach of citizen contributors. Readers have already voted with mouse-clicks: Wikipedia may not be a definitive source of information but its speed and breadth seem to make it “trustworthy enough” for most people and for the times we live in.
ideacellar 