History project due next week? Wikipedia! Science report due tomorrow? Wikipedia! Want to procrastinate? Wikipedia! Wikipedia is a non-profit online free content encyclopedia with information to basically just about anything you can think of. With information to the smallest detail, and little links on every page to lead you to more articles, you could spend hours un-end reading about pretty much anything. You could start off researching on the cold war and end up on a page about raisins just by clicking on the hot-linked words in the articles. Addictive knowledge is what I like to call it, but how did all this get started?

With probably more than 7.9 million articles in 253 languages, Wikipedia didn’t just grow on it’s own. Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger formally started the site on January 15th, 2001 as an extension of their Nupedia project. Where as Nupedia is expert written, people from around the world can add on to Wikipedia by submitting their own articles or editing existing ones. What that basically means is, anyone can go on Wikipedia and set up an account to contribute to the world’s fastest growing source of information. Sites like Slashdot and Google directed traffic to Wikipedia, but their first major debut was from coverage in the New York Times in September 20th, 2001. From there on, Wikipedia blossomed, developing features like different languages. Today it is a popular source for research done for school assignments, or just a nice read for your brain. But Wikipedia is highly criticized for being an unreliable source of information, and doesn’t appeal to most experts. If anyone can edit these articles, how do we know the information is correct?

We can’t believe everything we see on Wikipedia. People can submit and edit articles without even giving their name. Who’s to stop vandals from submitting false information? Fortunately, research does show that Wikipedia’s information is mostly accurate, and their science information compares well to formal encyclopedias like Encyclopedia Britannica. It is also assumed that Wikipedia has such a large number of well meaning editors, that any false information will be quickly removed. Wikipedia also has a system of suspending users who are vandalizing as well as freezing pages from further editing if any controversy occurs. But incidents like the “John Seigenthaler Sr. controversy” in 2005 does leave us wondering: Does the Wikipedia self-correction system work? In the controversy, contributor Brian Chase posted a prank in the John Seigenthaler Sr. article. He posted information basically saying the well-known author took part in the assassination of the Kennedy brothers. The hoax wasn’t discovered until months afterwards by a friend of the author. Incidents like these puts on a stain on Wikipedia’s reputation.

So when you’re doing your doing homework, can you trust Wikipedia? Well that’s up to your own judgment. Though most of the information on Wikipedia is reliable, you always have to keep an eye open for anything. Sites like Wikipedia are a gift to our world, providing access to information for everyone, and should be appreciated. But don’t forget to check sources (which are given on the bottom of each article), and do further research if you’re ever unsure.
—Traci Liang